Duplicolor truck bed coat in a spray can, from the local parts store. Worked great, touches up with a can of satin black krylon, and covered plenty of scratches.
The manifold was powder-coated "silver-vein" by a guy local to me, not sure if I took a picture before I put it together.
Been a good couple of years since I updated this. After coming home from deployment I got the car out of its 6 month hibernation on Easter 2012. Checked everything over and drove it around town for 45 minutes. Everything looked good, sounded good. Got it on the highway and hit it pretty hard, BANG BANG BANG. Shut if off and called a flatbed. Pulled the motor the next night. Upon teardown of the motor the rod cap in question exhibited bolts that had backed halfway out and hit the block hard. The rod bearing had flipped into itself and things were pretty ugly. This Dart block 347 had been together for a couple years, a few thousand street miles and some fun runs at the track. After being gone so long I was just -done- with the car. I went out and bought a motorcycle two weeks later (my first time back on a bike since being hit by a car in September 2009) and allowed the Maverick to collect dust. Over the next year I really didn't do anything but go out to the garage and stare at it a few times. I bought a "pro touring" style spoiler from @spoilersbyrandy here on the board. I mounted the spoiler and started work on my grill project while working nights. That was my only progress until Spring 2014.
After dusting off a car with no drivetrain for a couple years I decided it was time to make decisions. I pulled my Weld Centerline wheels off the car and sold them at a swap meet. Threw the old American Racing junkers on it to roll around the garage while I decided what I wanted to run. I eventually settled on 15x9 Weld RT-S S71 wheels with black anodized centers and polished lips for the rear and a 6" version with a 26" tall MT Sportsman Radial for the front. The rears would be mated to a 28" tall MT Drag Radial I was potentially going to run into a space issue.... so it was time to call a friend. This was the hardest decision I've ever made. My '71 has never been out of my hands since I bought it in 2005. My buddies and I have done all the work on the car in our garages. My buddy runs a top notch fabrication shop just a few minutes away so I decided to give him a call. He picked up the car and once again I was on the road... on a flatbed. I pulled the trigger on wanting to tuck these tires and give the car a mean stance. No turning back now.
Nice Looking Maverick! Can you post more pictures of these wheels on your Maverick? Could you choose a smaller tire and not have clearance issues? Or will it rub the leaf springs either way?
Here's a better shot of the rear wheel, no brake behind it for this one though. I can't speak to leaf spring clearance with this tire, but it sure looks like it would have fit if I had not decided I wanted to tuck things in. Plenty of folks have run 267/65's on 8" wheels in the past.
Looking good Bruce! Glad to see some progress..hope to see it in person one of these days. What's the plans for the drive train?
The car will make it to Somernites in 2016 I hope! The damage to the block wasn't too bad, just a small crack at the bottom of the bore so I'm putting it back together with a different set of pistons, having the machine shop go over everything as there always seemed to be a balance issue. I might have snagged a set of the new AFR heads too.
