Thanks. I hope to have more updates soon.

Holy. Chit. Just read through your entire thread. Friggin amazing man. You've done scared the bejezus outta me though. I have a '79 / SA my pops purchased the year I was born. I'm about to under take the adventure of a lifetime and remove the engine to rebuild it myself. I'm in Ohio so the car has seen some winter driving, but very little. We've taken pretty damn good care of the car over the years. It runs and drives, so I'm opening a can of worms, and I have none of the experience, tools, or skills you've got. But one doesn't get experience but not trying new things and tools can be purchased and skills will come with time. I love the fact you've posted on this for years! My dad said it best recently, I have until my son's 16th birthday to do what I have to do and he's about to turn 9, so I should be good! I want to empty my engine bay and respray it while getting the little 12a back in shape. I'm scerrrrrd... but excited. Keep up your amazing work and posts!

It's a journey. I sincerely wasn't expecting that rust, since I'm in North Texas, and that's not typical. I also tend to go a little further than truly necessary to just make a functional OK driver (though I'm not masochistic enough to go full-on concours show car - I actually want to drive it without *too* much fear.)
You've got the right attitude about experience, tools, and skills. I didn't have any of those once upon a time, and I still need a lot of all of them. My welding is mediocre at best, my paint and body work is... probably less than that, and I certainly don't have all the tools I want. :)
Common wisdom is to break a big job down into smaller tasks and milestones, and that's valid. The problem I keep running into is the interlocking nature of some jobs - the domino effect. Gotta do this before that, and if you do this other thing, you may have to re-do something else later, or make it more difficult. That sort of thing. Definitely break down a big job, but also try hard to keep the overall job in mind to stage and time things - think holistically. Project Binky from Bad Obsession Motorsports on YouTube:
and Patreon is a great example, and I highly recommend watching it. They stuff a significant amount of a Toyota Celica GT4 into an original Mini. They're just starting reassembly after paint. They are a fantastic example of thinking ahead while breaking down the job into manageable bits.

As far as updates for mine - I finally figured out what was going on with my plating setup, and should have good stuff shortly.

In the 80's I had zero experience on all things automobile, maybe oil changes. But a guy I worked for had experience and a hands off attitude. He would chime in if I was getting tragically stupid, but would generally just let me screw up and learn. The one resounding message was: nobody will do it better than you because you care the most.

truth!

god I love what you're doing because I'm embarking on my own similar project! To get the fenders off... did you have to cut through a bit of paint or gunk on the top along the side of the engine bay? I'm so hesitant to hurt anything and I don't want to make any problems bigger, but I want to get the darn fenders off! lol

Yes I did. That's seam sealer, presumably used to try and keep water from getting between the fender and the chassis. What I found interesting is that it and the fenders are obviously put on the car before the final color coat - it's primer/base under that.
If you want to replace it, you can. Several auto body suppliers make seam sealer in squeeze tubes, caulking gun cartridges, and in cans for brushing on. I bought several caulking tubes of 3M's Dynatron seam sealer, to replace what I had to remove (or fell out by itself) when cleaning up the areas behind the front fenders. All the welded overlapping seams have seam sealer applied to them to, well, seal them. :P

3M makes like 20 varieties of seam sealer:
3M Seam Sealers | 3M United States

I used this one i particular: AmazonSmile: 3M Dynatron Auto Seam Sealer Caulk, 550, Grey, 12 oz: Garden & Outdoor
I believe that one was also available at my local O'Reilly Auto, if I needed it quickly.

You can see it in use here, on both one of the original seams, and the seams where I welded in new sheet metal:
Attachment 744699
Attachment 744700
Attachment 744701
Attachment 744702
(the grey caulk-looking stuff)

I'm debating whether or not to put sealer back when I reattach everything. I would usually say rust isn't a big problem in Texas, but it did make that mess of the cowl under the chassis braces...

So, it took a few rounds of trial and error to get my plating solution right again, but I finally got a nice plate on my test lag bolt:
Attachment 744677

Brushed:
Attachment 744678

Chromated!
Attachment 744679

Did a few of the front suspension washers as a further test:
Attachment 744680

Then decided to go big.
I did one of the sway bar brackets a while back, and apparently missed a few spots:
Attachment 744681

so I did the other one as another trial:
Attachment 744682

And it chromated nicely:
Attachment 744683
Attachment 744684
Attachment 744685
Attachment 744686

So I stripped the first one and did it again, too:
Attachment 744687
Attachment 744688

They came out beautifully. I can't tell you how relieved I was I finally got it working again.

I went ahead and re-plated a couple of the other bolts, just to be sure. These are the control arm pivot bolts.
Attachment 744673
The upper one is fresh out of the tank, and the lower one has been wiped down, but not brushed. They're coming out pretty clean and bright even before brushing, which is nice.

Attachment 744674
lower bolt is still just wiped down, upper has been brass wire-brushed.

Attachment 744675
Lower brushed, upper just out of the chromating solution.

Attachment 744676
Both chromated. They look like factory-new bolts!

Next up - scaling it up with a plating barrel! I sure hope that works. Doing these one or two at a time will take forever.

Even the ones you rejected looked great, but wow, with the process perfected, those are factory fresh.

Thanks!
Well, the ones I rejected were basically not completely plated, or not plated properly. If the chromate doesn't "stick", that means that the zinc isn't quite right or not there at all, so it's actually an easy way to tell the coating is compromised, and the part will likely rust there.

I had some success with the rest of the bolts, but haven't summoned the effort to write up the post. I plan to do that Friday afternoon. Spoiler: turned out niiiiice.

Damn.....those look great.....good job...

Thanks! You're really going to like this next bit.

So, trip report with the plating barrel.

Well, first, I plated the big washers to triple-check my process, and also kind of used them as a demo of the steps:
Raw. Well, two are failed plating.
Attachment 744653

Raw, fresh out of the tank, wiped down, and polished, L to R:
Attachment 744654

Fresh out, wiped down, polished, and black chromate, L to R:
Attachment 744655

And all black chromate:
Attachment 744656

Would prefer a darker black, but they look pretty much like the black chromate bolts I have, so that's it.

On to the bulk plating!

Start:
Attachment 744657
The hardware developed some nice patina since they were dunked in water, basically, in the previous attempt.

Another trip through the media blaster. Easier this time, since it was just light surface rust.
Attachment 744658

And then a quick trip to the wire brush wheel:
Attachment 744659

In progress:
Attachment 744660
If you look close, you can see the "fizzing" that indicates something good is happening.

Fresh out of the barrel and wiped down:
Attachment 744661

Starting the brush polishing:
Attachment 744662

First chromated items looks good!
Attachment 744663

Yeeessss:
Attachment 744664

Bolts and nuts next:
Attachment 744647

Polished:
Attachment 744648

Chromate:
Attachment 744649

I am beyond stoked. Those came out absolutely fantastic!

I did have one failure:
Attachment 744650

The flex to the electrode broke. Twice! this is the second time. I was using solder braid for the flex, soldered to the wire and the copper tube. You guessed it - it broke at the solder joint. You can see I fixed it the first time by using a butt crimp, then it broke at the other end.

I fixed that by upgrading to 16ga speaker cable and crimping both ends:
Attachment 744651
Attachment 744652

I need to invest in some ferrules and the square or hex crimper for those. Just learned about those a couple weeks ago.

I guess now I don't have an excuse to not reinstall the front suspension, or at least the crossmember. I do still need to order new bushings.

Damn, between this and 3D printers, we'll have brand new cars. Nice work.

That's right....😂🤣😂

Man, I hope so. I really need a 3D printer, for this and other projects. I backed one on Kickstarter, but it looks like I wasted my money, because: 3D printer on Kickstarter. *Everyone* seems to underestimate the realities of production...

Are you tired of plating chat, yet?
Refreshed the plating solution, and did a test plate.
Rusty-ass bolts:
Attachment 744581

I actually tried to plate these earlier with the previous solution, but I'd obviously tainted that batch, so I had to re-blast them and start over. It went great this time.
You've all seen the gold chromate, so I decided to show the black and "blue" chromate with these:
Attachment 744582
Attachment 744583

It's hard to see in the pictures, but even these have a little bit of the iridescence that's in the yellow. It's easier to see in the blue. The black isn't really as dark as I would like, but it's OK.

Test successful, I grabbed a baggie of hardware from the engine to clean up.
Attachment 744584

And a pair of springs and one bolt that was worse for wear from the clutch pedal assembly (the rest of that hardware was still fine):
Attachment 744585
The copper line thing is just a rig to hold the spring somewhat open so it will plate inside and between the coils, and also to let the media blaster get in there as well. I'll plate them one at a time on the frame.

All the stuff blasted:
Attachment 744586
Attachment 744587

I also figured out a feed problem with my media blaster. It was acting up again with the new gravity feed. Turns out the filter I had on the "air bleed" was too restrictive, so it couldn't flow enough air volume to draw the media all the way to the gun. Unscrewed that and I had a steady, consistent blast. It was very nice. Don't really need the filter - I just didn't want crap to get into it, mainly when just sitting, but I can close the bleed valve to prevent that, and just blow it out before use.

The springs, both plated. The one on the frame is fresh out of the tank, the other has been brushed:
Attachment 744588
Very nice!

The one on the frame brushed, versus the other with blue chromate:
Attachment 744589
Came out with a little bit more yellow in it, but not an issue. I'm looking for "no rust" here.

All the other hardware after a pass by the wire wheel:
Attachment 744590

Speaking of the wire wheel, I got tired of the wheel chucking shit out of the garage door, so I built this:
Attachment 744574
Hopefully it works. I added the rear vertical after it snatched a nut and bounced it off of the rag. Not out of the door, but I still had to go chase it.

The plating barrel performed well with the new electrode:
Attachment 744575

I did the banjo fitting seen in the earlier group picture separately
Attachment 744576

Brushed:
Attachment 744577
Attachment 744578

And chromated:
Attachment 744579
Attachment 744580

Again, this made me stupidly happy.

I still need to run all the other hardware through the wire brush (I *really* need to drop the $70 for a vbratory tumbler from HF...) and then dunk it in the chromate. I'll probably dunk all those at once rather than the one-at-a-time on a piece of wire I've been doing. I just need a small strainer basket.

Wandered out in the garage when I was supposed to be working (hey, I caught up on email, and had my phone with me!)

Wire-wheeled:
Attachment 744569

DIY strainer basket:
Attachment 744570

Sploosh:
Attachment 744571

Seems to have worked:
Attachment 744572

It's a little mottled, so the plating may not have taken exactly right in the barrel. The threads especially look to be iffy. I didn't dip these in muriatic acid, so that may be the issue, but I don't think I dipped the previous batch, either. It could also be because I didn't calculate the current, and just flew by the seat of my pants. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The washers came out really nice. the bolts and nuts are good enough - these are fasteners for various engine hangers-on. I'll leave them out in the garage for a while and see if they rust. Maybe mist them with water a little after the chromate hardens to push it.

I honestly can't decide whether to get a vibratory tumbler or one of the newer jewelry polishing tumblers.
This:
https://shop.harborfreight.com/media.../7/67617_I.jpg

versus this:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....S5vZL._AC_.jpg

LegitStreetCars on YT loved the rolling tumbler for cleaning fasteners in a recent video.
Both roughly the same price, about $65-70

For polishing, I'd need to figure out what media to load the jewelry tumbler with. I still have some of the triangular media for the vibratory (I used to have one - it got disappeared.)
Looks like stainless-steel shot (various shapes) and "Shine Bright" are the ticket.
It's only money...

edit: and maybe a little 3" mini-bench grinder I can mount a small brass wire wheel on. Like this little guy:
https://shop.harborfreight.com/media...mage_17084.jpg

Only $40! The flex shaft motor tool is pretty neat.

I also found the other bags of hardware that need to be done!
Attachment 744573

As the labels indicate, this is all the bits and fasteners for under-hood stuff.
Definitely need to get a tumbler.

Bought a rotary tumbler - should be here on Wednesday, and I'll see how it works on the next batch of bolts.
In the meantime, some larger solo stuff.

Last post I pictured this batch:
Attachment 744550

So let's do those brackets in the front. These are to mount the the airbox/AFM in the front right corner of the engine bay.
Blasted:
Attachment 744551
(the rivet in the clip for the connector broke, which is just as well. It would have been difficult to plate as one piece. It's just a 1/8" rivet, but I do need to get some shorter ones - all I have are 3/16-1/4" grip.)

polished:
Attachment 744552

Screws for the sensor plated and polished:
Attachment 744553

Screws chromated:
Attachment 744554
:thumbsup:

One bracket plated and polished:
Attachment 744555
Attachment 744556

Chromated:
Attachment 744557
Attachment 744558

Second bracket came out a little weird:
Attachment 744538
Attachment 744539
Attachment 744540
Attachment 744541
Attachment 744542
Attachment 744543

Well, that was unsatisfying. I think I left it out too long after dunking in the acid - it developed a little surface rust, which wiped off, but...
The somewhat complex shape also makes it difficult to plate evenly. The inside corners tend to get thin coverage. I'll try again.
While I was re-blasing that part, I dunked the clip:
Attachment 744544
Attachment 744545
Attachment 744546
Attachment 744547

Nice. Obviously, I went with black on that part. I made sure to run a session with one anode *inside* the clip, to make sure that part got plated. Looks like it worked. I used that technique to target the "inside" areas on the big bracket on the second try, too. Worked a lot better this time around:
Attachment 744548
Attachment 744549
:nice:

Got off my butt on Sunday (Saturday was dedicated to fixing a few small things around the house and garage, but mostly video games...) and started some reassembly!

Pile of front suspension bits (minus a few things):
Attachment 744505

Reattached to the car:
Attachment 744506

Radius rods ready to go back on:
Attachment 744507

Speaking of, I had to re-do those big washers. They developed some rust on the outside edges:
Attachment 744508

Second (third, for a couple of them) time around looks better:
Attachment 744509

While farting around with the other stuff, I noted that the clutch push rod needed love:
Attachment 744510
Attachment 744511
Attachment 744512
Attachment 744513

... huh, I forgot to get a picture of it chromated. It came out nice.

And I started on a couple of other steery bits:
Attachment 744514

Didn't get to the steering box. The sway bar took a lot longer to blast than I anticipated. It also made a mess, because it didn't fit.
Attachment 744499
(I almost immediately replaced the plastic with an old sheet that worked much better.)
Attachment 744500
Attachment 744501
Attachment 744502

Little bit of pitting where the bushings go:
Attachment 744503
Oh, well.

Went with "cast iron" engine paint on this, for contrast (and my can of black appliance epoxy enamel was almost empty.)
Attachment 744504

Nice...looking nice indeed...

I need to get me one of those sand blasting cabinets.... It would have made my life a little easier🤷‍♂️