Page Forty-Four - A Parable of Pulling Primer

 

Where have I been since my last post?  Oh yeah, SANDING!

It’s taken four years to get to painting, and painting Alphie became a three-week ordeal of mostly sanding problem spots and frustration.

The saga begins on September 26 when I bought paint, having worked with the guys at Sherwin-Williams for a couple of weeks to get the right color – more on that later.  I had mapped out three weekends for primer, color coat and clear coat with consecutive weekends for the color and clear because I didn’t want to wait too long between them.  I thought it would be plenty of time, well…

To answer your question, the finished bonnet latch tray compared to the original tray.  Pictures don't really show it, but the finished one is slightly darker than the original.  I wasn't expecting a perfect match,but it's damn close!

Step 1 Primer:  I bought the primer that works with SW’s Ultra 7000 (“ultra”-expensive) paint (yeah, that occurred to me too – sounds like an expensive condom), mixed it up, found I had not thinned it enough but eventually sprayed the whole gallon.  Remember everything needed primer, boot, interior, engine bay, underside and topside of bonnet, boot lid, doors, hardtop, and three sections of the soft top covers.  It used the entire gallon, which made me worry if the gallon of color would be enough.  Turns out, it wasn’t.

With Alphie coated in primer gray, all the little places that I thought I body worked so well popped out, scratches, filler outlines, high spots, air bubbles, you name it, it all daringly grinned at me.  No way was I just going to paint over them, so out comes the filler, sanding boards, and sandpaper.  I had two weeks to fix all the problems before the consecutive weekends, and it took every minute of it.

Spraying an entire car - every nook, takes loads of primer (in this case)

All the primer pics look great here, but if you could look closer, you would see many problems

Mistake (a big’un):  Since I was out of the good primer, I sprayed the problem spots (which were numerous) with rattle can primer, bad plan, a very bad plan.

Step 2 Color Coat:  The SW guys mixed up the color coat ready-to-shoot, meaning they mixed in the reducer so all I had to do was strain it into the paint gun and go to town.  Highly recommended, by the way. Dutifully, I loaded the spray gun and commenced creating a blue fog, a pretty blue fog at that.  All seemed fine, color coat going on as planned, my two-weekend schedule intact.  Then I walked around to check out my work.  Big spidery ridges wherever I had used the rattle can primer.  (Insert intense swear words.)  See the pics.

Pulled Primer! Just an example - there were plenty more

The re-repaired front left wing.  This is one of the first places
I repaired and I clearly didn't prep the metal well

Even after a bit of sanding, the spider webs are still visible.
I had to get below the rattle can primer to elminate them.

Step 3 SAND MY HANDS OFF:  The large swathes of paint that looked like cuneiform bas relief had to be sanded down, reglazed in many places, and in a week!  I also found a spot on the driver’s side front wing that had a resilient crack that came back even after I slapped some hardened glaze on it.  I know what that means, the filler isn’t sticking to the metal, and ignore it at your own peril.  Sure enough, when I poked at it with an icepick doohickey, the filler popped off!

In a week, I had to fix all the pulled primer and re-bodywork the front left wing.  I got it done, but it cost me a lot of skin, mostly from my fingertips.

Next problem, what to prime the refixed fixes with?  Clearly filler primer was a bad choice.  I found some sealer primer at the parts store that seemed to offer a solution.  Sand, sand, fix, respray with the sealer primer, sand some more.  Ready for the next coat of color, I hoped.

I swear I'm not making Meth Breaking Bad style

It looked good when I was sparying the first coat

An action shot

I love laying down to spray most

Step 4 Second Round of Color:  I guess I didn’t mention above that I used the entire gallon of Ultra 7000 on the first round but ran out before I sprayed the top of the boot lid, hardtop, bonnet lid and the outside of the doors.  Don't forget the other body colored bits that needed color, headlight bezels, cowl vents, door hinges, soft top covers, petrol tank mounts, boot hinges, etc. etc.  Back to SW to throw down some more $$$, It was beginning (continuing!) to add up.

Mix, load and spray!  Good news/bad news – the refixed spots with sealing primer didn’t pull, good news!  But several spots on the doors and boot lid pulled even though they never had rattle can primer on them, bad news and alarming.

I sanded away at these new trouble spots, and with about two spray gun cups worth of color coat left, hit the doors and boot lid with a second coat.  No surprise, the same spots pulled again, AND I was out of color coat to fix it.  (Insert your most refreshingly colorful swear word here.)

Step 5 2K primer:  Two-K primer!  Why didn’t I use it the first time?!  Truth is, Ultra 7000 doesn’t require a 2K primer (if all your bodywork is at Jay Leno level) so the paint shop boys were trying to save me some money.  AND the parts that I primed with the original primer and didn’t sand off to fix a spot, sprayed out as advertised.

While I was getting the 2k primer, I had the boys mix up another half-gallon of color coat, that 2 ½ gallons for those keeping count.  (To be fair, the original gallon of color coat wouldn’t have been enough even if I hadn’t screwed around with rattle can primer, but this last half-gallon was the price of ignorance, possibly hubris.)

I mixed, loaded, and sprayed the 2K - what silky magnificence!  Two K is hardened so nothing pulled, and I was ready (and relieved) to lay down the last coats of color.

Buttery smoothness of 2K primer!

Ummm, looks tasty!

Step 6 Clear Coat:  I decided to get SW’s best clear coat (Ultra CC200 “Dynamic” Clear) for a pretty penny, but I wasn’t going to scrimp on such an important part of Alphie’s restoration.  As it turned out, my second weekend was a three-day one, a day I sorely needed.

With the color coat looking satisfyingly blue and wonderfully smooth, I mixed up the 4:1 clear to hardener with 15% reducer in for good vibes.  Money well spent!  The clear flowed from the gun and laid down a glassy smooth gloss with the first coat.  I had the fluid flow on the gun a little too high, so I signed my work with some runs.  (I had bragged to my neighbor that I usually don’t have runs; never claim the high ground until you’re actually atop it.  Also, runs are very fixable with yep, lots of SANDING and buffing, ugh!)

It's now October 10, and the clear has been on for a couple of days now.  I can see how much sanding a buffing it’s going to need, but Alphie’s new coat of color looks AWESOME.  (I don’t know how long it will take to get the blue off my fingers.)

SHINY Alphie!

This pic shows the dust that I will have to sand and buff out.
Inevitable with a garage job.

Finally got the doors and boot lid painted.

Page Forty-Three - The Good and the Bad

 

The engine is assembled, mostly.  So, what have I found?

The Good

For the most part, Alphie’s little mighty mite motor was treated fairly during its life.  The cylinders were all spec, the block was flat, and all its parts were present.  The head was similarly within spec and flat, no evidence it was ever over-heated.  The valves needed seating, but that’s to be expected after such a long snooze.

The crank and cam shafts measured out within specs as well.  The main bearing set didn’t come with new thrust washers, so I loaded up the crank with the old ones and measured the end play (or “end float” as the Sunbeam Workshop Manual calls it), and it's at the tight end of the range.  All good there!

The flywheel and pressure plate seem to have had only a few hours on them.  Either they had been replaced, or Clint and crew drove kindly.  I was a bit surprised to find that the throw out (aka “release”) bearing lacks a bearing.  It uses a friction surface, so no sitting at a traffic light with the clutch in on a Sunbeam.  Jab the clutch, slide it to neutral and release the clutch, else there will be smoke!  Something I will need to train myself to do when Alphie hits the streets again.

The dynamo (I gotta say, “dynamo” is more fun than “generator”) seems to be in solid shape, although I won’t really know until it’s wired and spinning.  The brushes have plenty of life left and after cleaning and greasing the bearing, it seems smooth, but again, I won’t know for sure until it meets the real world.  The cooling fans are interesting: one is a pot metal single casting with a thin chrome plating.  It may have looked good at one point, but the plating is shot, and the pot metal has pitted.  I sanded it off and will powder coat it.  The other one is a flimsy two-piece affair with bent fins.  Although it’s lighter than the pot metal one and I could fix the bent fins, it just feels cheap and “aftermarketish.”  It may be a stock Sunbeam piece, but it doesn’t seem like it.  The parts manual’s exploded diagram only shows a single piece fan.

(Update:  Pot metal doesn't powder coat for sh...!  It looked bullet riddled when it finished baking.  I straightened the fins on the two-piecer and will use it.  It may be an aftermarket piece, or it could be an early model version, but it looks better than the pot metal one.)

Before - RUSTY!

Cleaned

Assemble except for the fan that needs to be powder coated

With new rubber bits too!

The petrol pump (Yanky fuel pump, although the alliteration of "petrol pump" is nice) was another two-into-one project, easily cleaned up and sorted with all new rubber parts.  Mint!

The distributor is cleaned but not reassembled because I plan to add a magnetic pick-up to eliminate the points, but it’s not on the spend list yet.

In the pile-o-stuff that Clint gave me with Alphie, I have three Solex carbs, which I scavenged to make one, using the best from each.  Per the parts manual, I matched up the jets to the Series IV specified sizes and rebuilt it making sure that all the parts made it on Alphie’s carburetor.  (The Brits add another an extra “t” for some reason, "carburettor."  You can’t see it, but “carburettor” has a squiggly red line under it on my screen, so Microsoft doesn’t recognize the spelling either.) 

Cleaned with new kit, even found a new accelerator pump diaphram.

The pile had two Series IV air cleaners, which aren’t available anymore, but they are too dirty to reuse.  I busted them apart; bead-blasted the metal and will to scavenge some K&N style air filter fabric to tuck under the mesh screen.  It should look mostly stock.  I’ll use some of the original filter material directly above the carb throat because I fear the oiled K&N style mesh may ignite if Alphie were to backfire.  Alphie has more dignity than to backfire in public, but I won’t put it past him.

With some K&N type mesh, the air cleaner will appear stock

Clint left me some 25 (at least) year-old, brand-new spark plugs that are finally seeing some service.

The Bad

There isn’t a bunch of bad, but I found a couple of things.  Some of the piston rings came out in pieces, but I haven’t decided if that is the result of thirtyish years of sitting or maybe part of the reason the Organ Donor was put to bed under a tree in a Kentucky field.

Half of the valve tappets had rust pitting.  Again, pitting could be the result of being under valve spring pressure during its long nap.  The oil pan had about a ¼ inch of sludge in it, so maybe it wasn’t oiling as it should, don’t know.  I pulled the tappets out of the second engine and combined a set of pit-free tappets for Alphie’s new banger.

The Organ Donor’s clutch slave cylinder is a petrified fossil at this point, but Alphie’s was only partially petrified.  After sitting in WD-40 for a couple of days and some “gentle” persuasion with a hammer (usually, I’m against hammers in mechanical work, but the damn thing was stuck!), it eventually came apart and cleaned up well.  Likewise with the master cylinders.  The Organ Donor’s had lots of rust-through pin holes, but Alphie’s only had a couple, which I was able to fix easily.  I have honed the bores of the master and slave with the rebuild kits ready to go when I get to that step.

I screwed up and ordered a couple of wrong parts, ordered duplicates of a couple, but that’s par for the Bonehead Wrenching Garage.

See, very little bad stuff!

All the new clutch bits ready to go

More shiny engine pics

I have a shallow and deep water pump pulley. 
I'm figuring out which one fits with the dynamo.

Next

I have two-into-one starters.  I’ll let you know how that goes.  From the looks of them, the Organ Donor’s will be in worse shape, owing to its long interment.  

I haven’t checked out the over-drive gear box yet, but I have crossed fingers (and feel relatively confident) that it’s OK, but I could be wrong…

PAINT!  I still haven’t found Alphie’s painter.  I have pondered the single stage vs. base coat/clear coat route, and I’m leaning towards base coat/clear coat.  Single stage paint gives a more stock like appearance but is difficult to fix imperfections once it’s sprayed.  And one painter I talked to says that single stage paint stays tacky for a long time and is prone to pick up dust.

Base coat/clear coat gives a deep shine that is far beyond the lacquer paints of the 1960’s.  It is over-restoring, but with all the powder coating and stainless-steel bits I’m using, Alphie is already over-restored.

(Update:  I cleaned up the tranny.  I hand turned it through all the gears while looking for mangled gear teeth.  All checked out so it's ready to go.  Again, I won't know for sure until it hits the real world.)

I forgot to take the before pics, but here are some after pics

I mostly cleaned it up.  The tranny was in good nick, just dirty

Page Forty-Two - Alphie's Soon-to-Be Beating Heart

 

Alphie’s mighty fire-breathing 87 horse four banging monster motor, all 592cc’s of it, is on the operating stand.  A new chapter of Alphie’s story!

Four years after I yanked Alphie’s lifeless heart out of his chest (two hearts actually, one from Alphie and one from the Organ Donor), I rolled it into the garage, propped it up on an engine stand and tore it to pieces, lots of pieces.

Alphie’s Heart Health

For the record, Alphie’s is getting the ’64 engine from the Organ Donor, the overdrive one with the “OD” stamped on its block.  And the Organ Donor’s heart is in pretty decent shape.  I measured the crankshaft’s main and rod journals, and they were all in spec.  No cracks in the block or head, nothing missing, no broken things or excessive wear.  Just what happens from sitting under a tree in Kentucky for somewhere between 20 and 30 years, and that ain’t bad!

I'm not sure if it was the engine that led Clint to park it, but I suspect it had some blow-by, was burning oil, and Alphie may had been feeling a bit anemic.  From the state of the piston rings, I'm guessing that the compression had dropped off a bit.

Before shots - the other engine has a
6 blade fan that will pull more air

The rust is mostly superficial

The exhaust manifold is toast, but the other engine has a solid one

I’ve already had the cylinders walls and crankshaft main journals honed, and the head reworked, and the machine shop saw nothing that caused concern.  BUT that doesn’t mean there is nothing wrong.

Half of the valve lifters, tappets to the Brits, showed rust pitting, so I’ll be tearing into the other engine for four unpitted ones. 

The piston rings fell out in pieces when I tapped them from the cylinders, not sure what that means, but I’m taking a close look at the pistons.  They appear to be in good shape, but I haven’t measured them yet.  More later…

A few blurry (sorry) shots during dissassembly

At a glance, everything looks OK

Grease and rust, but what did you expect?

The fuel pump is rebuildable, but years of sitting in soggy soil has rusted a few parts, especially the hand primer pump.  I’ve never seen an American engine with a hand primer on a fuel pump, seems a good idea to me.  Fortunately, I have two fuel pumps.

Alphie sports the Solex carb, and the one on the Organ Donor is significantly rusty but not beyond repair.  I found one hard stop though.  One of the little tube doohickies in the carb’s throats sheared off at the jet as I removed it.  The parts manual says the tubes contain the “correction jet” and “emulsion tube.”  I’ll explain what they do if I ever figure out what they do. So, the other engine will give up its carb in a two-to-make-one kind of arrangement.  I’m betting that the carb on the other engine is in better shape since it spent most of it’s time under a roof.  Interestingly, “dirt daubers” (dobbers in Alabama) (aka mud daubers, mud wasps, potter wasps), anyway those little wasp critters that build dirt tubes, built a few inside the Organ Donor’s carb.  Not sure how they got in there, but they did.

A blurry close-up of the crankshaft

Pieces, pieces everywhere and plenty of rust and grease
(appologies to The Ancient Mariner)

The water pump on both engines sounds like they are grinding rocks when I turn them, but who wouldn’t replace the water pump as a matter of course?

Those are the problems I’ve found so far, more later, I have no doubt.  But many new parts are on their way from Sunbeam Specialties and Classic Sunbeam, and my air compressor gasps for breath as I bead blast all the little parts that make an engine chug.  I’ll add a pic of cleaned, blasted, and painted parts I’ve finished so far. 

Clean and shiny (for the most part) and some sport paint

Thanks to Southern Cylinder Heads in Huntsville for the machine work.
They sparyed some gray primer on it to stop rust, but
I'll shoot it with black as the factory did.

You may notice a gap in the honing at the top of the cylinders -
it concerns me, so I'll do some measuring and thinking.
It might need another trip to Southern Cylinder Heads.

I’m enjoying getting beyond the bodywork!  Less dust but dirtier hands – black grease!  So satisfying to see old stuff look new again.

Oh, I’m talking to a couple of shops to coat Alphie’s bod.  Alphie will be getting a respray when the humidity drops to somewhere below 300%, aka “death sweat” (actual National Weather Service humidity designation for the southern US or, at least, should be) here in Alabama.

Many oils in days of yore contained parafin
that would leave sludge in the oil pan.
If you need to know why you should change your oil, here's why!

The before pic - not that bad but still...

Bead blasting is a miracle!

Powder coating is the next miracl - shiny and really tough!
(Turns out, the four blade fan were stock on Series IV Alpines.)

The machine shop resurfaced the flywheel.  I cleaned up the pressure plate.
The p plate doesn't appear to have many miles on it.

The pressure plate had some surface rust - couldn't leave that there.
New clutch disc, of course.

Cast aluminum powder coat - thought about polishing it...
I have another one, may polish it later.

Installed, new cam bearings and a cleaned oil pump.