This Evening, I Promised My Ol'Girl I'd Start Her Rebuild.
As this month (March) is my 1979 40's 40th Birthday, and she remains destraught in bits & pieces all throughout the house, I'm KNOWING I'm needing to do something FAST - prior to the month's end !!! ..... Soooo, I've just now put it upon myself to do SOMETHING, starting this evening, about my far too long-running, atrocious neglect of her & her perpetually saddened spirit.
Prior to being completely dissembled a number of years ago (the date of year is on this board somewhere, but I'm not going to look for it. ... too depressing for me), she had already been sitting in the 3-car garage (and two residential garages prior to that) for some 20-something years, not ever driven. It's been soooo long since she's been driven (or APPROPRIATELY loved), that, let's just say, it's been since the early 90's, when I snagged her with love & passion into my life that she had been driven (graduated college & then toted around the States for my then career - of course in need to be without her).
So, a few years back, to rectify garage-induced, Georgia moisture upon her '79 Japanese sheet metal, and that of vehicle-wide rubber decay, her complete tear-down & sandblasted chassis was my own, somehow justified answer to that. Regardless, for me, her delayed rebuild has so far merely been a money & priority issue - an actual big deal to me, but an obvious to all of us here poor (very poor) excuse.
Whatever
Sooo, this evening, to begin (by forcefully placing one foot forward) - that I begin 'walking' in the respectably correct direction for her (my beloved 40), I'm going to reinitiate my life-journey with my 40 via full reinventory all of her fasteners & small parts (all of which are individually ziplock bagged). Within the next few days, or week or so, when able, I intend to redetermine the individual condition of each fastener & part, vehicle-wide. Fortunate for me, the entire vehicle is pretty much in outstanding condition. I won't go as far as saying 'pristine.' But overall, she's actually pretty close to that. - - I Can Not Wait to see how STELLAR she will be when her rebuild is finished.
QUESTION #1 :
I recall the majority of her fasteners are in good condition, albeit dirty, etc. Will it be better to purchase a tumbler & tumble-clean the existing fasteners; and to then have them zinc plated ? -OR- Is it better to simply purchase one or more kits of new, plated fasteners, and disregard the majority of the existing, foregoing the expense to clean & plate them ? -Or- Is cleaning & plating the better conditioned of the existing, PLUS, purchasing one or more kits of new fasteners - - the more logical or common ?
QUESTION #2 :
After the cleaned fasteners are zinc plated, and/or the new ones received, is it a GOOD Idea or a far too REDUNDANT Idea to then have those same fasteners Black or Olive Drab chromate plated ?
Thanks !! ... And PLEASSSSSSE WISH ME BEST OF LUCK ON THIS ... (that I get my rear-end in gear on this looooong-overdue project of MY LONGTIME LOVE) !!!!
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~Skydog
Got to the cabin for ice fishing , 700km round trip, she was flying at 120km/h on the relatively flat highway and 80km/h on the hills in 4 th gear , average 13 L/100km
