Chassis Painting and Cleaning

The weekend before last I couldn't make it down to the garage because my other wheels were out of commission. Very frustrating. Last weekend I made it out on Saturday. First I swung by Vee Parts, the local VW shop. Wish I had known about them earlier - they got pretty much all I'll need.

Then I got to the garage and got busy failing again to get off the crankshaft pulley bolt (looks like it's time for an impact wrench - thanks to y'all at the samba for that suggestion). After that failure, I scraped the bottom of the left side pan - an annoyingly dirty job. But I finally got most of the gunk off of that, which is good 'cause I was able to uncover a few areas of surface rust to treat properly. Anyway, I primed that sucker and went home.

Sunday I shifted from employed mode (working on the car on the weekends) to unemployed mode (having a bunch of time during the week as well), so instead of working on the car I watched Euro 2008. It was, after all, the weekend.

Tuesday was a short work day: I got in there to grind welds and prime the top of the right side floor pan. I left early to race, so that's all I got done.

Wednesday I got in there and cleaned up the front end really well. Man, is there a lot of crap on that thing! I removed the steering box to paint well around it, removed the wheels, and got a coat of primer and paint on the torsion tubes, arms, tie rods, and steering knuckles. It's amazing how awkward surfaces like that take a lot of paint. This sort of undercarriage painting, by the way, has one of the highest satisfaction-to-nobody will ever see it ratios.

The two funny stories of the day are:

1. Since the body of the car was off, I didn't have enough friction on the front wheels to keep them from spinning when I tried to take the lug nuts off the wheel. Never would have thought of that. I had to sit on the wheel and use the cross-wrench at the same time, stepping on one end and pulling on the other with two hands. I must have looked idiotic, especially on the really tough bolt, when I went flying backwards. Hey assholes who put on my wheels last time: how about some anti seize next time?!
2. So I took off the steering box, but didn't realize how much time it would take for the paint to dry. Next thing I know I'm, ready to go home, but I can't put the steering box back on. I had to push the car into the garage without it. Here I am, dragging the front wheels along the ground as they each go in whatever direction they want, and at the same time trying to keep the steering arm from hitting any of the other freshly painted surfaces. Not that funny, but I'll take any opportunity to make fun of myself for lack of foresight.

So today, I finally had time to blog since... you know it seems like the Jeep is jealous: "Spend time working on me. Please. Fine, well, I'll make my alternator go bad. How do you like that?" Not like it didn't just break down two weeks ago. Arghhh. Anyway, I got the car back, and I'm ready to go back to work. Tomorrow: more painting and an impact wrench.