72 3.0 CS 2240344 Restoration

boonies said:
now the fun part, cleaning and restoring all the individual bits!
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Yep!

Got the half shaft rebuild kits today. Need to go through my inventory and assay what I have and what needs work.

One of the next important projects will be the renovate the wire harness, including numbering all the wires using my handy wire label making machine.

Super annoyed to find that I chipped the brittle plastic inserts in the headliner, where the sun visors clip in. I can get replacements at W-N, but there are 101 of these sorts of things to address.

Need to get my bead blaster and mini spray booth set up!
 
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Woot!! Scored a replacement wiper/indicator switch on eBay this AM. My original switch fell apart in my hands when I removed. it. I think the mounting screws were the only thing holding it together!

I have been going round and round trying to find a replacement. There are so many variants out there. Some are only wash/wipe, some are wash/wipe/dip, wrong connectors, etc..

Miraculously today the exact same part number showed up, so I snagged. it.

Here is the switch as it fell out of the column..

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Question on instrument bezels.

I am getting ready to restore my dash wood.

Today I started disassembling the instrument bezel part of the dash.

To remove the metal gauge bezels I first removed a set f small wood screws fromthe back side. These hold a metal plate that has holes for the gauge bezels (the black parts that surround each gauge). I then found that the bezels themselves were soldered to the plate at the back.

I was able to remove them by carefully cutting the solder/lead away and pulling up the plate.

My first question is how on earth did they fabricate this assembly? Seems like the heat from the soldering would ruin the crinkle finish on the bezels, and could affect the wood structure. Is this some very low temperature melting point metal? I see pure tin melts at 449 degrees F, which is probably below the wood ignition temp (480+ degrees F), but this still seems pretty hot for paint...

Second question is how have folks here re-attached these? Re-solder? JB Weld?

This question is how have folks refinished the bezels themselves. They seem to have a crinkle surface, which is intact, but they appear to be dirty and slightly faded. Can they be lightly re-painted? What paint? Basic Black? Matte? Flat?
 
I stripped and powder coated mine satin black. The issue is that those bezels aren't smooth in raw metal. I think the finish on them was actually to hide the poor quality finish. I needed to sand and prep them perfectly smooth to look good. Just be aware what is underneath.
 
Found good info on this here.

@rsporsche, what size soldering iron did you use, and how long did it take to flow? Seems like the plate will draw away a lot of heat...DId you have any issues with the paint and heat?

I used a utility knife to cut the solder joints on mine, so there is still solder on both parts. I am hoping that some heat from a larger iron will just reflow that old solder
 
Rudy3.0CS said:
Absolutely no need to solder this. A dab of epoxy or thickened cyanoacrylate glue will do it.
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I guess that's a nod to technology progress. 1972 adhesives for metal were not that great, hence the rather unusual solder approach... I suppose if I use JB weld, then some future PO will think its solder!! ;)
 
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