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Exactly! It is called Hochofenschlacke here! Now I have to figure out where I can get that locally. That was a new German Word for me.

Claus, Gregor and I picked up my body at the media blaster, mumified it with packing plastic so it wouldn't get wet and salty and brought it to the painter so he can start cleaning and prime the body. It will get this green/grey moisture proof primer on it that then gets baked in an oven so everything will be sealed. That will give me time to work in parrallel on the chassis...Driving around with Claus's F350 with a packard on the trailer turns a lot of heads around here! Not something you see every day.

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Saturday Gregor and his son Dean and I picked up the clipper body at the painter. They sanded, cleaned, primered, used seam sealer where needed and appllied underbody coating to the wheel wells and underbody. They were finished faster than I thought, so I am still working on getting the frame cleaned and painted....7 liters of epoxy primer was applied. Looks a lot better than it has in years, but there are still a bunch of places that are going to need some filler to smooth over.

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Nothing too exciting happening recently, it is finally warming up a little bit. Had a friend helping me today and got the garage cleaned and organized, flipped the frame over and up on work horses, and we spent a few hours grinding away with an angle grinder and drill. Starting to be pretty much done as far as this step, then will sand blast the edges and places I can't reach with the angle grinder with the blasting slag.
My friend recently bought a karmann ghia from San Francisco and plans to restore that in the garage we work in, so the packard will have some (cute little) company.

The blasting material (Hochofenschlacke) I bought in Ebay for 20? per 100 lbs. I think it will be used up pretty quickly. Should have bought more I guess...Was a nice sunday in the garage

The primed body shell looks great. What an excellent start to a restoration! That amount of primer should keep the rust away for many years.

I sure hope all this work will keep the tin worm away for a long time! Finally got all my compressor and sandbasting equipment after a snafu with DHL the shipping company. If I'm lucky I'll get to use some of it this weekend.

Here's a question: I'll be cleaning and painting the frame and suspensiont parts soon. What can/should I do with the rear leaf springs? Wire brush and paint? Or media blast? They did squeak a little before, but the car sat ok.
Thanks for any tips.

My choice would be:

1) Heavy duty oven cleaner, let sit in sun for 20 min, then scrub with wire brush
2) Power wash to rinse
3) Lacquer thinner and a wire brush
4) thorough clean with ivory dish detergent
5) wipe down with isopropyl alcohol and then prime and paint.


Cheers,

Tom

Ok, thanks for the advice. Sounds like a normal clean and prep procedure for the leaf springs will be in order.

Got the compressor and blast booth running on sunday and got a few parts for the leaf spring mounts blasted and will por 15 them during the week. I'll be getting a descicant air dryer for the sandblaster/compressor and plan to use undercoating on the seams of the sandblast booth to make it leak less dust. Also will try and rig up the shop vac to the booth so I can see better. Still a little bit of learning curve and tuning time ahead of me I guess. Frame is almost all clean, and will do the final sand blast when the weather clears up...Winter came back.

A nice thing to do for your rear springs is to put new spring liner in between the leaves--especially if they are squeaking. You can probably find that in Germany as it nothing more than polypropylene sheet if I recall. You want the rubbing surfaces of the leaves to be smooth and shiny. New spring eye bushings are also cheap and will add a lot to the smoothness of the ride.

Hmm, something to think about doing for the leaf springs. Any idea on the polypropelyne thickness, and a source for the eye inserts? I didn't see them in the steele catalog. Eaton spring or Kanter/Max? Realistically I am still a month or so away from doing the leaf springs looking at my 'schedule'. I still have to finish the frame before I start putting parts back on. But I guess that gives me time to procure parts and material....
POR15'd the spring to axle pads and 2 U bolts for the rear axle this evening...second coat will go on tomorrow.

Also, are the brake lines 3/16 inch? I think I will order a roll of cunifer since the old steel lines were kind of pieced together going to the rear axle. That is 4,76 millimeter here...
Guten Abend!