Carson's C-121

There was a little rust edge on the dash panel where the switches and screws were.  The Evapo-Rust I use said it was safe for plastics so I tried it out.  It didn't take it all off but it did get rid of most of the edge.  

I blasted some of the hood today and like I expected it's full of rust pits.  The sides were also ground with something pretty aggressive.  It's hard to see in the pics but the grooves are deep enough that they will show when painted so the hood is a no go, especially when it is open and you can see the under side...  

 

Started getting everything ready to close up a motor so it can be put in the blaster.  Blasting a bare block when doing an engine rebuild is one thing but this is a little more complicated.  Carson's will be the first and hopefully done the beginning of next week.  The biggest thing was making a steel plate with a rubber reusable gasket to close up the intake.  I made a 1/4" thick plate, punched some holes in it then elongated them in the mill for small block inconsistencies.  The rest of it was just using vinyl covers and putting bolts in through holes and aluminum pieces so the aluminum shot doesn't try to reprofile the threads.  The flywheel bolt holes also go through and the stator is right behind them.

I think I have most of it done and everything used will go in a container that will become something used for jobs like this.  I'll get Kevin to check this out tomorrow to see if I missed or could improve anything.  A second pair of eyes never hurts.  

 

Gonna give this motor blasting a shot tomorrow.  

The engine in the blaster thing worked out really good.  It took almost an hour but if it was hung on a spinner and I didn't have to constantly move it little by little I think it could have been done in half the time.  It sure looks good and I don't have wire shards in me and little bleeding spots...  

I'll get pics of it up tomorrow on the bench and all uncovered.  I thought it would turn out good but it turned out perfect, even underneath parts still on the motor.  I am Mr Happy and Carson will be too.  

 

Everything came out the best.  All those little places that you can't get to are blasted up clean as new like under the starter, around every nut + bolt, the engine cooling fins, head, etc.  There's no other way to make things this good without putting something in the blaster.  It's one of the better ideas I've had and really saved a lot of time.  It's also the progression of always trying to do a better job around here and make the end result even better.  

Everything was capped up and plugged today to get ready for paint.  The front of the rearend and rear of the frame was painted with rust preventative paint.  It's not painted from the factory because it's already assembled.  It catches a lot of debris in there so the rust preventer will help a lot.  It's not the right color red but it gets painted over again so it doesn't matter.