Greetings!
This is the blog about the Desert Classics hot rod shop and the progress on the customers' cars. I've got a couple of nice, worthy cars in the shop today and worked on both. I'm almost finished painting Bill's 750 Honda. I have to wait a week after clearcoating the gas tank before I can apply his decals, so it's on hold until Monday.
There was rust-through holes in most of the fender wells of the '68 Camaro (Grace) and the sheet metal patch panels came this week so I've begun laying out my cuts over the wheel wells. The rust is very minimal on this convertible. The floors are sound and I took care of all the rust I found under the convertible top frame and elsewhere. All that's left are the wheel well replacements.
I got some paint on the dash of the '51 Chevy last week and this week I painted some of the peripheral items like the clock housing and the glove box door. I took the mechanical clock apart and cleaned and painted the 3/8" sheet metal ring surrounding the clock face. This may not be instantly recognizable but I'm confident it will be a subtle surprise to those who ride in the coupe later. You can see it in the above picture and I think it adds a dash of coordination to the interior.
Before mounting the glove box door, I painted the screws and hinge arms. One of them is spring loaded so that when the button is pushed the door pops open. I put the latch mechanism on the wire wheel and cleaned it up nicely then I put the retaining cap in the bead blaster. Once they were clean I sprayed them both with a few coats of clear to preserve that fresh metal look. I like the contrast of the black hinges against the bright yellow of the glove box door.
Before I could get the wiring completed I needed to mount the hanging pedals, taken from a '97 Camaro. I'd welded tabs to the bottom of each hanging pedal bracket and drilled them to allow mounting of the round aluminum pedals with the rubber inserts. I disassembled and bead blasted the entire assembly followed by a coat of silver and black. A coat of grease on the plastic bushings will keep the pedals working quietly and smoothly. I painted the pedal bracket silver because when a man works under the dash it's usually a dark and uninviting environment. The silver brightens the area and makes component identification easier. Since I'll be laying on my back doing the wiring next week, I'm going to be thanking myself for being so thoughtful. It's like I've said about 3 of me: past Doug, present Doug and future Doug. We're all dependent on each other and either blessing or cursing each other. In my case, because of the good and bad ideas past Doug has set me up with, I'm determined to be much better to future Doug. After all, he's a really great guy!
Doug
This is the blog about the Desert Classics hot rod shop and the progress on the customers' cars. I've got a couple of nice, worthy cars in the shop today and worked on both. I'm almost finished painting Bill's 750 Honda. I have to wait a week after clearcoating the gas tank before I can apply his decals, so it's on hold until Monday.
There was rust-through holes in most of the fender wells of the '68 Camaro (Grace) and the sheet metal patch panels came this week so I've begun laying out my cuts over the wheel wells. The rust is very minimal on this convertible. The floors are sound and I took care of all the rust I found under the convertible top frame and elsewhere. All that's left are the wheel well replacements.
Before mounting the glove box door, I painted the screws and hinge arms. One of them is spring loaded so that when the button is pushed the door pops open. I put the latch mechanism on the wire wheel and cleaned it up nicely then I put the retaining cap in the bead blaster. Once they were clean I sprayed them both with a few coats of clear to preserve that fresh metal look. I like the contrast of the black hinges against the bright yellow of the glove box door.
Doug
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