Month: April 2020

The weather was perfect for painting and my motivation level was high. As a result, last few days have been a nice steady stream of Thunderbird work.

I hit the firewall, brake booster and master cylinder with POR-15 paint prep, which magically neutralizes rust. The instructions have you spray it on, then keep the area damp with it for around 30 minutes. In warm weather and direct sun, that was a lot of spraying. Afterwards, the solution is washed off with water, which always seemed a bit odd in a rust preventative. I toweled off what I could and left it to dry.

I masked as best I could and used old bedsheets as additional insurance. The tiny spray pattern doesn’t allow for much overspray, so this was a little overkill.

The following morning was overcast, but windless, dry, and warm (actually really odd weather for us). The flat light made it a bit difficult to see, but I got a relatively smooth first coat down. (I really wanted one coat to be good enough, but once it was dry and the spray gun cleaned, I could see thin spots and unevenness. Once I did, I couldn’t rationalize leaving it as is.)

This morning was sunny, but no wind, so I donned my respirator, re-draped the old bedsheet tarps and climbed into the engine bay for the last spray. I turned up the product on the gun to improve the coverage a bit.

The second coat went fast, and I ended up with a nice satin finish (glossy paint + the rough surface of the firewall) that I rather like. I used POR-15 engine paint–the same that I used on the motor. It’s durable and easy to touch up.

There’s one last item before I’m ready to install the engine, and that welding in a small oxygen sensor bung on the exhaust pipe. It will be plugged for now, but it’s the first step on the road to electronic fuel injection.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve had “mask and paint Thunderbird engine bay” on my to-do list, so yesterday I spent the entire afternoon . . . tidying up the garage.

Since reinstalling the timing cover some weeks back, it seemed like the engine was close enough to done to think about engine bay prep. Once I cleared the cobwebs out of the garage, I could see that thought was a little premature. I had set up a makeshift workbench when this project began, just some plywood scraps on two sawhorses. On top were some mislaid tools (“Oh, that’s where that socket is!) and miscellaneous motor parts. Underneath were accessories like the alternator, fan shroud, etc.

I cleared off the top of the bench by reinstalling the harmonic balancer, fuel pump and oil filter adapter. While I was at it, I gave the engine a spin just to reassure myself that all was still well inside. (If I can acquire an oil filter and oil, I can pre-oil the internals, which would feel even better.)

With the engine pretty much assembled, I took down the temporary bench and moved all the remaining parts to the bench in my main workshop. They will be a real nuisance there (and hopefully a spur to pick up the pace). In the now clean garage, I pushed the motor into a corner and put my wife’s car in there.

With the light fading and cocktail hour approaching, I pulled the cover off the ‘Bird just to assess the work needed for masking and painting. I pulled off the heater hoses and the vacuum lines at the brake booster, then removed the throttle linkage (finding it hard to believe that I was still doing disassembly). There are a lot of nooks and crannies on the firewall and painting it with major components in place won’t be perfect, but still worth doing.

My plan had been to paint the firewall black and touch up the white around the rest of the bay. However, this car needs to get back on the road, so I’ll forgo the body color paint. To do that job properly, the engine bay really needs to be stripped bare, and at the rate I’m going, that could add months to an already-too-long project.

The forecast this week is sunny and hot with windy afternoons, so I’ll be masking when it’s not too hot and painting when I can find a warm, windless morning.