I had another day at the shop today. I stripped the paint off the engine side of the steering column and found why it likely got painted. My best guess is the guy that sold the car to Dad was flipping it. There was a some rust on the steering column, so they likely “dressed it up” to sell. But, it really wasn’t that bad and after a good bit of polishing, I’m very happy with it. The interior portion looks great after polishing.
Here is a picture after stripping the paint, but before polishing.
Here is a picture after polishing. Again, I’m very happy with this.
I also got the inside of the firewall painted along with the clutch and brake pedals, stripped down the toe board, and fixed my VERY wobbly gas pedal studs. It’s going to be nice not having my gas pedal flopping two inches left and right. While I was at it, I also painted as much of the frame as I could get to around the transmission. Then, I started cutting some jute to replace some the insulation in the kick panels and at the top of the dash. I was a bit lucky to be able to get the old stuff out mostly intact to use as a pattern.
I also have been working on my horn button. The black around the Packard crest was completely worn away. I took two attempts with masking fluid to get it to where I’m happy with it. It’s not perfect, but it came out pretty nice. The wire, was in surprisingly good shape. The insulation is still very supple, but did have a couple very small nicks. It also was in need of some strain relief at the solder joint. I added a little strain relief with a couple short pieces of heat shrink tubing. I also bought a 10ft lengths of 1/4 in heat shrink tubing and used it the full length of the wire. That will make sure the couple of nicks won’t be an issue.
Here is how my horn button started.
Here is after painting.
