Today was a good day. Got up at like 7, worked for a couple hours, picked the wife up at the airport, then she napped and I worked some more. Feel like I got a lot of stuff accomplished.
Cleaned the transmission - Before
and after. Simple green is magical.
Also cleaned up my new to me wheels. Before on the left, after on the right. Tools of the trade above. Simple green and a little kitchen brillo pad/scrubby sponge works wonders and doesn't appear abrasive enough to damage the finish of the wheels.
Really quite pleased with how they cleaned up honestly. They're still pretty beat, but they are far more presentable. As mentioned previously I'm entertaining the idea of painting these body color white, but I'm still on the fence about that.
Speaking of paint... I did a new thing today!! I painted!
I'm feeling pretty proud of myself right now, I have been pretty intimidated by painting with a gun for quite some time now, and today I was able to overcome that intimidation and shoot some color on the core support I welded in last night. Now, before I show the outcome it is my first time ever holding a spray gun, let alone using one, but I'm pleased. Before that though, some things to admit.
I did this to my first $15.99 Harbor Freight gun before I even used it.
Here's what happened. It comes with a 1/4" end threaded in to it, with 1/4" male threads. I thought I could take the 1/4" male thread quick connect I had lying around and just thread it into the gun. Well, I pulled everything apart and there was a filter in there. Nevermind that, I want to get this done. Onward. Only I should have heeded the filters warning. When I went to thread in the quick connect robbed from my blower nozzle it immediately cracked the cheap aluminum body of the spray gun. The threads were far too long and the aluminum just couldn't hack it. Dumb mistake. Another trip to Harbor Freight and I have a new gun, and some extra painters tape and a roll of masking material (which is pretty rad btw).
So fast forward, My new gun is all set up and cleaned, I'm mixing paint... E36 M3. I bought the wrong end of the quick connect. I bougth a 1/4" thread to female quick connect. What I needed was a male. I was a bit excited today, guess I wasn't thinking clear. Fortunately my old man had stopped by in his 1964 Beetle so we went for a quick rip to the store to pick up the right fitting.
OK- paint is mixed and on the bench. New fitting is installed on the gun, it's connected to the compressor which is regulated way down for the HVLP gun. Pour the paint through the filter and into the reservoir on the gun. Test spray on the paper mask. Looks weird, real thin. Turn up the air pressure, sprays better but still isn't covering much. Spray some paint on the core support, most of it drips to the floor. Hmm.
Never stirred the primer. Go to the bench and the can of primer has a bunch of gelatenous goop on the bottom of it. D'oh! Ok, stir that all up, re mix it and start shooting. Covers much better now miraculously. Start spraying without a mask in my small garage. Bad idea. Open garage door, finish shooting primer. Mostly make a mess but get some coverage. Paint is stinky. Real stinky. Cold weather be damned, I'm pushing this out to the driveway. Push to driveway, mix actual paint (making note of stirring). Spray paint! Do an OK job, but realize that there are a lot of difficult to access areas and that the spray gun takes up a lot of space. Do the best I can, feel stoked anyway. Gotta start somewhere!
TLDR: I painted. Not well but I painted.
Thanks for reading!