From: Krogerma@aol.com
Date: Sun Sep 26 2004 - 20:12:21 PDT
Hello all:
I need a bit of help again.
I`m getting the deuce ready for inspection for the year by fixing a few things that recently broke. Thanks to the list for advice on the windshield and the PARKING brake. Thanks to Ross Moir for the nifty new horn. Thanks to NAPA for the flex pipe.
My usual pattern of behavior when fixing something on my trucks is to clean, sandblast, rebuild, reweld, restore, repaint, etc., everything I take off in order to do the repair. I really just don`t feel right putting rusty or otherwise delapidated stuff back on.
I quite often put rusty STEEL parts in muriatic to dissolve the rust (Actually I use a muriatic acid bath followed by a water bath, followed by a dilute sodium hydroxide bath to stop any residual etching, followed by a water bath, followed by a paint thinner bath). Then I apply paint and/or Texaco Rustproof Compound "L" and\or undercoating right away to avoid further oxidation of freshly exposed metal.
I was doing my usual thing with the taken-apart windshield wiper assembly from my taken-apart windshield assembly by bathing the rusty bolts. They came out great, as usual. Then I noticed that the windshield wiper arm was rusty, too, up under where the spring was. OK, no problem, I`ll soak that, too. Well, I soaked that, too. Boy, you should have seen that thing bubble and smoke! I thought to myself: "Gee, I guess it`s good I`m doing this, there must have been a lot of rust up there." A couple of seconds later, I heard a snap and looked down to see that the spring underneath had detatched itself and was lying in the bottom of the pan. After stopping the etch, I investigated further and discovered that part of the arm that the spring was attached to was eaten away by the acid. Part of the arm was pot-metal and I hadn`t noticed. DUH!!
Bottom line is that I need a windshield wiper arm. Where should I get one? BTW, I adapted an 11-inch Trico winter blade to that wiper arm just before I destroyed it. Drill out the dimple that holds the blade mount on the arm and it will come off leaving just the flat metal bar. There is a hole in the end that you can put a small screw through to fasten nicely to one of the adapter thingies that comes with the new blade.
Cheers!
Kurt Matis
Troy, NY
1972 AM-General m35a2
1963 Walter FNBS (not an MV, but a very cool truck)
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