I can't quite believe it all worked out

Early on the fourth straight day of battling with the car, the engine is in and the car is running; I'll be able to drive it onto the truck. I'm not sure I believe it. Not bad for not knowing what I'm doing.  Here's how it unfolded:

I lost a couple days to packing, work, and a huge yard sale, so Sunday was when I started up again on the car. It was the first of several days waking up early without an alarm. I did a fair bit of planning to devise a blocking scheme to lift my car without killing myself. It took two trips to Home Despot, considerable patience and some schlepping of the jack back and forth to get the car up and the engine in place. This is how it looked with the car at the proper height and the engine underneath the engine compartment:

and here is the engine a bit higher:

The next day was a day of lessons learned.  The first attempt was a bust.  Apparently the rear engine tin and the muffler need to come off - the fit is just too tight otherwise.  So up went the engine and then down came the engine to take off the tin and muffler.  Fits much better that way:

Once I got it lined up it slid in so easily I wasn't sure it was even in.  I tightened the engine bolts to spec and started connecting all the goodies that connect to an engine when I realized that the gas cable couldn't pass through... and thus started the battle of Tona versus the rubber.  I think it was about two hours to get that damn seal anywhere near where it should be - pushing it in, undoing the engine bolts, sliding the engine out again, using tape to hold the seal upward, cursing, sweating, who knows what else.  Eventually I got it done, made sure the gas cable could pass through well, and re-attache the tin and the muffler.  I was spent after a long, 8 hour day.  Here's the engine installed with the tin and muffler reassembled.

The following day, Tuesday, I got down to business reconnecting ignition wires, hoses, the gas tank, a new battery, and all other miscellaneous items that needed connecting.  With any luck, the car would be running by the end of the day... luck that was not to come.  Before putting gas in the car, I decided to turn the key to see if the starter would even turn and ... nothing.  Not even the solenoid.  OK I lied.  Not nothing.  The turn signal indicator light was flashing, even thought the turn signals and emergency flasher were not turned on.

At this point I started freaking out.  We were now in land of open-ended trouble shooting and who knows how long this might take.  I followed some sort of systematic trouble shooting. I had fiddled with the turn signal relay and un- and re-plugging the cables seemed to solve that problem, but the starter was still dead silent.  I cleaned all the battery terminals very well to make sure there was enough juice, plugged in the headlights to turn them on and see if they were bright or dim... and then they didn't work at all, so then I ended up trying to figure out that problem on the assumption that the same lack of juice at the headlights was related to the lack of juice at the solenoid.  It turns out the problems were unrelated, and to cut an already unbearably long story short, I noticed a disconnected cable, checked the wiring diagram, reconnected it, and viola!  A turn of the key and the starter came to life.  I never solved the headlight issue, but I ended the day pretty convinced I'd get the job done.

Today, the fourth day, was a glorious finish.  I got gas, filled the tank, poured some in the carb, and even though it didn't start right away, my neighbor came over with some engine starter spray, and I sprayed that sucker while he started the car and eventually the fuel pump started drawing fuel from the tank.  I did a quick tune - points gap and timing - and then I did a quick test ride.

This was the first time the car had been driven in over three years.  I didn't know how relieved I'd feel that this was all finished.  I pulled in triumphantly to the drive,

and  then just did the boring task of getting the car packed and the fenders on for the trip.  A bit of attention was needed since the windows are down and I don't want the headliner padding to fly away.  Here we are, ready to travel:

And then, without losing a beat, I packed up the garage... car gets picked up tomorrow and the stuff on Friday.

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Sunday: 5 hours, Monday: 8 hours, Tuesday: 4 hours, Wednesday: 3 hours

Re-starting (in a mad hurry)

Well, we're moving to LA - the car is now on it second move and isn't finished... this is highly dissapointing, but I guess its the reality of the situation.  But now the movers are taking the car in a bit over a week and I need to get the car running.  Earlier in the week I got the brakes re-connected and bled.  Yesterday I got the steering column in.  So I guess now I can harness the car's power, which won't be terribly much until I get the engine back in.  That leads to today.

Today was prep of the engine compartment.  I got the tar firewall insulation installed (a rather crappy job too, but it's not very visible and I'll be tarring up the inside of the car too) and one of the rubber engine seals.  I got under the apron and cleaned off loose surface rust.  Not really necessary but this area won't be accessible once the engine is in and I figure a bit of extra protection will help 20 years down the road.  As I write I have a surface treatment eating away any bits of remaining rust and then I'll cold galvanize it.  Then the engine goes in... which I find terrible intimidating... especially under time pressure... we'll see how it goes.

Here's the engine compartment ALMOST ready to take an engine:

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 Last three days: 5 hours (1+1+3)

Welding

I let the latest update lag a bit.  This one is back from Wednesday, September 9th.  The day was exciting.  The write-up is boring.

It was a long day, 7 hours all told.  Rented the welder in the AM.  Came home and practiced making some beads on scrap metal.  Once I got the MIG settings right and had taught myself to weld, I did half of the welding job on scrap metal.  Only then did I get around to the parts on the car.

All in all it went quite well.  I plugged all the spot welds that were previously drilled out.  I only burned through twice.  A couple of pieces of scrap metal tacked onto the back let me finish those last two welds.  The welds were pretty big, so I spend a good amount of time grinding.  A couple welds needed to be filled in a bit more and reground..  I think it looks pretty good:

To finish off, I sprayed all over with the cold galvanizer.  I then yanked on it as hard as I could.  The piece didn't budge at all.  Hopefully it will pass the "doesn't fall apart while driving" test.

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7 hours

Look Ma, no engine!

First things first: the water problem is resolved. The water test came back negative. Now we just have to wait until winter to drive it in the rain.

Exciting things second: the engine is out and the new apron fits like a glove. In terms of complexity, there really wasn't anything difficult. I just followed the manual step by step. In terms of intimidation it was pretty high - I hear the engine is kind of important if you want your car to run. In terms of actually removing the upper engine bolts, it was a real bear. You can't see either and have to feel around for both. The one on the right side removes from inside the engine compartment - the bolt on the other end has a specially shaped head that keeps it from spinning. The one on the left side removes from underneath the car, tucked behind the clutch lever, and requiring a ratchet with an extension on it - the nut is pressed into the engine block. A true pain in the ass... and the knuckles. That said, once the bolts were out it was easy to just pull the engine out backwards (while resting on a floor jack) . I'm still not sure how I'm getting it back in once the apron is in the way - it's gonna be a much tighter fit.

I guess I'll jump off that bridge when I get to it. Now for pictures:

Car minus engine


Engine minus car
(oohh... pretty)


New apron in place


A few spot welds to fill

Now I'm away from the car for three weeks... enough time to figure out what to do about the welding.

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Thursday: 3.5 hours

Misc Progress

Task #1 was to re-water test... and unfortunately I still haven't found the area of intrusion. I scraped off the previous repair and looked extremely carefully. It seems that there are a couple locations. One is at the rubber seal itself, near the shift coupler where it turns a sharp corner. This area got sealed with the window bead sealant, and a water test indicated that the repair is holding. A second spot is at the grommets. These ones got blocked with foam (again). I'll water test tomorrow after curing. I also noticed that the bolt that holds the battery in place is leaking a bit. I placed bead sealer and will also water test tomorrow.

This has gotten me thinking. I'm going to drive the car during a rainy season without carpet intalled. This will let me see if under operating conditions there are any other leaks to fix before I install carpet.

Since I want to finish sealing before I drop the engine (not sure why), I didn't get started on the engine, but instead took out the spot welds on the replacement apron. Here's the old and the new.

They're the same size - it's only perspective that makes them look different. The replacement one is not waaay better than the old one, but it only has surface rust and bumps - the old one has some cancer that's eaten the whole way thorough and I sort of mangled it when I took it out. The workmanship on the replacement one is top notch. No mangling here.

Now, who will weld it in???

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Monday: 2.5 hours

Water testing and sealing

Tuesday was time to pick up where we left off. First was to remove, inspect and replace if necessary all the bolts holding the body to the chassis. Any bolt showing thread corrosion got replaced (about half) and the front ones got the shiny new stainless ones. They all got a healthy dose of anti-seize lube. This took surprisingly long, but I guess there are a lot of bolts and cleaning and inspecting each one takes time.

Next was time to water test - to make sure the seal is doing its job. Unfortunately, there was water intrusion in two places. Place number one is up front. What seems to be happening is that water is getting up into the crack marked in red...

... and then draining downhill (marked in blue) and leaking into the car at the two corners marked in red

Place number two at fist glance seemed to be near the back at one of the grommets:

On Friday I applied expansive foam to all the locations marked in red in the previous figures. In retrospect, I shouldn't have placed it on the inside front. With foam there, if the front seal fails water could possibly get caught in the gap and cause corrosion. Not a big deal and I decided to just leave it.

On Saturday I trimmed the foam. That stuff really expands, so it kind of got all over. Not the prettiest job ever, but at least up front it did the trick. Here's what it looks like:

Like I said, not pretty, but it survived the water test. On the back, it turns out that the grommet was not the problem. It seems that the water is getting in near the top center around where you adjust the shift coupler. It wasn't clear exactly where it was coming in, so I just sealed all possibilities symmetrically on both sides.. and the grommet as well. Will water test tomorrow.

Once this is done here's what's left to do before the body shop: (1) cut spot welds and get the new apron ready, and (2) drop the engine to be able to weld it. I am leaning towards having the body shop weld it, although I'm still toying with (3) welding it myself of finding myself a new welding buddy. Last is to (4) remove the steering column and (5) catalog all the work that needs to be done. It's possible that I may still do a little bit of cleaning out the electrical and air in the trunk area... at any rate, we're getting close. Today I studied the engine removal procedure, and tomorrow I'll give it a shot after finishing the water testing... It's gonna be a scorcher (high 90s or 100) so I may not stand doing too much work.

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Tuesday 3.5 hours, Friday 30 min, Saturday 1 hour

Unpacking

Spent about 2-3 hours taking off the fenders, gas tank, running boards, etc. Who knows why it took me so long. It was hot. I took lots of breaks. We're back to where we were before leaving SD. Goal is to have car ready for body shop before I leave for SD.