GOOD weather in HOUSTON??

This Saturday was beautiful and work need to be done on this rare occasion.

I decided to tackle restoring the old deluxe steering wheel. It had major cracks on nearly every facet and some minor cracks at the edges of the spokes. I had picked a restoration kit from Eastwood that I had heard about and decide to give it a shot. I didn't really worry about ruining the wheel since I have a Grant red/black wheel that would look real nice too. I followed the directions which really isn't my strong suit. I cleaned the wheel with some soap and water and began to make the cracks bigger per the instruction I used a dremel and an assortment of metal files to enlarge the gaps into a V-shape. Then I mixed the two part putty to make a dark grey mush that smell like old shoes. I used a heavy amount to fill the cracks. Bought a $1.50 set of plastic putty knifes and went to work. I tried to get all of the air bubbles out when mixing but still managed to find some later on. I cover the wheel which made it look like a cancer growth had consumed the wheel. Then let is set in my hot garage for a week. No the hard part. Sanding was a boring pain. I stared by knocking the biggest chuncks with the dremel sanding discs. I had also bought some sand paper (150, 220, 320, 400 and 1000) and some 3M sanding blocks (60, 220, and 320) with worked well for the contours. Two seperated nights of sanding and then some more on Saturday finally got it to a point where it felt smooth to the touch. I used some Eastwood plastic prep cleaner to get what dirt I could off. Then hit the wheel with some SEM plastic adhesion sprey. after about 15 minutes I used SEM Landau Black. I applied two coats but it didn't have the gloss I was looking for. So I sprayed some clear coat semi gloss for a little protection. It look pretty good for my first attemp at something like this.

Another project I got started on Saturday was redoing the firewall. Unfotunately, I found out the the previous owner painted right over the original paint with POR15. Not that I dislike POR 15 but I saw places where it was pealing since it was applied in that way. After I had removed all of the components off the firewall I had also noticed that they didn't applied under things like the windshild wash motor or the heater core cover. Boaght some 3M sanding wheels and got to work on the firewheel and forward dash (under cowl). Then I reappled a new coat of POR15 and sprayed some primer after about 45 minutes (when it was still tacky). Later I will spray pait it with Some POR15 Chassis Black coat. It SHOULD look great but I need to get a good HVLP first. So that project is going to be put off for a week.