Let's try continuing with the air meter now that I'm better rested. (Nothing like making a goof up to start your day is there??
)
Once the rust converter dries it's paintable. The converter turns black so where it shows around the edges of the number window cutouts I used a little Testors white enamel paint. Only on the sides of the cutouts, not on the face itself.
The face plate is held on by screws that have white felt washers under the heads. This is to prevent cracking the porcelain on the face plate when tightening the screws. There were a couple of scratches on the face plate and I didn't think I could match the color close enough so I just waxed the the face plate. That should keep those scratched areas from rusting for a long time. (the screw heads won't show, no need to clock them)
I don't know of any place to get theses special white felt washers, not being reproduced to the best of my knowledge. I'm just fortunate enough that my air meter still had the originals. A little cleaning and they were good to go.
The word AIR on the front is illuminated and light from that spills down the front so the meter is legible and usable at night. You have to disassemble an awful lot of "stuff" to change that bulb. So I hunted down.....
...2.5 watt LED bulb for it. GE says it's good for 12,000 hours so I should get a fews years use before it needs to be replaced.
The seals for the front and rear covers were also replaced. They are only at the tops of the frame. That's the black material seen around the edge of the frame.
Here are the covers, newly powder coated.
Since they were powder coated I ran a tap down the threads to clean them up before installing them.
Some of the mounting hardware.
You can see that the screws for the face plate don'e readily show.
You have to look in the side to see them. That's a good way to check to see if those felt washers are there or not. If you're looking to buy one of these air meters and it's got those white felt washers there's a good chance it hasn't been "messed" with too much and the face plate is probably not cracked under the screw heads.
I waxed the data plate and used new stainless steel screws on it.....
... and on the cover screws and washers also. If a piece of equipment is being used outside I really like using stainless hardware where ever possible. It's readily available anymore, and I find it's not all that expensive.
The hose hook had to be installed before the front cover is fully installed. That's a fun trick to do by yourself and any of you who have done this, you know what I mean!!
Not completely done yet, to be continued....
Thomas
It's hard enough to trouble shoot problems without accurate, concise descriptions.
