[truck21]

After six hours on the road the 77 208 is home. She's a bit rough and needs lots of love. As you can see in the pictures their are some parts missing and a couple hacked up but nothing we can't fix. By the way Troy, check out the serial plate would you like a challenge?

 

[johndeereelfman]

I'm game buddy, bring it on. Always up for a good challenge. Let me know when you have it removed and I'll come by and pick it up.

 

[johndeereelfman]

What are the painted numbers above the serial tag Don, anything important or rare?

 

[truck21]

Probably get it off tomorrow my butt is dragging from work this morning and then six hours on the road. Amazing how tired you get just sitting.

 

[johndeereelfman]

Take your time. I'm out of town this week and next, so the weekends are only my free time.

 

[truck21]

What are the painted numbers above the serial tag Don, anything important or rare?

Wish I knew its some kind of stick on label.

 

[truck21]

Take your time. I'm out of town this week and next, so the weekends are only my free time.

Show meeting?

 

[Chaser]

Cool congrats Don!

 

[Kster526]

Nice Don, love the drywall screws for the choke cable clamp. They really chewed up the battery box .
Nice addition to the team. Does she run so you can bring it to the Roots show.

 

[truck21]

Ignition switch has a broken terminal so I couldn't start it saw it running on video though. Yeah I thought I had a battery box but I guess I'll have to find one. I assume this thing is supposed to have a full size battery in it. Any good pics you can send of yours will be greatly appreciated. Don't know about the show I still got a lot to do on the other two.

 

[johndeereelfman]

Show meeting?

Fingers crossed my friend!

 

[Kster526]

They do not I had checked and bought the battery with the correct CCA at Deka as there up the road.
I'll get the 208 out Sunday and send you pics for those few items

 

[johndeereelfman]

Well, I received the 208 serial tag last night and accepted the challenge with a firm hand shake. However this wasn't as much of a challenge as I thought it would be. Things are coming along quite well I think, but here's a little progress report for you Don and I'll let you be the judge. The fun part hasn't started yet, but at least you'll be able to see for yourself that it will look a whole lot better than it did.

Step 1: (As Received)

Step 2: (Shiny but Still Green)

Step 3: (Down to the Black base Coat)

Step 4: (Almost Completely Stripped)

Step 5: (Completely Stripped)

Step 6: (New Black Base Coat Applied)

I'll update more as I get further along. I just wanted to give you a little teaser for now!!

 

[Kster526]

Please post more I enjoy seeing how you
do this task.
What are the rivets called you use to reattach the plate and what size are they if I may ask? Thank you

 

[johndeereelfman]

Here you go Don. I don't have it clear coated yet, as I want your opinion first. As you can see in the picture, I got a little rub mark/wear just above the serial number bar on the upper left side and want to know if you want it redone? After scraping all of the paint off of the lettering, tag edging, and serial number bar, I had a couple of small scratches that I wanted to remove and got a little too close with the steel wool pad. The dullness of the tag will go away once I clear coat it, but if you want the tag redone, I'll hold off on the clear coating and polishing. Let me know what your wishes are and I'll go from there.

Kyle, I attached the identification label for you so that you can see the size of the twist rivet. Hope this is what you wanted.

 

[truck21]

Troy, I'm good with it just the way it is. I appreciate your time and your willingness to do this for me.

 

[johndeereelfman]

Today I was going to spray the tag with clear, but just couldn't bring myself to do it as I really wasn't happy with the rub mark. So instead, I did the tag again. I know you said you were happy with the results Don, but I think it looks much better now. I'm very happy with the results this time. Here it is with two coats of clear applied.

 

[truck21]

Definitely looks great but you didn't have to put yourself through all of the extra trouble. THANK YOU!

 

[Kster526]

Thank s for posting that Troy.
After you spray the black hoe do you clean the aluminum without masking it off?

 

[johndeereelfman]

Thank s for posting that Troy.
After you spray the black hoe do you clean the aluminum without masking it off?

I scrape off all of the unwanted black paint with a wide flange dentist pick. Once it's all removed then I carefully go over all of the exposed aluminum parts with a very fine steel wool pad being careful not to hit any of the black base coat as it will dull the paint finish. Timing of the paint cure is very important as you don't want the paint too soft, but also not wanting it too hard as it will chip in big flakes causing the paint to be removed in areas that you don't want it removed.

There are some collectors on Facebook that think or thought this is/was an easy process, however after trying to do a tag or two over on their own, they quickly found out that they aren't getting the same results that I am. Some guys are ruining their tags just from trying to get the black base coat removed. I'm all game for guys wanting to perfect this, however it's not something that you will learn overnight. I think it was at least a year and half to two years before I was comfortable enough to start doing these tags over for other guys.