Chris Williams' Journal

Today I did some other bits and they are drying as I type this.
The steering arms, I forgot those before and spent some time looking for them. They were easy to clean, but I spent a little time grinding the casting flashes a little better than they were done 40 years ago. I did the same thing with the lower spring supports yesterday. I also cleaned and etched the brackets and the positioning clamps for the anti-roll bar.
What took the most time, however, was the disc rotor rear shields. They had some black coating on them which refused to budge with 4 applications of paint stripper and under that was some kind of brassey looking coating - could have been a plating. This took a lot of wire brushing. On that note, after yesterdays incident, I was a little apprehensive and I ended up wearing a heavy canvas apron inside out because it had some pockets in it and I'm sure they would have caused a problem if the wire brush had caught in them. After a long time cleaning I was ready to etch, wash and POR15 them which I have just finished. The back of the disc shields I gave a light dust coat of primer so they can be overcoated with the bright red - like the springs I did yesterday. I will do the brake calipers the same. David cleaned the shock abs. with paint stripper and although they had not been completely prepared - not etched - I ended up painting the arms on those also, because I had too much POR15 poured out. I never can estimate how much I need and ALWAYS end up with more than I need. I'm pretty sure they should be alright - there was no grease on them, just a few specks of paint and because the surface is cast, I think they will have enough 'key'.
I'll post some photos of the finished bits I did today, tomorrow.