10 Degrees Outside And I Am Painting?

I got up early to turn the heaters on in the garage. It was 8 degrees at 5:00AM when I turned on the heaters. At 8:00AM it was 5 degrees! I was thinking to myself there is no way I am going to be able to paint today. Surprisingly at 12:30PM it was 53 degrees in the garage...and warm enough to paint!

Just as I was going to get started I got a call about a job opportunity and had to make a few phone calls. I did not get back out to the garage until 1:30PM.

I had to start by masking off the threads on the tie rod ends. I decided I could paint carefully around all of the other parts.

I laid everything out on a tarp and balanced the center link and Panhard/trackbar brace across the saw horses. I was messing with hanging the tie rod ends from the saw horses to see if it would work to hang them that way to dry.

The center link did not want to stay put on the saw horses so I put the wiper linkage in its place.

Here is the steering linkage after a coat of POR-15. Is it not amazing how much better it looks? I decided to only paint the arms as the other parts were not painted before.

Here is the Panhard/trackbar brace after the first coat of POR-15.

The tie rod ends and their clamps after the first coat of POR-15. I decided to hang these from a box instead of the saw horses. None of the painted surfaces are touching the box even though it appears they are.

I ended up hanging the Pitman arm, idler arm and center link in order to properly paint them all in one shot. They were too heavy for the fish line I had so I used some gardening twist ties. I finished painting at 3:00PM.

I went back out to the garage at 7:20PM to apply the second coat. It took a little longer than normal for the first coat to dry, no doubt because they did not expect an idiot to be painting when it was only 1 degree outside. I finished the second coat at 8:00PM.

One thing I want to point out about the pint can of black POR-15 I ordered is that it was extremely difficult to get open. It took me five minutes to get the can open this morning and that took just about mutilating the lid. In contrast, I can pop open one of the six pack cans in about five seconds.

I remember reading about someone else's experience with the quart cans and in that case they could not get the lid off and end up punching a hole in it and pouring it out.

When it came time to seal the can up, I could not get it to stay sealed because the lid and the can were bent from my effort to open them earlier. I used a pair of Quick Grips to hold the lid down firmly. All in all I would highly recommend just buying the six packs. Even though it will cost a little more they are much easier to work with.

As it is now -5 degrees outside I fear I will not be able to keep the temperature up in the garage for much longer. I will be putting the third coat on in the morning as long as it is warm enough in the garage to paint.