Friday 9-19

I decided to farm out some of the work I dislike, mainly because I don't have all the tools needed to make the job easier. One of those tasks was modifying the spindles for the disk brake conversion. I had ordered a 37/64th drill bit to bring the holes that needed threading up to the size needed for the tap. The damn thing wasn't cheap in price, but even though it wasn't stamped Made in China, it sure was cheap in quality! The holes only had to be opened a few hundredths, but despite lots of oil and slow feeding, the bit was dull before I had gone a quarter inch into the cast spindle.

Rather than fight the issue, I decided to take the parts to the local machine shop and spend my time on things that interest me more. Lord knows there no shortage of work to do! The machine shop had no problem tapping the holes, but they wouldn't do the necessary grinding with the king pins installed, as they couldn't mount them in the mill. There was no way I was going to remove anything after the difficulty getting them installed! Oh well, I guess I'll have to do the grinding myself.

I finally figured out how to apply the numbers and letters on the pushbuttons without hand engraving. I bought a set of cheap steel stamps, heated them with a propane torch, and "branded" the end of the Lexan button. It was difficult getting the imprint to align perfectly, but at least they are marked and don't look too bad. Without a doubt, better quality steel stamps would have made a better looking imprint. Now the legend plates must be engraved for the Park lever and a "TorqueFlite" replacement for the "New PowerFlite" plate. The remaining appearance tasks for the shift pod will be bonding a piece of felt to the back of the trim plate to prevent rattles and light leaks, and finally, a paint job. Then I can put it away until I get a shift cable and mock up the remaining shift hardware.

It appears that an embossed aluminum side spear replacement is not going to be found, and even if all the NOS pieces could be found, I wouldn't use them on a faux-Fury. The only alternative I can think of is vinyl so I visited a sign shop to see what they can do. They were very interested in the project and suggested using a gold, brush-finish metallic appearing material, and then try printing thin, non-gloss lines to visually simulate the OEM texture. They had some research to do, so I left the job with them.

The weather forecast looks good for the next week, and my wife is healing and getting around better, so maybe I can get more body work accomplished for the next entry.