Front Trunk/Battery Box and Engine Compartment Painted

This week I painted the front trunk area, including both the portion where the gas tank sits as well as teh lower portion where the battery resides, as well as the engine compartment. I tried to do my homework on what these areas were painted with originally and the best that I could come up with was that they were painted semi-gloss or satin black. I.e. a touch of gloss but not much. The inside of the battery box and front side portions of the inner fender walls were also undercoated.

Running low on time and wanting to continue forward progress, I simply went out and got some cheap rattle cans of semi-gloss black paint. In fact, I got Semi-Gloss black spray paint from Plasti-Kote, which is carried at Walmart. I usually use DupliColor, which is at discount auto parts stores, because the spray pattern/trigger is better. However, I was in a time crunch and they weren't around, so Plasti-Kote it was. The results turned out just fine, as you can see in the accompanying picture.

Still no word back from Chem-Strip as to whether or not my wheels are finished getting stripped. I'll call them Monday or Tuesday. The front suspension is ready to receive rotors, brakes, and then wheels.

I thought about starting to re-install the transmission, and then I remembered that brake lines run above it. Above the rear brake lines are some external sound deadening pads that are glued to the body shell. Guess what? I have the pads, but not the glue. You need some pretty strong glue for this if you don't want the pads coming loose or unglued in the future. Therefore, I've left off installing the transmission until next week, when I hope to get it done. I did start checking out how to install the rear radius arms, and get the angle correct for the proper amount of negative camber.

I also installed the ZF Steering box, and I started to put on the tie rods that accompany it. The ZF steering box is properly located by a dowel pin that fits into a depression in the upper torsion bar tube on a 356. It isn't too hard to locate it. Then you install a clamp beneath the steering box with 4 nuts that holds it firmly in place. With the steering box installed, the tie rods are the next logical project. Unfortunately, with the suspension in full "droop" mode, i.e. new shock pushing down as far as they can go, no weight of the car puashing down on the suspension, etc. the trailing arms hang down low and the tie rods want to drag on the bottom part of the cutout in the inner fender between the front spindles and the steering box. I wondered whether this was correct behaviour or not, so I posed the question to the 356Talk mailing list. Concensus was that it was OK, especially with new shocks, and that things would settle and there would be no rubbing when the car had some weight placed on the suspension. I'll do up the tie rods and work on alignment as soon as I have my wheels back.

I got a new lockpost for the driver's side from Restoration Design. I called Stoddard's and many other 356 restoration parts suppliers in a quest for a 356C lock post/striker plate panel, and none had it in stock, nor knew when they would have it! Seems like Restoration Design is the only game left in town for this part. The piece arrived a day or so ago, and it looks like a good stamping. Hopefully we'll get that, as well as the front portion of the driver's side rear fender repaired shortly.

That's about it for this week.

Posted by pbrown at October 8, 2004 11:48 PM