Still, although I'm behind where I wanted to be with the main chassis, I've made some progress with the wiring loom. After some help from Dad over Christmas with cleaning and repairing the insulation I've now refitted it to the chassis. It involved some real 'James Herriot' action to run it back through the frame tunnel from the battery box to the headstock, I had my arm right inside working it into place!
With the loom fitted I've started refitting the indicator and tail light bodies to the back end of the chassis. However, this has caused me a bit of a dilemma. The original finish on the metal parts of the indicators is anodised aluminium. As you might expect after all these years there is a reasonable amount of corrosion and removing this has also removed the anodising, which gave them their satin finish. I've had a go at polishing the aluminium, which isn't really the finish I was after, and the results are OK. There is a bit of a mottled finish though. In an ideal world I would probably vapour blast and then re-anodise the parts, but that's getting a bit serious for this restoration. So I will probably stick with a polished finish. I just need to work our how to get rid of the mottling, any pointers welcome!
Before
After
'OE' satin finish versus my mottled polishing!
This raises a bit of a dilemma with the switch gear as well, which is fairly grubby. I have another two sets of switch gear, but all in bits (as in they've been completely stripped). I don't really want to disassemble this set, as it is the only reference I have for putting the others back together. A polished finish wouldn't really be suitable for the switch gear. I think I'll have to have a go at some gentle cleaning and see how it comes out.
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