(ET) front casting restoration pics

[David Brandt <ev_dave13 yahoo com>]

Hope this amuses you all.  Check this out.  Over Christmas vacation, to 
avoid driving my household insane, I decided to finish up the restoration 
of the front casting of my E15.

All corrosion was sanded, and remaining black paint was scuff sanded, and 
the whole thing solvent cleaned.  The whole thing was then given an even 
coat of self etching primer.  the bottom and back then got a coat of 
rubberized truck bedliner paint (the black).
 
http://www.davesevs.com/misc%20pics/IMG_0911.JPG

The front then got two colors.  The channels appear grey in the photo but 
are actually chrome.  The rest is metallic burgundy.

http://www.davesevs.com/misc%20pics/IMG_0912.JPG

Turned out WAY better than I had hoped.  It was a real pain masking off 
the channels, but turned out great.  The leads and holes you see are for 
decorative yellow LED's I am putting in that will light up in conjunction 
with the headlights.  I'm epoxying them into the holes and will wire them 
up later.  The headlights will also be made from LED's.  These neat little 
CL2 drivers (http://www.supertex.com/pdf/datasheets/CL2.pdf) will allow 
the lights to just plug right in to the 36V pack without tapping the pack 
(though given the low power consumption, I can't say it would cause a 
problem if you just used 12V LED modules and tapped the pack as the basic 
ET's do).  Only problem is they are so small I'll need to use a magnifying 
glass to solder them.

Given that the blasting and powder coating prices in this area are about 
10X what they should be based on prices elsewhere, it'll be a while before 
I can show more progress.  I may set up my own mini-blasting setup.  Looks 
like this is turning out to be a really long term project.  Oh, well, hope 
the rest turns out as show quality as this.

David Brandt