69 SC Journey

trying to pass the time productively and getting a full day in at work is tiresome right now.  I have setup shop on the back porch which we can provide some modest air conditioning to and working on cataloging, and cleaning the parts haul from Kenosha and starting to work on the dash assembly.

First the parts haul.  got some really great stuff for the Scrambler in Kenosha.  Still hunting for a few ultra rare parts but very happy with the items I picked up.  Spreading out the smalls filled up a table top for cataloging:

Of special note is some original NOS Q clamps, NOS U-bolts (I needed one more), original vacuum hose, NOS front flex brake lines, NOS front coil spring bumpers, NOS V-belts, NOS (and used) complete headlight switch assemblies, a perfect heater control bezel, and awesome original rear ash trays, correct NOS part numbered PVC valve and a bunch of hardware trinkets.

One of the belts was a factory install issue embossed alternator belt

These used ash trays looked NOS - chrome and zinc was perfect and paint on the front is so nice I just cleaned them and they are ready for install.

This bezel was a late Friday pick at the flea market - just dirty but you could see that the chrome was really nice underneath - a careful cleaning and this thing is mint - I think I will try touching in the "E" on the "DEF" button and call it ready.  This was another 50% better than the best of my home inventory so on it goes!  The above (4) pieces: $25 total!  There were some really good buys out there if you were scouting hard!

Moving onto the dash - I completed a thorough cleaning and installed new temp and fuel gauges yesterday and put in new bulbs.  Interesting how the later gauges got much better protected boxes for replacement parts than those little brown cardboard containers of earlier 60s.

Of curious note, the temp gauge had white paint on the base underneath, when I took off the gas gauge, there was bare metal underneath from a paint mask.  Wonder why?  Couldn't be for grounding because the whole back side of the gauge has an insulator on it....  One of those mysteries!

Working on the dash assembly I realized that I had not picked up any orange needle paint yet and had to order some in, so final install on the bezel can't happen until I get the speedo needle restored later this week, but the rest is ready.

I've now moved onto the bezel pod and getting the pod inserts finalized.  The clear lenses are all polished and ready, but I hit a bit of a speed bump on the red idiot light lenses.  The AMARK kit I bought that is good for AMX - JAV, wasn't quite what Americans need.  The green is sized ok for turnsignals, but the red lamp lens is too small.  Working with AMARK now with "American" sizes to help the rest of all you out there for a future new product, but to keep forging ahead while in this cast, I pulled the junk set of turnsignal pods and did the best restoration work I could.  Stewart Warner installed the colored lenses with clear tape that isn't clear or tape anymore, and is hard fused to the back of the colored lenses.  The red lenses happened to have good color and no cracks so I cleaned off as much tape as I could and then used 5000 grit wet sanding pads to take down the surface a thousandth or two to clean them up.  The sheen level worked out to be perfect from the 5000 grit and the lenses look very close to being new again.  They will get installed this week.

Restored lenses look good enough to re-install now.  Moving on!

For those that follow this thread regularly, you know that I sometimes take a timeout to share some details and services of others that have been engaged in the project.  Tonight, I want to share with you the efforts of one of our forum founders.  This sub-project started a year ago at Rockford when I handed over my NOS wiper motor and my original mounting plate.

Bill Dickerson (billd) has been doing alternators for us for a while, but I knew from his postings that he was developing plating skills to help him in these projects.

I had been concerned about what to do with my wiper motor assembly.  I had a great NOS motor to use, but the plating was slightly aging even in the box, and I had noticed that all the motors being redone in recent years were not really colorized as original.  That meant that my mounting plate would be totally different looking and not what I felt was right.

Being overly anal as you all know by now, I really wanted to see if I could get someone to work with the plating process enough to get the colorization just right and also carefully refresh the necessary parts of the NOS electric wiper motor.  I knew there was only one person in this world I could trust to do it if he could pull it off - Bill.

After a brief discussion at Rockford and knowing that Bill knew exactly what effect I was after, and seeing him willingly accept the challenge, I left him with the NOS motor and mounting plate to work on for the past year.

The photos below speak for themselves.  Bill spent hours studying the original motor, working out minor imperfections on the mounting plate, working with his new plating system and the scientists from the company he purchased it from to develop a very special process to best replicate the correct colorization.

You will see in the last photo - the attached arm on the back of the motor - it still has the original yellow - iridescent plating.   You can see it is much more muted than what we get in standard plating today at a plating house.

Notice above that Bill even removed the grounding tab and re-attached with a correct rivet post plating.  High level detail - great work Bill!

You can see the 45= year old factory plating on the arm sticking out here.

Bill is now ready to start redoing wiper motors as a service for any of you interested.  He has the process for plating down to his satisfaction, is recently retired, and can do the rebuild of used wiper motors as well as alternators (Bill completely concourse restored my alternator as well).  I am delighted how this project with Bill turned out.  I had the great pieces to give him to work with and the time to allow him to experiment and get it right - this will be a feature item under the hood on the car!