Next thing I'm doing on my '65 Comet is re-installing the front suspension.

It has a narrowed Econoline beam axle with Poisies leaf springs.

I want to paint them to improve the appearance and to keep surface rust from happening.

So, do I...

disassemble the spring assembly and paint all the leafs separate? 

or do I paint the springs as an assembled unit?

Also, what color is most appropriate for the front leafs on a straight axle hot rod? I was thinking maybe black hammertone, but suggestions are appreciated.   

What is old is new again.

I was cleaning out my shed and came upon some cylinder heads. C0AE-D heads seem to follow me around. Currently I have 5. The middle head is also a "D" head. I got a call from an old friend about 10 years ago and he said he was clearing out some "junk". He asked me if I wanted a "kidney bean" FE head that had some chamber "work" done on it. I said sure.

When I got it I had never seen a chamber like it. This year I finally got some BBM heads. It clicked that I'd seen something similar in an old Ford head...like a 60 year old head. Kind of fun looking at the progression.

I have a pair of C3AE-D 427 Low Riser heads I bought back when I was a teenager. They had been ported by Valley Head Service in the San Fernando Valley, and the guy I bought them from was done with hot rods. I ran them on my 390 for a few years before I swapped in a 427.
Back then was the beginning of nitrous oxide kits becoming available and I was along for the ride. There were no real performance head gaskets available except the Ford 427 shim. That would take some abuse but only for so long. I had my D heads o-ringed to the fire ring on the Ford shim and ran a 18 ga. copperwire in them. It worked well.
A few years later I built a 454 inch Hi Riser with some VERY milled heads. The engine ran great but in my reluctance to mill the intake it was a bear to get the motor to seal up. When the rumor mill started the Edelbrock was coming out with an FE head I was one of the first to sign up and pre-ordered a set from Blair's Speed Shop in Pasadena, California. Swore I'd never use iron heads again.

Now I'm old and want to start using some parts off of my junk pile. I want to use my old D heads but I need to use a gasket that the fire ring matches the o-rings. On the 1020 FelPro and the regular blue, my o-rings come inside in a couple places. The other composition gaskets I have do the same. The only gaskets that actually fit the round o-ring that I have are the Titan SCE gaskets I used to run on my blown 427, and some old copper asbestos sandwich jobs that have been at the bottom of my gasket pile for who knows how long.
Long story long...are the old sandwich gaskets any good at all?