Another Lesson

With the outside of the cab progressing quite well - thank you very much, my attention is turned to inside activities. As rust is enemy number one with this restoration I am focused on eliminating it and the long pole in the cab tent is the rust on the top of the cab.

Taking out my trusty wire wheel brushes, I commenced to grind off the rust and old paint. Soon into the campaign I discovered the ceiling was covered with something else along with the rust. After extensive scientific analysis, I determined there was some type of goopy coating on it. I was at a loss as to how it got there, but I figured it had to go.

The wire wheel was effective at taking it off, but needed a couple of passes to get it all off, slowing down my much desired progress. Not to be daunted, I kept my nose to the grindstone and pushed through, even using solvents to break up the sticky spots.

At the start of this task, I heard “the little voice that never shuts up” in the back of my mind. Not wanting to be bothered I pushed it all the way out of my conscious and continued grinding. However, as the task seemed to drag on and on it escaped my banishment and said “Pilgrim, tell me again why you are grinding off this top coating?”. I whine back that I have to get the rust and gook off the metal in order for the primer to bond properly.

“The little voice that never shuts up” then proceeds to point out that I will be putting a beautiful color coordinated cardboard headliner on the top of the cab, which “mister works hard but not smart” (that is what it calls me) will cover up all your hours of useless exertion.  I have learned that it is always hard to argue with good reason – especially when it is right.

Unfortunately I was beyond the point of no return. This is similar to removing wall paper in a home remodeling project. When faced with the decision to either take off the old wall paper or just paint over it, you are completely committed after you pull off the couple of easy sections of wall paper. Once this is done you have to do all the hard work to remove the stubborn sections.

As I was steaming off the last bits of automotive wallpaper I figured out that the gooey coating was heat and sound dampening material and that it was not really rusty after all. It was just dirty and messy, with a rusty color.  Note to “mister works hard but not smart” don’t remove this in your next restoration. If you look up the definition of this task in the dictionary, it is called tuition.

Finding the replacement heat and sound dampening material was not as simple as you would think. I did find the material in several of the classic truck web sites, but it was quite a bit more expensive than I expected. As I started looking for other options, I let “the little voice that won’t shut up” sit at the adult table with me this time. Together we were going to make the correct choice. Out of the blue I receive an email from Eastwood saying they were having a sale on guess what? Heat and sound deadened material.  I liked the price and started reading the detailed description, the installation process and then the reviews.  The first four reviewers thought this stuff was better than sex, which pretty much had me sold. But my partner felt the need to keep reading.  The next two reviews were 1 star out of 5 star ratings and said that a few days after they installed it, black tar goo started oozing down the wall and puddled on the floor. It turns out that the positive reviewers lived in Greenland where the temperature is minus 50 and the negative reviewers were fans of the SEC – translation lived in the hot south.  Eastwood’s product was fine until the temperature got to 95 degrees, at which time it transformed into black gooey ooze.

Not wanting to repeat the removal process again, I have already taken and passed this class, I am getting the heat and sound dampening material rated to 270 degrees.