This weekend was a busy weekend for the 1948 Ford 8N, tons of prep and painting. All of my parts arrived, one large box at a time. The hood was here early and the grill, radiator and rest followed. During the week I picked up some paint from a local paint shop. I purchased an epoxy primer and I believe a polyester 2 part gray for the hood. Since I had already exceeded my budget the red paint I chose is a much lower quality than the gray. Because of that I decided to paint the gas tank in the gray. Saturday I finished some body work and prepped all the surfaces for priming. Saturday afternoon I shot some primer on the hood, grill, gas tank, and spot primed the radiator. The rain held out despite some dark clouds but the humidity was a little high.
Sunday was different. We rolled out the tractor and I cleaned basically the clutch housing and all the surfaces I will be covering up with parts (battery box and dash) and applied some phosphoric acid to all the rusted surfaces. I also readied the fan and radiator mounts since they were accessible. Then I mixed the good paint. I have never sprayed a high quality paint so I will admit there was a learning curve. I sprayed the inside of the hood (very heavy along the bottom rail since it was not easy to hit). One side of the gas tank looked great as did one side of the grill. Then on to the top of the hood since some dark clouds were rolling in (which were not there 10 mins ago). I hustled on the hood and payed the price. Two runs and one was right on the top ridge. I knew I needed to hurry so I rolled it flat knowing it would probably leave marks on the bottom rails. I sprayed the rest of the top and as I made the final 2 passes drops began to fall from the sky. In the coming weeks I will be wet sanding and applying a second coat to the hood since mother nature needed to sprinkle for a few minutes.
After the rain cleared the sun came back out and so I primed the tractor body section and a few other parts. Let that dry for about 15-30 mins per the instructions and then sprayed the red. The fenders even got a coat of primer since I overshot the mix by a few ounces.
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| Aftermarket Hood |
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| Ford 8N Dash |
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| Ford 8N Seat |
I also took apart the starter and found that the brushes were hardly worn. The bushing was not in the front plate and I suspect that it was the reason for the locked up condition when we brought the tractor home (pinned in the flywheel). I am heading to a bearing shop this week to see if I can pick up a new one to press in while I have it torn apart. Some new grease and hopefully next weekend we can start putting things back on.
