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.

What's going on?

I have absolutely no idea what's going on. Last week I finally got around to pushing the car out of the garage. I took out all the stuff I had packed away in the car. This is the explosion:

But how did I get here??? Somewhere in my distant memory I seem to remember packing seats, glass, and sheet metal into the car, reinstalling fenders, etc., and loading it onto a truck. Oh yeah... that's what happened. We loaded the car onto a flat bed truck and rolled it into a moving truck.

It's been sitting in the garage for about 9 months now. I think I took it out once to organize the garage. Then work happened. And beer making.

Okay, it has nothing to do with the car, but it's a beautiful picture and at least I have something to show for 9 months of not working on the car. That's a golden ale on the left (my first all grain) and an imperial IPA on the right. Back to excuses: there was also a cold, rainy winter. And traveling. Now I have my garage all organized...

...and I have no idea what to do next. Intimidating. I made some notes. It involves among other things dropping the engine and welding stuff.