parts inventory

Everyone I've talked to in the hobby says the same thing: you can't take too many photos when you're tearing down your project. And another thing that we're all agreed on is that you must have a parts inventory; simply put, you need to know which bits of your car go where when it's time for re-assembly. With the availability of digital cameras these days, there's no excuse for not photographing every part as you remove it from the vehicle. It's a good idea to clean each part as you go.

I have been sorting my cleaned parts into piles, depending on what they need (blasting, painting, replacement etc). I already have quite a few things in the media blasting pile.>

Like almost all the trim I have removed, the headlamp retaining rings were covered with over spray (below right); fortunately most of it can be removed with wire wool.

The tail light assemblies were a bit rusted. It is actually quite an effort to get this thing apart as it was originally glued together.

I managed to get most of the rust and debris off the assembly parts by scrubbing with wire wool and a kitchen sponge. All these parts came out nice and will be reused. For now, I am packing all my cleaned up parts into boxes so they will be ready for reassembly later.