Toms hideaway headlight motor thread

[Deleted]

Top pieces blasted...



Then painted.

[Deleted]

Next...onto the main barrels. Some of them have some pitting. If I was doing these professionally, I would fill in the pits and sand them smooth before paint or simply find a better core housing. Since my goal is simply a decent looking motor that works well....I will use what I have, as-is. I will use some etching primer, that hopefully will result in better paint adhesion and perhaps minimize some of the pitting.

I used to sell wiper motor and headlight motor cores to a guy who did concours style restorations. His largest concern always was how much pitting was present on the barrels of the motors.

[Deleted]

Blasted...and dusted with etching primer. Going to let them sit in front of a space heater for an hour or two before I paint them. Realistically...
the cure time should probably be longer. But I don't have that kind of patience!

In the second picture, you can see the pitting left in the barrel surface.
This will look worse when painted. And in my opinion...the glossier the finish, the worse the pitting looks.

[Deleted]

Now....the hardest part of the parts clean up. Blasting the screws and other miscellaneous hardware. It is all so small that I have a hard time holding it with the rubber gloves. The grate in my blaster has big openings...so it is easy to blast the hardware out of my hand and have it fall down into the bottom of the unit. A little box with a screen cover would seemingly be a good fix to this issue. For now, I will just do the best I can.

[DynoDave]

Feb 23, 2011 10:31:50 GMT -5 @tom said:

Now....the hardest part of the parts clean up. Blasting the screws and other miscellaneous hardware. It is all so small that I have a hard time holding it with the rubber gloves. The grate in my blaster has big openings...so it is easy to blast the hardware out of my hand and have it fall down into the bottom of the unit. A little box with a screen cover would seemingly be a good fix to this issue. For now, I will just do the best I can.

Excellent work Tom. I'll be printing this one for reference when you are all done.

On the media blasting...I usually just grab a scrap of cardboard, punch some holes in it the size of the screws, stick the screws in the holes, and blast away. Easier to hold, less dropped hardware. Works well for painting them when done, too. #Twocents#

[Deleted]

Darn Dave, genius minds must think alike. I punched the 20 screws thru a piece of cardboard...and blasted until one screw popped out.

other hardware, I secured with a piece of wire.

Before.....

[Deleted]

After blasting hardware. Painted end knobs too. Paint came out a little thick...but it still works for me. Would have liked to get the screw heads a little better...but the cardboard was weakening quickly.

[Deleted]

Barrels have been painted. Will let them dry for an hour in front of a space heater before I start reassembly of motors. I used Plastikote satin black on the barrels. Not that I think it is a great match...it just happened to be what I had handy. I think that I prefer the Krylon semi flat black paint that I usually use. I will have to wait for the paint to fully dry before I can make a final judgment.

Glad to be done with the blasting and painting!

Blasting cabinet still needs some improvements in dust containment, lighting, a window clarity....but it sure beats nothing. Ever since I installed a water separator, it has worked so much better. And when it works better....I use it more!

[Deleted]

It would be nice to have new gaskets for the re-assembly. However, I am not going to spend hours and hours making gaskets. I will re-use old gaskets as I can...and use some black RTV where needed.

I was not happy with the screw heads as they were...so I dusted them with some silver metallic paint.

Went ahead any lightly blasted limit switch plate and dusted it in flat black.

[CDN72SE]

Very nice Tom, Thanks for doing this!