5/30/07
Preparing for Scarsdale

Along with all the usual chores Spring brings to my work load, I’ve been trying my best to prepare my 330 America for her first show in Scarsdale. One of the most time consuming tasks is polishing the wire wheels. Brake dust, compounded with living on a dirt road makes for very dirty wheels, and with wire wheels, cleaning and polishing all the surfaces is no easy task. The tires have also suffered from all the dust on my road, as they have really gotten dirty. I’m running Pirelli P4000 tires that have a ribbed band along the whole sidewall, perfect for collecting a lot of dirt. Getting all the grime out of these crevices is necessary before any tire treatment can be applied, but sure is a pain in the rear!

If you notice on this tire, a tire weight was incorrectly glued to the rim of the wheel, and was quickly thrown from the wheel when I drove the car. I had my local garage replace this with a clip on weight so it would stay secure. Using stick on weights seemed like a good idea, but with the highly polished wheel, there is very little for the adhesive to hold on to, so clip on weights seemed to be the better choice.

The spokes and areas around their nipples were the hardest to polish. I found that pulling a long cloth back and forth between the spokes worked best after I applied polishing solution to the cloth. After I’m done with all the wheels, I’ll have to figure out how to keep everything clean while I drive my car down the 1/4 mile of dirt road that leads to the cleaner paved roads!

The rest of my list consists of the following things:

Oil Change (done)
Mount one more Pininfarina Badge
Polish Wheels (doing it)
Mount correct Lighter (done)
Fix broken jack plug spring (done)
Rain-X the windshield (done)
Fix leaking tire and balance (done)
Paint wheel wells black (done)
replace hose clamps with correct Cheney clamps (done)
Grille…

Yes, I’m still waiting on the grille shell to come back from the platers. I gave the grille to the chrome plater months ago, but only recently have they begun the process of plating it. It’s funny how vendors often only work under deadline! The plater claims it’ll be ready by early next week, giving only days to get it mounted and ready for the show. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

Previous Restoration Day
Next Restoration Day
Home page