Busted Sub, Part 7: Annoyances and solutions to them.

First, some non-whiny work was done. Then some whinyness will ensue. Be prepared.

Since I don't know when I will be able to utilize my friend's lathe again and being enthralled with the "rigid collar" idea and having been directed by an knowledgeable person as to a possible workable compromise, I ordered a small set of step drills from Amazon. I may review the set at a later date.

Here we go!

 I used this to open of the holes in the subrame to a consistent diameter:

 Why? So I can just make use of one type of simple flanged sleeve bearing (part number 6338K466 from McMaster-Carr) after some drilling and possibly reaming of the hole hole. Is it ideal? No, but I'm OK with that for now.

Next I got the "new" EX spindles out and took off the dust shields by grinding the head of the screws off since I have no idea where my impact driver has gotten to.

 Then I dropped one into my blasting cabinet:

And promptly found that I couldn't see jack. I usually lift whatever I am working on close to the window in order to see, but the spindle was very, very awkward to do that with. I located my small shop vac and got that hooked up to the vent:

And that helped a LOT until the prefilter:

 and filter clogged the heck up and I was running out of light so I just said screw it and packed everything up:

 As you can see, I didn't get too far:

 All the bits and pieces are now at a shop a friend recommended for powder coating. They will finish blasting and coat everything by Saturday. It's not cheap, but, this is the best darn way to take care of the whole thing at one time pretty much permanently.

I can now concentrate on cleaning up the steering rack and
organizing the parts to get ready to slap everything back together, maybe as soon as this weekend. Exciting times, eh?

The bronze flange bushings aren't exactly what I am looking for, but they are cheap enough and readily available enough to try, so I will. If they don't work, it isn't the end of the world, but I figure I can try them and see what happens. It's not like they will cause anything to fall off (that wasn't ready to fall off in the first place). I am also curious as to weather or not I'd be able to tell a differences between the flanged bushings and the aluminum pieces I will eventually make. If I can, you will certainly hear about it. If I can't, then everyone has a cheap mod!

King Sandblaster Reigns! (Not Supreme, but reigns, nonetheless.)

I did some more sandblasting after work today. YAY! I finished the second FUCA (Front Upper Control Arm), then decided to see how well this thing handled crustier stuff. Enter my Hf manifold I've never cared a lick about aside from how it bolts in between the head and the turbo and usually directs exhaust gases into the turbo. 

This is how we started out:

 Typical trusty, crusty cast iron.

After a couple of minutes playing around:

 I then realized I was burning daylight and had better things to do with my time, related to my front suspension. Enter one of the hubs, clean for your consideration:

 The front side is clean, at least. I have to finish the backside.

Notice the tape around the hub stub:

 I don't want to blast the precision machined surface that fits into the bearing. It is already very clean and doesn't need the tolerances changed a bit.

I've been tweaking the setup of the cabinet as I've gone along. Having eliminated all the leaks I can without getting really retarded (and I do need a new hose as the hose is leaking, too, darnit), the only problem I have with blasting continuously is keeping the end of the media feed tube buried.

To that end, and since I nearly always am holding the piece I am blasting closer to the cloudy, sand/dust covered plastic "viewing" shield, I took out the grate:

 This let me use my hands in the gloves to scoop the media over the end of the media feed tube much more easily, and this made blasting a heck of a lot faster.

I am wondering if grounding the cover would help at all. I am pretty sure that most of the issue is static cling.

Finally, this is a for reference shot of the other hub which is about as crusty as the other hub started out:

I totally <3 sandblasting.

Tool Review: King Brand Magic Eraser (Sandblasting cabinet)

So I've been asked to give more info about the setup I am using. A chance to ramble on about whatever I want? YES, PLEASE! 

I'm using Harbor Freight 70 grit aluminum oxide media that I got on sale a while back:

It seems like it is holding up pretty well, I think partly because I am no where near blasting efficiently due to my lack of correct air volume and pressure.

Here's a shot of the thing sitting conveniently on my stack of Rota C8s:

 The "King" brand sticker seems to be stuck on but from everything I've seen, it is pretty much the same as every other small blast cabinet you'll find on eBay, HF, and even Amazon.

It comes with a transformer to power the 12V (seriously, why????) florescent light in the box.

 I didn't mess with that yesterday, but, honestly, it's not very bright and is pretty darn useless.

Sandblasters like DRY AIR. In preparation to use the cabinet, I bought this HF air line dryer, with some fittings and a "jumper hose:"

 It works VERY well and only leaks a very little bit, which I might be able to fix with some more teflon tape (supplied with the cabinet, actually). Or I can just not bother too much with it.

I had forgotten that in the box of stuff that came in the cabinet that there was a set of nozzles. The pre-installed nozzle was a #5. I swapped in the smallest nozzle in the set, a #4, and that helped A LOT with the air consumption!

It helped enough that I could nearly continuously blast with this little thing:

This became even more useless:

One of these days I'll figure out how to bypass the thermal safety on that and just let it run continuously. If it dies, so be it.

That being said, after tweaking the fittings and air lines, I was able to make a lot more progress in less time this evening!

Don't you just love that finish?

I know I do! 

Here's a closeup of the remaining rubbery residue that was left under the ball joint:

I didn't have enough oomph to take that crap off, so I scraped it off with my pocket knife and was left with shiny, nearly brand new paint underneath:

A few minutes later, SHAZAM!

 All done! I LOVE IT!

Blurry pic is blurry:

 Phones should not be cameras. Yech.

Anyway, that's the inside. It's large enough for nearly anything suspension wise, but I don't think a Honda RTA (rear trailing arm) will fit, even diagonally. We'll find out eventually.

The only really, really annoying thing I've found about the whole thing is this:

 Can you see through that? No? Well, I can't, either. It's mostly from static cling. The sandblasting creates enough static electricity to zap me occasionally, and it also sticks the particles to the clear sheet (I have no idea if it is acrylic or whatever) that you are supposed to see through. I'll be trying to figure out how to prevent that.

And yes, it leaks:

So what? That can be fixed, if you want to bother spending the time. I don't at the moment and I never may. 

Summary of the pros and cons:

Pros:

-Price

-It comes mostly assembled (except for the filter and air supply hoses) out of the box

-Surprisingly effective with less than ideal air supply

-Well sized (Smaller would be annoying, larger would be too big for nearly any small work area)

-)(#*)(*$# CLEAN SUSPENSION PARTS! 

Cons:

-Static cling blocks your view

-It leaks

Would I recommend it? YES. 

Would I spend the time to fix the leaks before using it? MAYBE. If you are going to use it all the time, then yes, it would be a good idea. I am mostly going to use this a lot for a little while and then leave it alone in between various projects, so I am not sure if the time would be worth it when I could put that time into getting my CRX's suspension cleaned, painted and installed. 

Mr. Clean ain't got nothin' on MY magic eraser!

So at the end of last year, I bought this:

That is a small sandblasting cabinet. It is sold by all the cheap tool stores. I figured that as long as it worked halfway correctly, I'd be better off using it than wasting blasting media all over the back yard at the house. So, yesterday after work, I got it set up and tried it out with my two small/too small compressors and had at one of my front upper control arms. 

Ok, first I actually finished off this dust ring:

As you can see, it worked. I've got the cabinet filled with HF aluminum oxide media. You'll also observe that the box does leak some around the corners, but honestly not much and not the horrific amount that claimed by many online reviewers. 

So, what do I mean by two too small compressors? 

That is the area removed with one charge from one of the compressors. Is it slow going? Yes, but it works! 

I'll get more pics of the process and progress I make over the next few days if weather permits.