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"The Orange"

motorman7
motorman7
in Build Threads

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comment_598042
7 hours ago, inline6 said:

Any thoughts on using a tumbler vs. hand prepping with wire wheel?

I have one of those tumblers and if you have lots of time and somewhere to put it where you don't have to listen to it all the time, it's quite loud, then you can gets good results. There is a learning curve on all the different kinds of media you can use, whether or not you add liquid ...

Hard to beat a HD wire wheel for speed though.

  • Author
comment_598069
12 hours ago, inline6 said:

Really enjoy seeing you making progress.  I was thinking about getting one of these to do the prep work on the hardware before sending it off.  Any thoughts on using a tumbler vs. hand prepping with wire wheel?    

I have never used a tumbler.  Usually I use the wire wheel on  my bench grinder for a light cleaning.

Also, I have found that platers differ in what they will do prior to plating your parts.  The plating shop just down the road here requires that I have all the parts stripped and in very good shape before plating, so it is a lot of work.  Also, I think their finish is a bit too dark and not enough shine or rainbow.

The place I use in Phoenix is great and I do very little prep on the parts. I just wire wheel the heavily rusted items and parts with paint on them.  I am pretty sure that they tumble and clean the parts before plating.  I noticed the the rubber on some of the parts, like the oil pressure cable support on the engine mount, or the speedo cable supports have the rubber pretty beaten up, and almost falling off.  I just re-dip those parts in the liquid plastic stuff.  The finish on the parts is just about perfect.

    • Like 1

    comment_598363

    DSCF8897.JPG

    Your Steering Rack looks great. I am getting all of my suspension parts ready for powder coating. Did you just paint your steering rack? I am trying to decide what to do with the upper and lower shaft on mine. The small U joints appear to be "Staked" in place. I have been replacing any wear parts when possible for what will hopefully be the next 50 years of driving my car but I am not sure its worth trying to dismantle those joints. From other posts it looks like those little joints may be hard to come by and difficult to remove. Maybe just paint them and the Shafts with the joints in place?

    • Author
    comment_598368
    13 minutes ago, Clay C said:

    DSCF8897.JPG

    Your Steering Rack looks great. I am getting all of my suspension parts ready for powder coating. Did you just paint your steering rack? I am trying to decide what to do with the upper and lower shaft on mine. The small U joints appear to be "Staked" in place. I have been replacing any wear parts when possible for what will hopefully be the next 50 years of driving my car but I am not sure its worth trying to dismantle those joints. From other posts it looks like those little joints may be hard to come by and difficult to remove. Maybe just paint them and the Shafts with the joints in place?

    Yes, I stripped and painted the steering rack gloss black.  I also lubed the assembly near the steering input and the rack portion at both ends.  Then cycled the rack back and forth to work the grease in.  Installed new boots.

    For the steering input shaft that attaches to the rack, I usually just clean and paint.  The U-joint is typically in pretty good condition.  If it were loose, I would replace it. 

    Also, for what it is worth, I think the Japanese bearings on the Z cars are very high quality.  Unfortunately most replacement bearings are Chinese and I don't think the quality is as good as the originals.

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