So, another thing I worked on for a while was my stainless steel trim. My original pieces were in pretty good shape, with a few minor dings and scratches here and there. So, I decided instead of spending hundreds of dollars on restored trim, I would just try to polish up my own stuff.
So, with the advice of Brian Aust, who attempted this himself when restoring Gunner, I started wet sanding all the pieces with 400 grit, then 600 grit. After getting them all sanded, I went over to Brian’s house 3 or 4 times to utilize his buffing wheel, and to work on some of the dings and other issues. I ended up re-working some of the pieces a couple times. Luckily, I was able to almost completely remove all the dings. Some are still barely noticeable, but much better than they were. FYI - to remove dings, what I did was carefully tap them out from the other side, with a wooden tabletop supporting the front. Then when they were slightly sticking up on the front side, I sanded them down with a wooden stick for support, starting with as rough as 180 grit dry, then 220 dry, then 220 wet, then 400 wet, then 600 wet. Anyways, it took a lot of work and trial and error. Then of course I buffed all of them on the wheel using whatever compound Brian had leftover from his polishing days. I ended up with some nice shiny trim that doesn’t quite look as mirror-shiny as the professionally restored trim we sell, but I’m pretty happy with it. If you look closely you can see some sanding lines parallel with the trim, so they have a slightly “brushed” look to them, while still being bright and shiny. If I would have continued on to 800 wet, or 1200 etc before buffing, I probably would have ended up with a more mirror-like shine. Oh well, I was tired of messing with them. It took a long time. And I’m happy enough with them for now.
Here’s what they looked like after sanding:
Here’s a ding that I ended up working on and pretty much eliminating (before):
Here is the beast… spent some solid time in front of this wheel.
And finally here are some finished shots. You’ll notice the “brushed” look I’m talking about on the closeups.
I want to say thanks again to Brian for the help and hospitality. It was fun to drive out to Silverton and hang out at his shop and eat his wife’s food. Good times, and good progress. That’s what it’s all about.
Finally, the last thing I’ll talk about in this update - the engine. Just a couple weeks ago I bit the bullet and took it down to a reputable machine shop in Albany, OR. The guy has done work for Don before, including a CJ or two. Anyway he’s going to do a complete short block rebuild on my 289. I’m keeping it 2V, just because I consider this car a driver / cruiser and am not too worried about making big power, though I would obviously love for it to have more guts. A stock 289-2V is rated at 210 h.p., and I asked the guy “what kind of horsepower do you think we’ll get out of it when you’re done? Around 240?” He just smiled and said “that’s conservative.” He is going to balance it, put in an upgraded cam (nothing crazy) do a 3 or 4 angle cut on the valve edges for smoother airflow, and so on and so on. Sounds like he knows what he’s doing and I’m that much more excited to get it back in the car and find out how it runs before too long.
Anyway here are some “before” shots. This is the short block before disassembly.
Check out how loose my timing chain was. I’m surprised it didn’t skip a gear. Finger courtesy of Scott Behncke (CougarCJ).
Heads off. Plenty of carbon on the pistons. Don’t worry too much about the rust in that one cylinder, it’s most likely from when I steam cleaned the block after yanking it from the car. In hindsight, that was unnecessary.
Bottom end:
…And the old cam.
I forget if I mentioned this before, but my engine was actually a 302 block with 289 heads. Supposedly that was a pretty common thing at the time.
Anyway, that’s all for now. Things are happening. Like a slow-moving freight train, I will keep chugging away a little at a time until I get there. It just might take a while. Thanks for the interest, and I’ll be posting a couple videos soon!
But in the end I was glad I got it done. Should help the longevity of the car a little. Anyway, pics.
