Whilst the fiesta is in the bodyshop, I've had all of the front suspension, wishbone carriers and rack off. The wishbone carriers look pretty manky so thought best clean them up, give them a repaint etc.

First call was to stick them in the parts washer at work, but that didn't quite do the trick, if anything at all. So started to think about shot blasting and powder coating. I like to do stuff myself so started browsing for options. The best option seemed to just get a shot blasting cabinet and after a eBay browse, a 4 hour round trip i picked up this for £80:

A Sealey SB951. Come with a bag of grit too. I had never shot blasted before, so although i knew the basic principal, i didn't know what to expect or how good the items to come out. So if you don't know: There is a airgun inside the cabinet that has a big hose on the bottom of it that sucks up shot blasting 'media' from the bottom of the cabinet, when you pull the trigger it fires the media out at what ever your pointing it at to remove rust, dirt, paint etc.

I only have a little SIP compressor, oil free, 50litre tank, so not particularly powerful - but it has seemed to of holded out not to bad for this application. The working pressure is 90PSI. A bigger air tank would certainly help.

After a having a go theres a few things to bear in mind that will probably help anyone using a cabinet of this size:

• Dust - there is lots of it. I under estimated it at first, it really makes actually being able to see whats going on in there a pain. On this cabinet there is a specific point to be able to hook up an extractor (or in my case, an old hoover). The filter gets clogged up quite quickly but its definitely worth doing.
• My cabinet was used and the viewing lid plastic had started to go a bit cloudy. They do have disposable covers to protect the plastic, but that was pretty useless IMO. I had a bit of polycarbonate clear sheet which I'm making a new lid. If you've got a new unit, will probably be alright.
• The biggest problem i suffered with at first was with the lack of 'media' going up the suction pipe. As you can see from the following pics, the cabinet bottom is shaped in a 'V' and the shot blasting media should make its way to the bottom of the tank to be sucked up:

    

The first piece that i done was my wishbone carrier, maybe it just made it a bit awkward as it was quite big for the cabinet but i found the the media just sat on the edges and never quite made its way down to the bottom. I could of filled the cabinet up more i suppose, i do think that if i was cleaning up a smaller item it may not have been as much of a problem but my solution was as follows:

I placed the cabinet over the edge of a bench, stuck a bucket under the drain bung as can be seen in photo above (white bung in the corner), filled the bucket with the media and stuck the suction pipe straight into this. This way it lasts for quite a while until you need to sweep the grit over and let it pour back into the bucket. As your blasting it tends to fall back into the bucket anyway for a constant slow top up in the bucket.

• The inside light is useless. Working on this.
• Its quite boring! It took me quite a while to do one wishbone carrier! I probably should of started on something smaller to be honest, I would imagine that a brake caliber wouldn't take too long and would probably be easier than the carrier.
• Wear a dust mask.

None the less, i was pretty happen with the results that I've had. Certainly will be able to stick some paint on them and will be good for many years to come.

 

If you have a question, I am more than happy to help! Stick a comment below.