I got to do a bit more work on the Grumman. I decided to do some fun, and smaller things to mix things up a bit, as I mostly been working in crucial repairs and upgrades to get it running and dependable, for quite a while now.
First, I cleaned the body of the doghouse. I want to maintain the patina on the Grumman, but want to get rid of the dirt and grime. I used some warm water with dish soap in it to get rid of the dirt and grime, then some Nevr-Dull wading to clean things up. I actually have about 8 cans of it that I will use on the entire vehicle at some point. The doghouse came out looking good but, I'm really sad to say, I had a casualty. It seems the Never-Dull had a chemical reaction with the data plate, causing the black color to slowly disappear. It was pretty black when I started. The photos show it starting to disappear. About 5 minutes later, all of the color was gone. That really upset me. At least, I learned a good lesson. I'm going to see if I can have the information reproduced on a water slide and put that on the plate, then clear over it.
I also adhered some rubber channel around the edges of the doghouse. It's now ready to be re-installed.
Next, I replaced the top hat washers that cover the shafts of the windshield wipers. Mine were in horrible shape, cracked and crumbling. I had a friend make some new ones fore on her 3D printer, out of material especially designed for outdoor use, with UV protection. They came out great! If anyone needs some, she has them listed on eBay.
My next endeavor was to remove the rims to install push throughs I had purchased, mainly to dress things up a bit. I had installed long, chrome lug nuts a while back. I've actually wanted beauty rings but, sadly, I can't find them anywhere in 19.5. There was one company that made them, but they've been out of business for quite some time.
My other option was push throughs. I measured my openings at 4.75 inches. I scoured the Internet for weeks till I found what I thought were the appropriate push throughs. I found one pair as NOS from one seller, and the second pair as good-used condition from a other seller. They were the only ones I found online after all that searching listed as 4.75 diameter.
As I tried to install them, they turned out to be too big. They're around 4.81 inches in diameter. Dang it. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
I have looked into getting 17 inch rims. Unfortunately, I'd either have to get tires that are too short, significantly decreasing my top speed while increasing my RPMs too much, in my opinion or, getting tires that are tall enough but are a bit too wide causing fitment issues unless I alter my brake setup.
So, I'm going to stick with my 19.5s and hope to find either trim rings, or push throughs that fit, at some point I did end up ordering new tires yesterday for the 19.5s. 225/70R19.5 as opposed to the 8R19.5 that are currently installed. My 8Rs all have cracked sidewalls. The 225s are a smidge shorter, which I wanted (the RPMs shouldn't increase too drastically) and a smidge wider, enough to make a difference but not enough to have a fitment issue. Also, they are 14-ply, so a little less stiff than the 16-ply I currently have.
My final bit of "work" was to put a chicken sticker on my choke knob. I'll let you figure out the reference 🤣
