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.