Boring bits and bobs- Vents and Parking Brake Pedal

This is the please kill me now portion of the project, the parts that are as exciting as watching politics to redo, but are necessary.

I needed two sets, one for this '66 gal 500 XL and one for the '66 LTD. Here's a stash to choose from. Geeze are these stiff to operate. The steel shaft starts rusting and expanding in the plastic and just binds.

Drill out all the rivets and sand blast the door steel and rubber. Sand blasting takes off the oxidized rubber and leaves a soft rubber seal behind. It's like exfoliating, but for your car.

New hardware to reinstall.

This was the uncomfortable part, heating the potato chip and using ones hands to straighten out the flange flat again. The chances of it sealing flat are much greater than with a potato chip shape.

4 are done and operate really easily now. I added some water resistant light grease to the shaft in the plastic sections.

Next up is the parking brake pedal.

In digging through my stash of parking brake pedals I found differences. With that I had a look at what was already in the '66 LTD, the '68 XL, the parts car '68 XL and the parts car '66 gal 500. Turns out all the aforementioned cars came with the same pedal as the middle one. Easy enough, that's the one I'll use and just toss the other ones. I mean when do these fail?

Interesting you can tell the difference. The other other non conforming ones came off plain jane '66 galaxie 500's. Hymmm.

I removed the pad and the stainless trim. I sand blasted the pad and wow it looks brand new. Then polished the stainless trim.

This stuff works really well on stainless.

I use a cheap buffer and it does the job. You do not need anything fancy.

I stripped and painted the body then added the pad, trim and handle. It was missing the rubber bumper stop. I bought an assortment kit and I found one that works well in this application.

It's the little things that add up.

I want to add a parking brake warning lamp and so I have enough used pieces and added the switch.

Glad I check even the simplistic of devices. The black epoxy paint was so strong it prevented the connection to ground. A little surgical sanding was in order.

To be continued