So I had an original 8K Low Profile Rally Pac that needed restoring. I search and found a bunch of posts on here about it and it actually was easier then I thought with a great outcome. I first tested it to see if the whole thing was working on the car... the tach worked, the clock did not, wasn't too surprised. I disassembled the whole thing and benched test to see what was going on with the clock, it was surprising very clean inside, both the clock and tach. The clock's points had a touch of build up so I gently filed them down and cleaned them and boom, started working. I went through the clock and oiled it using Liberty clock oil, very small amounts. Tested it over several days slowly adjusting the clock as it got off (interestingly these have a built in feature that the more you adjust the time it eventually "learns" because of a movement inside and will start keeping correct time based on which way you use the chrome dial to adjust the clock. So it started keeping perfect time.
I used a citrus based stripper on the casing, it worked incredibly well and easy, old wrinkle paint just came right off so no blasting or anything like that needed. I used a red scotch bright to scuff the surface to get a little tooth for the new crinkle paint to adhere to. Also tape off the inner surface that gets the flat non-wrinkle color. Cleaned the case right before painting with wax remover / degreaser.
So before I painted the case, I made these little wire holders for each piece so I could really get good even paint coverage and also was thinking about about the baking process. I had these and the paint out in the sun, about 70 degrees, for about a 1/2 hour, nice and warm.
As for the paint, I used the cheap easy to find Black wrinkle paint VHT Wrinkle Plus. I was hesitant because I've heard so many other methods and wasn't sure this was going to work as well as I wanted. I watch a ton of videos and read a bunch of technics. The one that I liked and seem to look like what I was going for I used...
Painting the casing I followed the directions making sure to get even thick coats, vertical, horizontal, and diagonal... and way thicker then I'm used to painting out of a can, 5 mins between coats. When finished I let it sit for another five minutes, I did NOT let it wrinkle on it's own as the can says to do, I wanted a tight wrinkle and even so it went directly into the over at 200 degrees for about 15-20 mins, I kept checking on it with a light to see the wrinkle and pulled it out as soon as it got to where I wanted. As it cooled it shrinks a little more, but not much. I was really surprised at how closely to the original its came out with this cheap paint and it stuck to the case really well.
When I painted the inner smooth surface I first used a satin gloss black... It looked to shinny so I was prepared and used the same Semi Flat 1613 Industrial Krylon we all love for out engine bays, it looked perfect in the end, the semi gloss or satin gloss I think would have too much sheen.
As for the other parts, I just carefully clean and polished and wiped all the wires with safety clean (which worked great on the wires by the way), all the chrome rings cleaned up really nice, the only think I replaced were the lenses and black center rings because those were pretty beat up... by the way, don't order the Scott Drakes, the don't have the pins on the back you need to go through the lenses with and melt, I guess they want you to just stick them on or something, really weird.
Anyway, here are photos of the process and finals. I think it came out great and matches the originals pretty well.
Hope this helps someone else in the future.
Jason
