Tub Installed

Tub was installed on the chassis tonight. The hoist worked well, and there was really not much to the operation aside from calculating how much room was needed, etc..

In this view: preparing to lift the tub. Looks darker in there than it was!

The tub just cleared the chassis at maximum lift. Here, just making sure it's in the correct location...

...followed by just lowering it gently into place. Note I took the fuel tank out, as in some cases the fuel filler pipe will not be in quite the correct location for the pass-through holes in the tub, and in this case the tub has priority.

A little while later, voila, in place. Tomorrow the bolts will be put into the mounting points, and then the general body alignment can begin. And after that, the remaining gold paint on the exterior can start to disappear. If the rear exterior panels are any indication, the gold does make an exellent primer coat, and sands down very well. And the fact it's been on there for some 35 years and still going strong probably means it's not about to fall off any time soon.

More Tub Painting

The only panels on the tub not painted now are the outer sides. These will be done once the tub is in place and body panel adjustments done.

I emailed Eastwood just to enquire if they had shipped the Pre, and they replied that they only send items to Canada on Fridays, and as I ordered on a Friday it would be a week until they shipped, and then another 8 business days to get here (assuming customs doesn't keep it for a couple of weeks, as well, as they have done in the past). Well, I didn't want to wait that long, and so muscled down and laboriously scraped all the remaining glue-from-hell off. Altogether, this has now exposed the largest suface of original paint yet.

This view, an illustration of the amount of "orange peel" in the original factory paint. This appears to be standard throughout, even on the external panels.

The black marks on the paint are areas of surface corrosion, into which the black tar glue has flowed and hardened. It'll be left there as it appears to make a good filler. Note the galvanizing, looking like new after being hidden under glue for 50 years.

Taped and ready for paint.

Painted! Surface looks slightly dull here for some reason, but it's actually has a good gloss. Tape will come off after checking that no surface needs re-doing.

Rear was also painted. Did a very careful wet-and-dry sanding rub-down here before applying the paint, and the results are really nice, very smooth. The body wrinkles on the right hand side are not quite as obvious in real life, and in any case will be mostly hidden by the corner capping (which can just be seen lying on the bed under the plastic covers).

Windshield Wiper Motors

New arrivals in the storage area are the original windshield wiper motors, which were first cleaned by me, then given to 3 Bros. for servicing, and then painted when they returned here. There was quite a bit of the original paint left on the motor covers, which enabled an almost exact match to be found: it turns out to be the brake-fluid resistant paint , made with stainless steel, by Eastwood's. It's almost exactly the correct (and somewhat metallic) shade of the original motor covers, which has a slight gold tone. Couldn't get all evidence of corrosion off the covers' surfaces, but they appear to have come out pretty well.

Peter at 3 Brothers Classic Rovers replaced the inner wires of the motors, as well as the comm-posts, as they were too tarnished to work with the brushes. The gears were then re-greased, and new external wires prepared for the motors. Both motors were then bench tested for approximately 30 minutes.

A good time to paint the covers, as I'm presently out of Pre to finish cleaning the old adhesive off of the tub's front bulkhead...have ordered more.

Tub Bulkhead

I was originally planning to leave the original Hardura insulation on the tub bulkhead in place, partly as an authenticity thing and partly because removing the black tarry glue that was used as an adhesive is just so unpleasant. However, the bullet has been bit, and it will be a good thing overall as the entire tub will then have been inspected, repaired and painted.

After about an hour of scraping the glue, it suddenly occurred to me that Eastwood's Pre also claims to be able to remove road tar, and the adhesive has some decidedly tar-like qualities. And so I tried it, and lo-and-behold it did the trick, albeit it took a lot as the adhesive was very thick and the Pre just took off one top layer at a time. However, in the photo below, you can see that the upper half of the bulkead has been cleaned in just a couple of hours work. Mineral spirits were used for the final surface cleaning.

In this view, the Hardura felt insulation lies on the ground, having been carefully scraped off, while the remaining scrapings are to the left. This piece of Hardura insulation will be kept, because while there are is a Hardura replacement kit out there, it doesn't appear to include this piece. Hardura felt itself can be ordered, and perhaps the local upholstery shop will be able to make a nice new duplicate.

Tub Interior Painted

Masked the galvanized parts, and then prepared and painted the tub interior today. There's no way the tub surface will ever look as if it just left the factory, due to the dents and scratches of carrying a load of cinder blocks and assorted junk as ballast weight while snowplowing for decades, but after sanding and three coats of paint, it does look a lot better!

Masked:

Painted. The surface will be checked tomorrow, and if all's well and no touch-ups required, the masking can come off.

Tub Interior

I'd debated leaving the tub interior " as is", but as the bottom turned out so nicely it would be nice to have the rest looking as good! And as the tub is presently in the perfect position to be worked on, so it will be. : )

It also looks as if the remaining original insulation will have to come off of the front side to access some of the bolts, but may also just be a useful thing to do in helping preserve the tub in the long run. I'll take it off carefully, and perhaps it can be cleaned up and reapplied with velcro or some such method (but no permanent glue!).

Here's the tub interior having been scrubbed, and the omnipresent surface corrosion/oxidization pockets rubbed down. In front are the parts that were removed. It'll receive a light dusting of self-etch primer, a rub down with fine sandpaper, then paint. First, however, the galvanised capping will need to be masked off.

More Tub

The Pastel Green coats are on the undersides, and now it will wait until the paint is sufficiently cured before it goes onto the chassis. Hard to get the Pastel Green to come out the correct shade in a photo!

The photo also shows the hard-earned 'wrinkles' on the right-hand rear, obtained while on the job over the years, which will be staying as a nod to her long half-century working career.