The Crusty Cuda: Whole lotta Shakin' (N96) Goin' on!

[A12pilot]

Thanks Lawrence! Oh, Steve won't disappoint and best of all he's building it how he wants it!!

It's gonna look SHARP!!

BTW... email sent

Cheers
Dave

[njsteve]

Got the drums cut last night. It took about .020 to get them clean of the bell shape from sitting for 42 years with the shoes rusted to the insides. Probably had the parking brake on all that time. My buddy has a 1970's era Bear brake lathe that I donated to him. I found it at an old garage that was junking it!!!! So I dragged my trailer down there, got it loaded up and brought it to his garage.

Got the mirror glass made at the local glass shop. Dropped the broken pieces off on Monday and they had it hand cut and beveled by Friday. Cost me $20. The old broken pieces came out with the use of a heat gun and small screwdriver. Turns out the factory used RTV or something similar back then to glue it it. You have to be careful with what glue you use to mount the glass to the bracket because most glues will attack the silvered back of the mirror and ruin it.

[njsteve]

I cleaned up the front drums and scrubbed them well. You can really see how much of the factory brushed on red paint is still intact on the drums. They really slopped it on there. And the outside of the hub had a green and white paint daub on both drums.

After that I painted the drums with some cast iron high heat paint and then found a 30 year-old can of FE5 Rallye Red enamel I had in my cabinet and used an old paint brush to slop on the red paint in the same finely trained assembly line technique as used by the artisans at Ye Olde Hamtramck Assembly Plant in April of 1970.

[njsteve]

I then mock assembled the drums (waiting on front seals to arrive) So I could bleed the brakes. Went through 4 bottles of Dot 5 purple silicone brake fluid just to make sure everything was flushed after I bench bled the master cylinder and reinstalled it. Also waiting on the little $3 rubber grommet that goes on the end of the brake plunger rod before I can final assemble the pedal setup.