Removing Paint, putting some back on and a Broken Bolt. (Arrgh!) 3-8-14

With the weather getting warmer, Cooper and I made the trek to Dad's house for some more work on the #62. Dad had been busy in our absence - as he usually is. 

Dad pulled the glass and gaskets out of the windshield and had applied some chemical paint stripper. 

That's Dad working the die grinder to pull off more paint and rough up the surface. 

Chemical stripper at work on two of the vertical support pieces for the windshield. Careful note will see that the pieces will need to be welded.

That's Dad scraping off additional paint loosened by the chemical stripper

The Vent covers have been removed for their own stripping, priming and painting

After we put that front support tube on, we pulled it back off again and began to prep it for priming and painting. That is Dad going very easily over it with a grinder - just enough to take off the paint. I tried it - I'm not that good at going easy with a grinder....

And here it is a while later - note Cooper keeping watch in the background. 

Here is an example of Dad's great work at priming - this is one of the original lift handle brackets 

Don't recognize the black straps of metal? These hold the gas tank onto the wooden mounts that hold it to the car

Furnace parts not withstanding, here are parts of the braking system, primed and painted

So the story on this sequence is a little longer than the photos would indicate. Dad looked over at the gasket on the Condenser and said 'that really ought to be replaced.' I took it upon myself to take all 14 bolts off. Then I couldn't manage to get the thing unstuck. 

All four metal holding pieces have been removed, but she won't budge

With the help of a putty knife, and Dad's 5-in-1 tool....

It finally came apart. 

Then the gasket scraping began again - this time to clean the surface off to prep for a new gasket

Not sure what we'd do without putty knives...

Not a whole lot of junk in the water hopper in my opinion - pretty clean really

Remember that Broken bolt (arrrgh!) part from the title - here it is - out of 14 3/4" long 5/16th inch bolts, one decided to snap off. This is that one. Theres always one. 

Here is the same spot (different angle) and you can now see the freshly drilled and tapped hole where the bolt was in the previous picture. What should have been an easy job turned into a small journey of frustration.

Remember the front tube from earlier - here is the other side of it where the grinder couldn't quite reach. We're hitting it with the Chemical stripper to loosen it up

One last shot of the now pretty much clean gasket surface. 

More to come!

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