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