Last days of chassis freedom

The last tasks prior to replacing the body have been completed. I installed the remaining shroud, the carb and the heater boxes. I redid some of the wiring: new spark cables, repaired back up lamp cable, and repaired the insulation on the battery to starter cable. Here's the finished engine from the back and from the side:

Very nice. You'll see the fuel filter is missing. I moved it to the the gas tank instead (to reduce risk of fire). I checked the grommets in the firewall and chassis; I replaced them as necessary (and as available). The best part was being able to put in the missing grommets on the accelerator cable shaft. That loose shaft had been bugging me for years! I used standard 1/2" hole plugs and cut the right size orifices in them. Worked like a charm. Here they are:

As an added bonus I just happened to find a replacement at the auto shop for the fan flap clippie thing that I had lost.

Next prep item was getting the body seal in place. I held it in place with glue and I out the body bolts through the seal to help keep it in place. A couple nails in the front where the pan curves were useful too. Where I cut the seal to turn corners, I used a bit of window ribbon sealer like so:

After I cleaned out all the threads for the body bolts we were ready to get the body back on.

I enlisted the help of Jenny, Nekarda, Anna, Hannon, and Alicia. We lowered the car down slowly; every several inches we re-tightened the straps holding it to the ceiling (if you don't know what I'm talking about look at this post). It all went as according to plan as it could. The body's now on the pan and all the (old) bolts are in. I still need to replace bolts, but this is how it will be for now.

All told I used my friends' help for just about an hour. Y'all MF'n rock! You're cheaper and more legal than hiring undocumented labor.

There she is all finished:

I've gotten so used to seeing the body hanging up high that it feels so short now. The garage also feels much more spacious.

The rear looks a bit odd without the apron:

Well that's it as far as restoring in San Diego goes. The project now moves to Corvallis, Oregon. To get the car ready, I'm reassembling a good part of it - fenders, running boards, bumper brackets, seats, steering column. Most of this will come right back off in Corvallis - bummer. I also acquired the rear apron at Interstate, so after a small break while I get installed in Corvallis and take a break from this project, I'll be ready to do body prep work. Damn it's gonna look good.

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Monday: 3 hrs, Wednesday: 7 hrs. Thursday: 4 hours (plus 5 volunteer person-hours). Moving-related tasks not counted

Reassembly

Sunday

Before getting to reassembly I made a quick survey and touched up paint and undercoating as needed; it was just a few places and it was quick. Next I assembled the freshly-powdercoated, old cylinder covers. They went in almost perfectly, unlike that aftermarket crap. Interestingly, the additional thickness from the powdercoating changed the dimensions just enough to be noticeable; I would have never thought it mattered. After that it was on to the fan cover. Reassembled the fan/generator/backing plate (vent hole is oriented down) and installed that whole puppy into the fan housing, then installed new flaps.

Getting the fan housing back on was more troublesome than I thought. I had to figure out the right place for the thermostat rod to go and it turns out that the piece connecting the left and right flaps has to go on after the housing is connected, not before as I was trying to do it. And it also turned out that something wasn't assembled right 'cause just when I thought I was done, I spun the generator and the damnit if the fan wasn't rubbing on something. I fiddled with the fan for a bit and by the end of the day it seemed that everything was properly adjusted and installed except for a bolt that I busted the head off of. Looking good!

The most annoying turn of events was when I went to install the thermostat bracket and realized that the engine block didn't have a stud for it. Really? After all that effort to acquire the missing parts?

From what I hear the later Mexican blocks omitted the bracket. Looks like somewhere down the road I'll have to drill & tap & install one - the boss is still there. I guess that's why the thermostat was missing. They must have thrown in out when the new engine went in. Lovely workmanship.

Monday

Bought a screw extractor of the right size and removed the broken bolt no problem. But after removing the housing (to replace all four generator backing plate bolts, cause why not?) I reinstalled the housing and the damn fan was rubbing again! After removing and replacing the housing like a million times I finally realized that the fan was rubbing because the powdercoating made the pieces thicker. I had used the same number of shims as before, but that just wasn't working. Adding a new shim finally made things better. In the process I also bent the thermostat bar just right so that the flaps move with no resistance... now if only I had a place to attach the thermostat bracket!

Of all the times I dis- and re-assembled the fan housing, I didn't lose a part till the very end – one of the clips for the flap system went into lala land. Seriously. I saw it fly off. Looked everywhere. Swept the ground and looked through the pile. Everything. Never found it. I don't think it will be easy to replace, but it can wait until the body is back in place, especially now that I have to remove the engine to replace the rear apron.

Having finished the fan housing adventure, I installed the front shroud. It went in nicely, though I can't quite remember exactly how the accelerator cable housing goes. I also got the intake manifold back in. It turn out that it's much easier to get the center portion of the manifold in before the fan housing and generator are in place, so I once again removed and replaced the fan housing.

While attaching the manifold to the muffler I stripped the threads for one of the bolts. I'll keep an eye on it, but I think it is OK. It still seems tight enough, but I'll inspect for heat leaks later when it's running.

Now all that is left on the engine is the rear shroud, lower shroud, carb, and heater boxes. If I want to use an impact wrench for the crankshaft pulley bolt, I'll need to to this before the rear shroud goes in. The heater boxes need welding, and it will be better to do this out of the car, but I'd rather have them installed so I don't risk falling behind schedule. The body needs to get back on for the move!

Rest of the week

Tuesday: Love for the Jeep. I took it to the shop for a good pre-trip inspection.
Wednesday - Friday: House-hunting trip in Corvallis.

Left to do prior to body replacement on this Thursday:

• Engine reassembly (almost done)
• Replace that little clip I lost
  
• There's a little asbestos(?) piece that slides inside the connector around the heat risers. It would be nice to find new ones... but it can wait
  
• Replace rubber grommets as needed
• Heater insulation replacement
• Put on body seal (using rubber cement)
• Clean out body threads
  

I think that's all... we're pretty close!

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Sunday: 4 hrs; Monday: 3.5 hrs

Projectus Interruptus

Picture that scene in a movie: the main character is doing whatever it is, and everything is going according to plan. Then the frame freezes, you hear the sound of a scratched record, and the main characters sports the most miserable, confused look on his face.

Yeah. Kind of a bummer.

Let's rewind a bit. I've been working rather manically on this project recently... with good reason. I wanted to finish the body work and paint before moving. And it was possible provided I put in the work and nothing went grossly wrong. And things were going well.

Last week on Wednesday I cleaned, degreased and primed the rear of the chassis and on Thursday I topcoated the chassis and finished priming and then painted the body on all parts that are not visible but that still need protection. And like that I was done painting except for maybe touch ups. I got a call from the powder coater that the parts were in. That would have to wait because I was up to the Bay Area for a wedding.

Here' s the painted area underneath the gas tank:

You can see that I opted for a yellow that would be close to the final color of the car instead of the black I did on the first coat. It's all aesthetics, but the price is the same, so why not? Here's the chassis in its finished state next to the original before all the painting and cleaning:

Not bad. Not bad at all. And look at that shiny new crankshaft pulley... more on that later.

As I saw it all I needed to do to finish on time was make a couple gaskets for heater ducts underneath the car, reinstall those parts, undercoat the car, weld the rear apron, touch up paint, reassemble the engine tin and assorted parts, and get the body on. The plan was to have that done in a week, with the biggest unknown being Matt S's schedule for welding.

On Monday I returned from SF, low on sleep. I picked up the parts and put a first coat of cold galvanizing on the sandblast only parts - intake manifold and heater boxes. Matt S says that it will withstand exhaust temperatures well. I got screws, gaskets, etc that I would need to reassemble the engine parts. Then it was off to spend a night in the desert to see a meteor shower.

Tuesday I had to go into work, but I went to the store, got more cold galvanizing, and finished coating the engine parts. The heater boxes look much better than before:

Now, on Wednesday I didn't have too much time - training, moving-related errands - but I got in in the afternoon. Before arriving I made some gaskets at home for the heater ducts. I installed them and finished undercoating. Here's the undercoating underneath the rear bulkhead:

Those two ducts sticking out of to lower edges are the heater ducts I was talking about. This was the most important area to undercoat because it will be inaccessible once I put the body back on - the transaxle will be in the way. I'm very happy with how well protected this area is. Here's one of the wheel wells:

Now, this area is not as important because it's accessible after the body is back on, but I thought that it would be easier and cleaner to do at least part at this stage. You can see that there is still an unfinished area near the row of bolt holes for the fender bolts. I'll finish once the body and paint is done and the fenders, bumpers, and rubber are back on.

Matt was gonna help me weld either that afternoon or the next morning, so I needed to fit in the new rear apron and do surface prep. And this my friends, is when the needle slid across the record.

At first sight, the part seemed to fit, but I then realized that the groove for the engine seal was not lining up. I measured the parts and sure enough, there was a dimensional mismatch of about 1" between the new and existing aprons. You can see it here:

Note how the groove for the engine seal is right up against the edge in the existing part and set down a bit in the new part. I checked the part number and verified that I bought the correct part. I then went to Vee Parts to ask about it and the guy was all like "oh, whatever, just cut the engine seal into three parts - it doesn't need to line up.... and we never heard about this before and we sell this to body shops all the time." Well, the parts aren't the same and I don't want to compromise the integrity of the seal that keeps exhaust heat away from the engine. That's not how air cooled cars work. Maybe I'm too much of a perfectionist, but it annoys me when people aren't interested in things being done right. Anyway, I called Matt to tell him he was off the hook on the welding job.

Not one to be easily dissuaded, I tabled this issue and got to work on other things. There's lots of engine shroud to reassemble. It's an easy task, really. La-di-da... install the piece in front of the pulley. La-di-da... install the pulley (the powder coating is well done - it took repeated blows from a hammer without leaving a mark). La-di-da... install the cylinder covers. La-di-da... install the lower air flow parts... and here goes the needle scratching over the record one more time.

The parts just weren't mating together.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm quite aware that I can make mistakes, and that's the first thing I assumed, but eventually, it became clear that the problem was that the new cylinder covers were just not the right size - about a half inch too short on the vertical faces. Seriously?! Why do people do this? And sure I could have concocted some fix, but the bottom like is that without the parts mating together, the engine is gonna run hotter, and I'll spend waaaay more moolah on a rebuilt engine. Arghhhh!!!!!

So what's the solution? Well remember that I got new cylinder covers because the old ones had a slight crack, so why not just get new ones? Why not? I'll tell you why not: because after market parts suck! Especially Brazilian ones. I much rather have a slightly cracked part that fits than a new part that doesn't... but this implies another trip to the powder coater and another delay. Having learned my lesson, I'm also powdercoating the other old parts that I was thinking of replacing (the ones that go next to the heater box come in sets of three - one was broken, but the other two were OK). I'm gonna use the old ones now.

Phew! OK. I'm done ranting. Sorry, but this was a big disappointment. Needed to get some frustration off my chest.

Thursday I got into the garage to do some work on the heater boxes. There are few little holes in them that I sealed with high temp putty. There are a few larger holes due to corrosion where the box mates with the curved part of the J-tube. There's no way putty will work on these. A thread on the samba suggests these can't be welded because the metal is too thin, but Matt says he can do it, and I'm willing to trust him. But he's out of town till about 10 days from now, so that's another delay.

That's it for work. I pretty much just took stock of where I was. I cleaned the garage.

So where am I? Well, the main task is to get the body back on the chassis and loose parts packed up either back on the car where they belong or in boxes for movers. I need to wait for the engine to be rebuilt before I drop the body back on, and that means waiting for the powder coater.

I need to resolve this issue with the rear apron. If I do it really soon, I might be able to get the body work done here in SD. Otherwise I'll have to wait for Oregon. This will involve dropping the engine to gain access to the weld locations. If I do this they'll be able to paint the engine compartment all nice and pretty, so maybe this is the best way to go... provided I find a good place near Corvallis.

As to resolving the issue with the rear apron, I need to figure out if there are better after market parts that actually fit. If so I can go that route. Or I might be able to scavenge a part off of an old car either at a junk yard or a reseller like Interstate. I'm leaning towards the latter route.

A couple things to resolve/do prior to replacing the body:

• Figure out whether the rubber body-to-chassis gasket is enough or whether I should use an additional sealer material
• Touch up some paint I pulled off with masking tape for the undercoating
• Replace a rubber gasket for the battery to starter cable - it will be much easier now
• Replace the foam pad around the heater duct inside the car - again, it will be much easier.
• And like I said, replace the engine shroud

It would also be nice to:

• Repair a few stuck/broken bolts in the fender-to-body connection
• Get the welding done on the heater boxes.

All these tasks can be done equally well with the body on.

That, in painful detail, is where I'm at. In some ways, this is a blessing in disguise, since now I don't have nearly as much to do on this project prior to the move. Suddenly I don't feel as pressured to get a million things done.

Sour grapes.

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Wednesday: 5.5 hrs, Thursday: 4 hrs, Monday: 3 hrs, Tuesday: 1/2 hr, Wednesday: 3.5 hrs. Thurs: 1 hr.

Body paint

Well, the game plan has changed. Drastically. I got and accepted the job at Oregon State, and I have less than a month to finish the project... or at least to get the car to a point where it's not in a bunch of little parts... so no more messing around. No more mister nice guy. I want to have the body connected by the weekend of the 16th and I want the car in the body shop early the following week. I ought to be able to do it unless I can't coordinate with Matt S to weld on the rear apron.

So all of last week was shot - 3 days in Oregon, one day wondering whether to accept the job offer, another day racing, assorted errands, and who knows what else. Ditto Monday. But now, I'm on task.

Tuesday the main task was prepping the body. I finished brushing (yes, with a power tool) - the wheel wells, underneath the rear bulkhead, underneath the gas tank, and where the body mates with the chassis. I didn't remove all the undercoating - I just brushed over it to see where it was loose and where it was solid. Anywhere it was loose I removed it and looked for rust. Anywhere it was solid I just left it in place. This was a very dirty job. Very. After using a power took to jettison dirt all over my body, I degreased and cleaned all surfaces and prepped for paint. The most annoying thing about this is that I can't wear gloves when working with water cause the gloves get all soggy, and I've been tearing up my fingers against pieces of sheet metal.

I then primed all surfaces and put a light topcoat on one (it was all the paint I had in the shop). Here are some before and after pictures of the area underneath the gas tank:

Like I said, the first top coat was very thin for lack of paint, but I'd say it's looking pretty damn good! Here are a few more photos of the area where the apron was removed, the rear bulkhead, and the rear wheel well:

You can see in the wheel well how I'm not treating the parts of the undercoating that are in good shape. I would say that this is another successful day. Not much left for the body to be ready. One more day painting - maybe two with dry time, reinstall the apron, new firewall and seals in the engine compartment. On the chassis side, I need to clean the engine, install the tins, and clean and paint the rear. This last one is the most time-consuming, but the nice thing is that since I have work to do on both the body and the chassis, I won't lose as much time to drying time.

I did a bit of work on the chassis today - adjusted the clutch and removed the fan cover. I'll see if I can squeeze it into the powder coater. If not, I may just reassemble it as is, or paint it, or buy a new one. We'll see.

Today: 5.5 hrs

Rebuilding some things and tearing others apart

The week of July 21st was a good week in Restorationville. It wasn't nearly as good of a week in Blogland - which is why it's almost two weeks later that I find myself on the keyboard. It's OK, I have a good excuse: I had a job interview at Oregon State and I had to prepare a talk on teaching at the lower division - a topic to which I've given much thought, but none of it organized. It took me way too long. Oh, that and a good day of paintball.

Sooo, what did I do? Fortunately, I've taken notes, so I don't have to depend on my lousy memory. I redid the pedal assembly - and it all went well this time. Because last time I discovered some problems with seam sealer bond, I went over the car lightly with a wire brush and verified the bond on the paint and seam sealer - it was all good. I gave it a new coat of paint to cover up the light scratch marks.

Next was to continue removing the rear apron. Last time I had tackled about a quarter of the spot welds. This time, I tackled the rest. But something wasn't right. I couldn't see how the damn thing would come off. I had followed the instructions from TheSamba and it just didn't seem to be coming out right (it would turn out later that it wasn't right because I didn't follow the directions right). Anyway, now that I had drilled holes in the wrong part of my car, I figured it best to stop and reassess before I did something stupid and frustration-inspired.

I moved on to the fan housing to drill out rusted bolts holding the flap system in the fan housing. This was one of two major remaining tasks needed to prep the tins for powder coating.

So that was Monday. Wednesday, I arrived on site with a rented impact wrench - the pulley would come off if it was the last thing I did! And even with a power tool, it wasn't on the first, second, or third try, but eventually, the bolt loosened. The pulley was too tight to wiggle off, so I had to spring for a pulley puller. But eventually, I got it off and got off the final piece of engine tin? Was it worth it? In a sense no - so much work for just a piece of tin, but really, to do the job right and for the learning experience, it was certainly worth it.

This whole thing caused me so much grief that I celebrated with a victory photo:

Now with all the tins out, I prepped them, took off any connectors, sorted them, and put them in the truck to take to the powder coater.

Next was to finish removing the apron. Here's where I realized that I was drilling out the wrong spot welds. I swung by Vee Parts to get the replacement piece so I'd have something to guide me. Now that I was able to visualize it, I took out the correct spot welds and the apron came out - nice and easy. In this picture you can see the correct spot welds to remove (the ones on the left) and the incorrect ones (the ones on the right where the parts are still semi connected).

Not to stop here, I continued working on the body - brushing and cleaning all surfaces that mate to the chassis or that are inaccessible once the two are connected. I got partly done - one more day ought to finish it.

It was a long day... which makes the following even more surprising. In an unexpected move, Restorationville and Forethoughtistan drastically improved diplomatic relations when I decided to use the rented impact wrench to loosen the bolts on the rear wheels so I could avoid scenes like last time with the front wheels. Genius!

Thursday I was working on my talk, but found time to make it down to the powder coater and drop off the parts.

All told: Monday - 5 hrs, Wednesday 7.5 hrs, Thursday 1 hr.

Finally Something New

I'm beginning to bore myself with watching paint dry. Thankfully, it's coming to an end... for now at least. And at least things are looking damn good. Like my brake drums.

I wish I had a photo from before to compare - they were 100% rust red. Time for reassembly. I installed the stabilizer bar with new rubber and brackets

and replaced the shocks and steering dampener. I was going to replace the pedal system when I realized that I needed to seal seams before doing that. Great! Another material with long cure time. At least, this should do the trick with the water intrusion problems:

I guess I got lucky that I bought grey seam sealer - makes for a good photo.

On the next day, after the seam sealer cured, it was time to replace the pedal system... a task that went... well... according to Murphy's law. See, to put in the pedal system you need to hook up the clutch cable then put the pedals in place without letting the clutch cable come loose. Now this task isn't too hard unless you get distracted and do dumb things like flip the clutch pedal fully forward to get to a bolt. Sure enough, you do that and then realize that the clutch cable is loose. Now you have to start over, disconnecting the pedals from the center channel and the master cylinder. Anyway, it's not a big deal. You just start over. That is, unless, you realize that when you took the pedal system back out you just tore a bit of seam sealer off. At that point you need to pull back the seam sealer to where you have good bond, reapply the seam sealer, and then wait for it to cure lest you screw it up yet again.

That's what I did.

Now, what's the best thing to do when you're frustrated? Surely, drilling holes in the body of your car and hitting it with a hammer and chisel rank at the top of the list, no?

It's time to remove and replace the rear apron. There are spot welds on the inside of the engine compartment and inside the wheel well (fenders need to come off). I had enough time to get to the spot welds on one of the wheel wells. So far it's coming off pretty easily. You can see the drilled-out welds in this photo. That 3/8" cobalt bit is still sharp and going strong. Very impressive.

Ongoing tasks: (1) rent an impact wrench, remove the crankshaft pulley, get the engine tin to a sandblaster and check on the price of powder coating, (2) remove and replace the rear apron, (3) finish reassembly on the front of the car, (4) check new paint and seam sealer for proper adhesion and touch up where necessary, (5) clean and repaint the rear of the chassis, (6) clean and repaint the underside of the body. Phew!

Thurs (10th): 3.5 hrs, Monday: 3.0 hrs, Thurs: 3.5 hrs

More Painting

If ever I give you an estimate of how long it will take me to do something on my car, double it at least. I came in Monday and yesterday to not even finish what I thought would take me one day. Grinding welds took be the better part of two hours; the position uncomfortable and I had to set down the grinder often to rest. It looks pretty good - as unimportant as it is for the fricken bottom of my car to look good.

So, ummm, I totally forgot to go get paint before getting to the garage and I had an obligation in the middle of the day, so there wasn't much else to do. I washed the surfaces to be painted, pulled the car into the garage, propped it up, and applied POR-15 to the drums, being careful to avoid getting it in the threads.

Wednesday I didn't forget the paint, but I underestimated. I used up two spray cans to finish priming and 2-1/2 to top-coat, and I didn't even finish the entire first top coat. It's looking damn good.

While bummed by having no more paint, I eventually settled in preparing the engine shroud pieces for sand blasting - removing and bagging connectors and connecting pieces. Except for dropping a bolt in the muffler, it went OK (after trying more elegant solutions, what worked was to shake the shit out of it until the bolt came out). The fan shroud needs some work because the screws for the existing flap system are rusted on there permanently.

After that I primed and started painting misc pieces like the pedal assembly. Yes, I know I said I ran out of paint, but if I shook the cans continuously and held them perfectly horizontally, there was a bit more paint.

Monday: 3.5 hrs, Wednesday: 5.0 hrs

More Painting

Came in, put the steering box back in so I could pull the car out of the garage. The garage is so humid that the paint wasn't fully cured yet; I'll have to touch up a few spots I nicked.

Tried the manual impact wrench on the crankshaft pulley. No go.

Then, it was pretty much more painting. Cleaned the front bulkhead and top left side floor pan. Then POR-15ed these two since they were both showing signs of corrosion. And, since there will be standing water on the bulkhead after a rain, I figured the extra protection is not a bad idea. That's pretty much it. I would have done more, but I can't do any dusty work when the paint is drying... and besides, I had a 4th 0f July BBQ to go to.

It's looking pretty. Too bad nobody will ever see it.

Man! This little bit of project creep is getting out of hand. All I was gonna do was remove the body, check for rust, change the floor pan, and put the body back on. Removing and painting engine shrouding... project creep. Painting and cleaning the chassis... project creep.

Today: 3.5 hrs. Next time: grind the welds, clean all surfaces, prime what's left, then topcoat everything that needs it. Pull the car into the garage, prop it up on stands, and POR-15 the front drums. And with that, we'll (hopefully) be done with the chassis from the floor pans forward.

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.

Floorpan back in

Good work this weekend. Friday I managed to get in for a while just to take stock. Didn't even pull the car out, just walked around taking note on all the different things I need to start either buying or considering fixing because buying is too expensive. A bit boring, but at least I kept clean. I spent way too long on the computer back home looking up suppliers. I also discovered that the people who post on The Samba are pretty helpful at answering questions.

Saturday I did prep work for welding. Drilled out the 1/8" holes to the correct 1/4". Took the grinder and wire brush to all the seams of the weld. Once the angle grinder was out, I went to town on the underside of the car with the twist knot brush. It's amazing how resilient 37 years of gunk can be, getting flung at my face by a brush spinning at 11,000 rpm; I was just a wee bit dirty [a lot of what was getting flung at my face was the undercoating, not gunk - ed. 9/1/2008]. I went at that until my arm was just too tired. The prognosis is great: zero rust on the center channel and only very minor touches of rust on the part of the floor pan I've uncovered.

After my arm got tired, I went over to the engine to finish removing the last few cover plates. The air deflector plates and cylinder covers were easy, but then I got to removing the crankshaft pulley to get to the last piece of shroud, and that bolt is stuck on there like you wouldn't believe. I tried some tapping and liquid wrench. No go. It was getting late and I was getting frustrated, so I decided that before I broke something, I should go home... had a pub crawl to make.

... a pub crawl that left me less than 100% wanting to work on Sunday. Still, I had enlisted the help of my friends, so I wasn't about to flake. Here it is in the middle of the process. Chris and Matt are at Home Despot buying more MIG wire. Even though we have the car on jacks, you can see there ain't too much room to work underneath.

Here's the basic strategy. While I press down on the pan from above, Matt welds the seam at about 2" intervals. Once it's held in place like that, we pound the seam down well with hammers and chisel, and he goes back and fills in all the previously drilled holes. This photo shows it pretty well. We pretty much have a weld every place there was a factory spot weld. That floor pan ain't going anywhere.

The trickiest part was the jack bracket because the one that came attached to the new floor pan had a few extra parts as compared to the factory bracket. We decided to keep the new setup since it seemed to make the whole assembly stronger... which it needs since, disappointingly, the new pan is thinner than the existing pan. They don't make 'em like they used to I guess.

Back when we prepped the new floor pan, we cut away the vertical part (the one that isn't really part of the floor pan, but that attaches to the back of the floor pan). The existing piece seemed of better quality, and it made no sense removing it. But what this meant is that now we left ourselves a tricky job because, well, look at the picture and you may see why. With the jack bracket wrapping around below the floor pan, the geometry, bending things out of the way, and the order of welding all require some planning ahead.

Not that big of a deal. Next we welded in the heater cable tube (I made it out of a piece of ordinary brake line and bent it around the tire), welded in the bolt for the battery bracket (it's connected to a bracket that spot welds underneath), and that was that, about 3 hours later or so. We sprayed the whole seam with a cold galvanizer; capillary action should suck it in between the pieces of metal.

Here's the finished job. Perhaps the oddest thing is that the solvents in the cold galvanizer dissolved whatever super duper wimpy coating they put on the floor pan to ship. You may be able to see little puddles of black along the floor pan. Yeah, that's dissolved black paint... or wax... or whatever it is. Not terrible, except if it's such a bad coating, I don't want to paint on top of it. I'll have to go down to bare metal before I paint. And I'm lazy to do that.

Next week: tackle that crankshaft pulley, get the engine parts ready for sand or bead blasting, finish cleaning that darn underside, and start painting this thing.

More Dismantling

I was pretty frustrated this weekend, with a stupid race in LA taking away my Saturday. Despite visitors in town I still managed to make it in for a few hours on Sunday. The tasks were assorted.

• Spray the entire chassis with degreaser, hitch up the bug to the Jeep, drive it over to the car wash and high-pressure wash the whole thing. It's pretty clean now, though there's some stubborn gunk that really won't come off.
• Lift up the front end of the car and lube the front torsion bars
• Drill away. When we cut out the spot welds, we left little craters in the base metal below the floor pan. That's what we get for not having a proper spot weld cutter. So that they don't hold water and rust, I drilled through them with a 1/8" bit. We'll weld through those holes on the bottom and fill in the craters with weld material.

Then it was time to continue dismantling things, in part to inspect, in part to repaint the engine cover, and in part because it' s kind of fun. First were the heat exchangers, which are commonly rusted and damaged in these cars. Mine kind of rattle around, so I'm guessing they need replacing. Problem is that I really don't actually know what they're supposed to look like, so I need to take them out to compare with a new piece. Here they are out of the car:

They're not really supposed to come out like that, with the parts of engine cover attached, but the screws connecting the heat exchangers to them were rusted on nice and good, so depending on what pieces I decide to replace, I'll need to do some cutting. Here's a view up close:

Now, I just don't think there's supposed to be a gap, or at least that big of a gap between the exhaust manifold and the actual heat exchanger. Seems like a good amount of the hot air would escape through there. We'll have to see.

Next step was to continue removing the engine cover. The front and rear covers are off already as are some venty things on the front of the fan housing. To get to the screws holding in the fan housing, the intake manifold has to come out... which is OK, really, because the heat risers on the intake manifold are all rusty and ugly and I was thinking of changing it just for aesthetics. Here are the fan housing with the generator and coil still attached and the intake manifold in its three parts (the central section with the carb still attached and the two outer sections that actually connect to the intake port):

You can see the rusty heat risers tubes. One issue that I'm not quite sure about is the air control thermostat. It's supposed to be there according to the manual I was using to take this all apart. But I looked pretty carefully and couldn't find it. Is it missing? Kind of makes me wonder if the fan has been operating to spec this whole time. Yet another matter to figure out.

So anyway, right about now is when I start to have that "I hope I can put this all back together" feeling. This engine is starting to look kind of bare.

Next time... welding (hopefully)

Cleaning

I have a confession to make. Every entry before this one was reconstructed from memory and photographs, since I just recently got the idea to do this blog. From now on, things will get more detailed (read boring), but it should be a good way for me to keep notes on the process.

So, now that the body's off it's the perfect opportunity to inspect all the parts that are otherwise hard to get to. This involves cleaning off 37 years of grime, which is time consuming, but satisfying. I started at the front end, cleaning off the old gunk and inspecting for any damage or corrosion. All looks good, with only minor surface corrosion in some spots. A bit of paint and we'll be good as new.

Next, I removed the pedal assembly to get access to that area of the floor pan and to lube and inspect the pedal assembly itself. It turned out that it's easier if the master cylinder is out, so I removed that too. Turned out not to be a bad idea because it makes it easier to clean up the area around the master cylinder. I did a little bit of scrubbing on the top of the floor pan - it needs more, but I'll need to get the right tool for the job - the cup-shaped wire brush drill adapter I'm using just ain't getting the job done. I think I may use this as an excuse to buy an angle grinder. It also looks like I'll have to reapply seam sealer to the existing floor pan. The old seam sealer is missing in parts. Maybe this is part of the water leakage problem?

Underneath the floor pan there is so much grime that I'm waiting to see if I can get some of it off with a high pressure wash first. I was not too excited about scraping it all off by hand. Skipping this part brought me to the back of the car. Again, some cleaning and inspection. Same issue, mostly surface rust that a bit of scraping and paint ought to take care of. The cable for the reverse light coming from the transmission is in bad shape, so that one will have to get changed, but everything else looks good.

This brings me to the engine. I started removing the shroud pieces. I'll either get them powdercoated or buy new ones, depending on price and amount of wear (all in the interest of aesthetics). A few of them will have to get replaced...

... and then I realized it was getting late, and I got a call to meet a friend for dinner, so the rest of this will have to wait till next time.

Lifting the Body

This is the big day. It took me a little while to coordinate all the hands I needed for this project, so the last several weeks were a bit slow. I finished disconnecting all the items connecting the body and the chassis, and I progressed on cleanup and prep. The body is pretty much ready to go to the body shop. I've wire brushed all the rust spots to expose the extent of the damage. I brushed the floor pans to see in what state they are (passenger side needs replacing), and I removed pretty much every piece imaginable from the body. All that's left is the gas overflow container, covering some wires, and doing some POR-15 rust treatment on non-exposed parts.

On to the fun part. Here's the bug in place for the body removal:

photo by Skory

The plan is to clean out the garage to have good standing room, then with one guy at each corner, lift the car a bit and have a fifth guy tighten the straps. We'll then have a look to make sure there's nothing connecting the body and the chassis. My landlord was pretty cool and cut a few wood pieces to help support the car at the rear side windows, because there's a thin piece of metal that will get bent if we bear directly on it. Turns out that they weren't that useful because they split apart under load. We went for cardboard and duct tape in the end. Still, before we changed strategies, we made a few more pieces to replace the split ones. Here's a photo of Matt working on that. Why? 'Cause he looks damn cool, that's why.

Photo by Skory

Well, there are no photos of the actual lifting because the photographer was lifting too. It turns out it wasn't as light as I wanted it to be, though with four people it was manageable. I want a few more on the way back down so we have a bit more control.

When we started lifting we had to work the engine seal a bit to let it loose, but the rest of it went easily. Here it is at one of the intermediate steps:

Photos by Skory

There's already good news: the heater channels are in great shape. And it doesn't seem like I forgot to disconnect anything. We have a small delay as I go to Home Depot for a few more hooks for the rafters. A couple more straps are going to help us out, not only with stability but with more efficient lifting because the two that are installed now are at too much of an angle. While I'm gone the guys find out that we still haven't disconnected the hoses to the charcoal vapor recovery unit. Whoops.

The rest of the lifting went perfectly. Here's the car at the end of this process:

Photos by Skory

Then, after a brief moment of "well, NOW what do we do?"

Photo by Skory

we got down to business getting the floor pan out. Heat gun and scraper to remove all the existing seam sealer:

Photo by Skory

Some grinding to find the spot welds (that are about 4 mm apart or so) then taking out the spot welds with a 3/8" cobalt bit (couldn't find a spot weld cutter), and out comes the floor pan:

That perfectly polished edge is product of Nekarda's Midwestern work ethic.

A successful day, my friends. A successful day. Thanks to Matt, Matt, Kid Nebraska, and Skory.

Disconnecting the Body from the Chassis

The weekend of the fifth and sixth I was out of town, and Saturday was the Rosarito to Ensenada bike ride, so little progress has been made. The present task is to prepare the car so the body can come off the chassis. This involves mainly two things: unbolting the two pieces and making sure nothing is connecting them.

There are nine bolts running down each side just inside of the running boards. At the front of the floor pan there is a pair of bolts on each side. Underneath the back seat there are four more bolts. In the luggage compartment there are two more, underneath the gas tank, and bolting onto the top torsion bar. On the back (and it took me a while to find these) are two more. These are behind the rear wheels. I was fortunate that not one the bolts broke or bound. They're rusty, though, so I'm thinking of replacing them with stainless bolts.

As to other things connecting the body and the chassis - at the front end is the (previously removed steering column), hoses and electrical connections to the brake master cylinder, and the gas vapor line running down the right side of the car. This disconnects at the front and back at either side of the running board. Moving towards the rear, the cables connecting to the starter need to be removed. I elected to disconnect them at the regulator, but they can be disconnected at the starter. Also in this area, disconnect the heater control cables.

Underneath the car, the heater hoses need to be removed, best at the front where they connect to the body. At the front of the transmission the reverse light cable should get disconnected. (I did it the wrong way and disconnected the cable in the engine compartment. This leaves the cable still connected to both the transmission and to the hole in the body to the engine compartment. Now I'll have to thread the cable back through. I probably damaged the cable doing it this way.) Inside the engine compartment, everything coming from the wiring loom at the upper left get disconnected. If memory serves me right, this means disconnecting wires at the distributor, coil, oil pressure switch, and generator. These are the wires to be removed:

Ahh, and look at that lovely rust spot. That's one of the worse ones, but not the worst.

Also to be removed (and this one I forgot) are the hoses from the air filter to the vapor carbon unit underneath the right rear fender. Sound like a lot, but mostly you just need to visualize the body coming off and make sure there's nothing connecting the body and the chassis.

Tear Down

This week finishes most of the tear down on the exterior. On the rear I removed the bumper, lights, license plate and license plate light:


Well, except for I need to mark all the cables so I can put it back together properly. Volkswagen emblem is off too. On the sides I've removed the running boards, all the trim, and all the door hardware. You can see too that the door glass is out:


The trim really is off. That's just accumulated dirt you see where the trim used to be. In the trunk, the wiper motor and other assorted hardware is coming out:


I'll be cleaning up that rats nest of cables at some point. On the front, I've removed the bumper and headlights, and loosened the turn signal light on top of the fender. These will come off as soon as I mark the cables:


And that about does it. Time to haul the trash away.