To bring color back to these pieces, wipe the original paint off. It will come off easily with alcohol and/or paint thinner. The black letters L, W and B will remain. The new paint is transparent; it is more of a top coat than a paint. The L W B show through as well as the chrome base. This new paint is thin and prone to runs & sags. Multiple light coats are best. You will find it easier to paint pieces laying horizontal on a workbench and they need to be warm. Warm pieces help the paint to tack faster. The more paint you apply, the stronger the color becomes. You don't have to be perfect with your masking. It is easy to remove overspray with 0000 steel wool or a finger nail.

The hand brake handle is retained with a roll pin, easy to remove. The ignition switch bezel comes off with the pod. It will be difficult to reinstall ignition and blower pod (retained by 3 screws which have to find loose nuts, all with limited access). Even so, I get better results removing these pieces and paint them laying flat on a workbench.

So what paint to use? Graefen's handbook for the 300C says on page 2 of section Paints "Candy gold transparent top coat (no base coat) on concave centers of dash knobs and instrument center cones." I used Metalcast orange-copper anodized MC205. I had the radio knob from a C to compare and it was a nice match. There are other paints, perhaps some a better match to original.
Years ago Jim Krausmann wrote this: "Soap and water bath. If the knobs are scratched with missing color you'll need to remove the rest of it. If just faded I'd try coating over it. Use lacquer thinner and/or 0000 steel wool to remove the old color. Mask. The coating is Barnett Industries Easy-On Wood Finish, rock maple #102. It's really a spray can of tinted lacquer. I found it locally in specialty paint and varnish store. After that dried I sprayed an ultra light mist coat of Eastwood's spray anodized gold aerosol." When I checked in 2024, Barnett Industries was not in business and I could not find rock maple #102, so I went with Metalcast.
Here is the video of our knob painting.

The headlight and heater also have flat chrome pieces that fit between the knob and the dash. PAN for panel lights and DEF with off-on arrows. On these pieces the normal Testor's black paint works fine. Going through my spare pieces to select the best ones, I noticed the pieces have different fonts as shown in this picture. Perhaps different manufacturers, perhaps the same supplier with a production change.

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The car was missing its bumper jack. Although a bumper jack will never be used on this car (scratch the bumpers), there should be something to fill the place in the trunk. I found a spare incorrect jack and painted it. One of those little things, and now it is no longer on the to-do list. The jack shaft is too long for the blast cabinet, so I remove the elevator, blast that piece, and wire brush the shaft. I used Eastwood spray gray on the shaft and their gloss chassis black on the elevator.

The jack sheet was missing so I got a new one from Quirey and installed with PSA on the back. There is no specific location for the sheet, just somewhere in the trunk area. Proper storage of the bumper jack is on the jack sheet -- the slider runs to the bottom of the shaft, the bumper hook is placed on the slider, the hook edge fits over the carpet edge, the other end of the jack shaft fits in the trunk latch bracket, and the shaft screwed tight with the bracket.

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The power seat needed attention. The switch was upside down so forward was back, up was down. Some of the solenoids were chattering as well. You can remove the seat from the frame with four 1/2" nuts, two on each frame rail. This leaves the power seat tracks in place so you don't have to disconnect the power wires. The seat is lighter this way as well although with the seat back cushions, it is awkward and unbalanced. Let's see what the power seat system needs.

I happened to be working on the power seat from the black C at the same time as this car. You can catch the fun here. I have the solenoids all working but the seat switch is doing strange things at times -- the rear risers go up while going forward. I see there is a switch rebuilding service on Ebay and a few used switches as well. This is something we can easily get into sometime in the future.

While the seat is out of the car, now is the time to take it over to Legendary for the installation of the covers. The previous owner bought a full kit a long time ago and had the rear seat done but not the front. As a result, we have a new cover waiting for install. I happened to check the rubber anchors (there are 14). They look fine but I will order new one from Quirey just to be safe.

Pictures of August 2024

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