Cary's 73 1.7 Rustoration Thread Options

[cary]

Super In Law set about fitting the Tangerine Racing Rear Suspension Ear Reinforcements. Quite a bit of tinkering to get them to fit nice and tight. A couple different hammers and a big drift.



After it was fitted. I welded it in. This is the before grinding shot.

[cary]

I set about pulling the cables in the engine compartment and in the front trunk.
I'm prepping the car for the finishing up of the media blasting. It looks like we'll have 3-4 dry but cold days starting tomorrow.



Because of the temp. Cable was pretty stiff. I pulled the entire cable back about 6 inches. Then started pulling the cables thru separately.



Big relay board connector is the last one to get pulled thru.



Zip tied out of the way.

[cary]

Front trunk ready to go.

[cary]

Here a some reference shots of the fresh air vent cables.









We'll finish up the left suspension ear reinforcement in the am. It's about 1/2 finished.

[cary]

We finished up the right suspension ear reinforcement. No need for a picture
Then I get after removing the fresh air vents and cable controls. Control will need to be refurbished

Start with drawing a map/diagram of the cables.

Left & Right are actual, viewed from the front

Here's a shot of the bolt that secures the cable controls.

Realize the car is on a rotisserie, car is upside down.

Fan control wires are labeled.

[cary]

So after lunch, even though its only 40 degrees we roll the rotisserie outside and get setup to blast some glass. I've been pondering upgrading the the 100# HF unit. But why bother, my compressor cant keep up any way. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)
Need to add monster compressor to my pre-retirement needs.

Cockpit is finally completely stripped.


Targa bar stripped, both top and bottom.


Lower engine firewall tidied up.


Got drivers side just about completed before we head home.

[cary]

If your going to try and blast with a HF blaster. Here's the weak link.
First you have to replace the nozzle with a HF deadman valve. The problem I'm finding is that the shut off plate is too soft. It pretty quickly gets a track cut thru it.


Primarily caused by me not watching the nozzle cone. It wears down and starts to leak media against the plate. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif) Tomorrow I plan to check the nozzle on every media refill.


Edited 2/4/16 When you take it out of the package make sure that the nozzle is screwed down enough that it lines up about in the middle of the plate. This will prolong its life immensely.

[Andyrew]

Some great looking progress!

[cary]

First order of the day.
Appointment for Dad's Garage.
Princesses Kia needed an oil change. She's really good about it . At 24 this is the second car has she bought all by herself. This car has never gone over 4k between oil changes.

[cary]

After the oil change. I added a +1.50 cheater lens to my welded helmet. Much Better.
After lunch we rolled out the car and started blasting again.
1. Finished up the engine side of the fire wall.

2. Finishing up the firewall did open up one weak spot. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif)

3. Then I went after the windshield frame and the cowl. No real issues, other than narrow.

4. Bottom of the windshield frame has a bit of rust issues. I'll probably do some more grinding and wire wheel work. Then smooth it out with JB weld. I'll let that cure for a couple weeks than reshape to the grinder.

5. I will add a couple Kudo's for POR15. When we put it on the road 15 years ago we added quite a bit of POR15 to the front trunk seal channel. Looks brand new. This channel was completely coated with POR15. I'll finish cleaning it up with a wire wheel.


Tomorrow I'll get after the front trunk and gas tank cavity. I did set up the car in the tent again to do another temp test over night. I didn't have any luck finding a heated paint booth to rent. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) I hope things don't come to a stands still because of the outside temperature.

[cary]

Friday 01/08

Day started foggy and cold. Once again 40 degrees.
Temp test was a bust. Body was only 50 degrees. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) So no primer in the near future

So I decided to get after the rust hole in the targa bar. Larger horizontal cuts were made with the 3" die grinder on the mandrel. I think its going to be one of my favorite new tools.


Shorter, vertical cuts from the pictures perspective were made with the Dremel. Only buy the reinforced discs. The thin ones crack like a potato chip.


Bad news. Found a rust hole on everyone's favorite targa bar support. I was thinking we need to remove a fairly good one of these and get it to RD. On a CW restoration it would probably need replacing on most cars. It's just spot welded onto the inner fender. Maybe after I fire up the plasma cutter to cut the upper seat belt mounts out of the parts car. For Doug (raynecat). I'll open up the targa and see if I can get a good ones off that car. More value for my $75. LOL.

I'm not going to attempt to patch that. 50 years jammed in foam. I'll give it a shot of OSPHO before we cover it up. Post #529, page 14.
Here's shot from underneath.

Found just the right magnet to hold the top flush and gave it a couple tacks, Millermatic set at 21 gauge. Then walked around the entire piece taking my time tacking it in, probably took a half hour. Using cooling air here and there.
A couple pointers I thought I'd toss out there. When tacking in the patch panel. Start the weld on the new known thickness material. Pull the puddle onto the old. Do it quickly the first tack to test the old metal. That is the left arrow.
#2, the right arrow. Super In Law cut the patch just a smidgen too small. I think a metal band saw will be on the tool list after I return to work. This is a little tricky with old metal. You can see that my first attempt blew out the old. With the wide gap it got too hot. I'm melting Wizard of Oz, for us Old Guys. So what I do. 1st, be patient. Heat is the enemy. Go get a refill on the coffee. I blip tack the old edge. You can see the first one on the bottom right. Get those done. Go slow.Go Slow. Go Slow. Once again, heat is the enemy. Cool it completely with the air hose. Now start the weld on the new weld attached to the new metal. Pull the puddle to the old edge.
Easy Deal, only took me about 3 years to figure it out.

[cary]

Here's what she looked like after it was all tacked in. I'd already started cutting down the bottom edge before I decided to take a picture

This gives you a good idea how far I take it down before I use a Roloc disc. I wish I'd learned this a long time ago. It would have saved endless hours of reworking.
I did fill in a few spots on the upper edge before I finished grinding.

Gooder as new ....................

[cary]

Sun came out around 11am. So I decided with the inability to spray Epoxy we'd spray down the exposed/raw metal with OSPHO. This will keep it from flash rusting. Haven't had a lot of issues. But want NONE. The OSPHO is compatible with the SPI primer.

After lunch it was time to do some more blasting. Onto the POR15 impregnated trunk.
It was slow going. The POR15 sprayed on the seam sealer doesn't budge. Nice thing about the trunk is we can reclaim more that 1/2 of the glass an reuse it. We use a kiddy pool as a collector. Then screen the glass.

Close up of headlight bucket.


Super In Law is beginning work on our body dolly. We're going to reuse the jig we built for the double long install. Hopefully I'll never have to do that again.


Might take the weekend off. I want to let the OSPHO completely dry out before I do the blasting in the gas tank area. Or maybe I'll go out and start on the doors. Both will need some welding on the notorious inside bottom rolled skin edge. With my improved welding skills and the die grinder on the mandrel it should be much easier.

[cary]

Started the day stopping off at the auto paint store, Quality Paint.
He gave me the name of two shops that rent out their paint both.
Right here in Hillsboro. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
I'll check in with them in a couple weeks when I'm almost ready.

[cary]

Rainy day, so no bead blasting ......... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif)

So starting digging into the headlight buckets. Back 15 years ago we did some hillbilly repairs. I finished up some welds that were left unfinished.

[cary]

While I was working out in the cold. Super In Law was working in the other room. The lap of luxury, wood heat. LOL.
We're looking at a couple weeks of rain in the forecast. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/barf.gif)

So we get after the doors. He finishes dismantling the left door. Then he gets after the right door, it's in pretty good shape. Left door has issues in the lower channel.







Here's the right channel. It's not too bad. Might need a couple cut and patches.


Here's the left channel. Enough said

I'm going to go thru my stash and see If I have one that's a little better.
If not I'll need to build a U channel. The outer skin is fine.

[cary]

Back out in the cold I go .....................

Finished up the right headlight bucket. Nothing new to show
Then I decided to get after the seam sealer in the tire well. Pretty simple. Working in about 6" lengths I heated up the seam sealer with the heat gun. Then chiseled off the seam sealer with the Astro Air Chisel (thank you, Jeff Hail). I think I'll need to order a couple replacement straight chisels in the near future. Then hit it the wire cup brush (Lie Detector, Scotty).
Mold plug before

Bottom plug after

Got it about 2/3rds finished before I moved into the other room to perform surgery

[cary]

We dug thru all the left doors. They all have some degree of rust in the inner door seal track. So we decided we'll fix the one we're working on.
We start tinkering with the brake to see what we could create.



We end up using a piece of 3/8" bar stock as the form. We plan on doing it in two pieces. But we struggled with a piece that was 15"s long. So we finished in the vice.
With the replacement piece created it was time for Tool Whore to do some surgery.


I cut it out in three sections. Top, channel and the spot welded on lip.
Don't quite have the spot welded lip all removed.

Here's the new piece slid into place.


Weapons pile ...............

[cary]

The opening should give me enough room to remove the crusty old seam sealer that's in all the doors. Which should allow to prep for cavity wax.

[cary]

Took Wednesday off.

Started Thursday by meeting my Mom at the fabric store. We bought 12 yards of marine upholstery to create dust covers for all my free standing equipment. i.e, lathe, welder with tanks and gauges, plasma cutter, etc. She had a 50% off coupon (IMG:style_emoticons/default/piratenanner.gif)
But that will make it a short day. Tonight is my once a month PDX Pelican group get together at the Taproom in NW PDX. Starts at 5.

So I jumped back on the door repair. Took quite a bit of time fitting the two pieces together. The key is getting a nice tight fit for a an easier weld. A wide weld can be done. But takes more heat. Which then creates a blowout. And so on and so on. You get the picture. We did leave the top long and recut using the opening that I cut in the door as a guide. In picture #2 you'll see our 5/16 stick of bar stock. I used that to level the two pieces in the center. I tacked the two ends flush with the corner track. Then tacked the middle after I leveled with the bar. You can easily reach behind and hold it with your hand.





Here's where I ended the day on Thursday. All tacked up and ready to to finished.



I used a micro flat bladed screw driver from $ Store or HF to level the two upper edges as I welded.