Finally get to post again, there was a bad short circuit on the light post that feeds my house so I had no light for all of yesterday and today's morning. The surge took out my TV and my wireless router so I'm using the cell phone's Internet but it is VEERY slow.
Pictured: Typical Guatemalan electrical connections... As they say, "such is life in the tropics".
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Did a bit more polishing to the steering wheel and I'm happy with the results so far. (That actually means I got tired of sanding and polishing to get the scratches out and decided to let it sit for a while)
Then I got to sandblasting the wheels and I swear once you start doing that those little tiny wheels become enormous.
This was the result after almost THREE HOURS of sandblasting...
Front is pretty much done, but could use another go:
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The rear pretty much unchanged and I haven't even got to the middle part which is the one I most need to be nice and smooth if I'm hoping the tire to actually hold some air.
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Granted that's the spare, the four wheels that came with the car are in better shape and are still wearing what I believe are the original crossplies.
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Firestone
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Deluxe Champion, they sure don't name tires like they used to.
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Finally got back to the indicator stalk cowl; my dad found this concoction among all his old stuff:
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And it worked great, it isn't a paint but more like a tint similar to what you'd use on leather so it really penetrated well into the bakelite.
Then to give it some shine melt equal parts beeswax and carnauba:
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And apply!
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I'll let it dry overnight and buff it with a soft cloth tomorrow and hopefully it will be nice and shiny like a telephone. I'll try and remember to take the camera instead of just the phone in order to get better pictures.
Now for some quick questions in case someone can help.
I had two steering columns, one from an old van and the original one from my pickup. The one for the van had a bushing and sleeve right under the circular contact for the horn (pictures on next post hopefully) but the one from the pickup did not and as far as I can tell it appears to have never been dismantled. Any ideas? Did the guys at the factory forget to fit them? I'd imagine the wheel would shake like crazy but I'm out of ideas.
Also, when I close the driver's door sometimes it locks itself with the indoor locking mechanism. This hasn't been a problem yet since the car is in the shop and the quarterlight is open but it could get very annoying if it happened on the street. It appears the inside lever moves a bit forward when the door is closed, locking the door. The car doesn't have the door cards on yet and I'm hoping that little bit of extra friction helps but I'd like to know if someone has had the same problem and how to fix it.