Clean up continues

One of the less glamorous tasks in vintage car restoration is cleaning all the myriad bits and pieces, large and small, prepping them and then applying a suitable finish - whether that's painted, blasted or electroplated. If I had a shop do all this work, this would be a $100K BMW worth only $15K. Luckily for me, and lots of other hobbyists, I find the work reasonably pleasurable so it has other values than just a cost basis.

This weekend was the 50th running of the 24 Hours of Daytona. I spent the weekend in the garage attending to some of these tasks while listening and watching the race.

Here's the motor and tranny as removed. Since then, the tranny has been pulled and the motor put into an engine stand. Lot's of hardened, baked grease, rusty bits and more need to be addressed, or this will be an eyesore in the newly painted engine compartment. Besides I love a nice looking engine.

The before picture

This is where I am after several hours of working on the tranny. Transmissions and engine blocks are a pain in the ass as they have all these nooks and crannies and weird castings. All of them need to cleaned up. This is done patiently with a small tools, mineral spirits and elbow grease. The constant inhalation of the mineral spirit fumes help achieve the proper mental state for this work.

scrub, pick, scrape, wipe, repeat ...

Mostly clean now, but there was a nasty 40 year accumulation of caked grease on the inside.

Not done yet, but some Eastwood engine block paint applied to the main case. Looking shiny and clean for a change.

A couple more hours, and a refresh of the fluid with some Redline MTL and we'll be done with the tranny.  While I was waiting for the paint to dry I started cleaning the block.  Here's my starting point after 10 minutes scrubbing. Lot's of work ahead here.

Under the dirt and oil, the block is blue. When we're done it should match the outside paint scheme.

Done earlier was the radiator. Other than the beat up paint, it was in excellent shape. A bunch of sanding down to the original brass, and then several coats of Eastwood radiator black paint had it looking sharp.

You can still see the original serial number stamping.

The rest of the week I'll be finishing up the tranny and will start taking the motor apart. Should be interesting.