I'm very sorry that It's been so long since my last post. I was kind of waiting until I had something earth-shattering to report, then I started getting more than usually busy with school and application to the 4-year college I plan on attending in the fall, and the project journal kept getting pushed to the back burner until I sort of forgot about it. Thank you for reminding me Doug, sorry it took me two weeks to notice it!
Anyway, to get caught up, I got the frame wire brushed/wheeled and got the POR on it. It is now at my grandparents house. I drilled about 34 rivets to remove the rear cab mounts, 2nd and 3rd crossmembers, upper rear shock mounts, lower radiator mounts, and the upper trac bar mount (there were 5 3/8" rivets holding that sucker on!) from the old frame. All of the above were missing from the '65 frame. Can't imagine why, but at least all of them were present on the old frame and were serviceable. After 62Stick mentioned that the tracbar mounts were different, I went out to check and found that it was totally gone frome the new frame, and the 3 out of the five rivets which hold it (and a frame crossmember) on had been removed. I checked to see if the holes lined up with the bracket from the old frame. They were a perfect match, so I'm just going to drill out the remaining two rivets and bolt on the bracket from the old frame. I now have all of the chassis parts PORed (except the front wheel hubs, which I tucked away in a corner and forgot about) and was ready to paint them with the topcoat of black chassis paint last weekend, but I hit a snag. Whether the man at the paint store didn't give it to me, or I misplaced it, I did not have the paint data sheet for the Martin Senour chassis paint I was going to use as the final layer. When I finally got araund to tracking them down and printing them off of the Martin Senour website on friday night, the thought dawned on me that I might not be able to put that stuff directly over the POR. I don't know why I hadn't thought about it before. I bought it several months ago, when I was still planning on sandblasting the frame, and it doesn't require a primer under it, so I guess when I decided to go with POR, I just automatically assumed that POR-15 was just as good of a substrate as bare metal. Anyway, after some research (and an inquiry in the "Paint and Body Shop") I found out that no, you can't apply paint directly over POR. In order to topcoat it, you have to A.) topcoat it before the POR is fully cured, B.) wetsand the POR, or C.) put POR-15 'Tie-Coat Primer' in between the POR and the topcoat. I am planning to go the primer route, as I think this will require the least amount of time and effort. I'm glad I caught it before I started spraying the topcoat, that would have been a mess! Hopefully I'll get to the primer this week, and be ready to spray next weekend, provided the weather holds. My last class is May 3, so I should have a lot more time after that.
As far as homecoming, I don't think I'll be bringing my truck, it's not worth my borrowing a trailer to haul just a rolling chassis all the way up there, and I don't even know if I'll be that far along by homecoming. But I plan on being there for Saturday, unless an unforeseen scheduling conflict arises.
Thank you all for your patience, encourangment, and technical support.
