It has been too cold to make much progress on the car in the last two weeks. I've practiced my welding a bit, since I finally got my oddly shaped 40 CF shielding gas tank back from being filled, and I definitely need practice. Welding thin sheet metal is quite a bit more challenging than thick metal or angle iron. In any case, chances are good I'm going to have a lot more free time soon. Stay tuned.
January 2003 Archives
While I didn't do a whole lot this past week or so on the car, I have made some accomplishments. The door panels, which were the only remaining interior parts, have been removed. Not difficult. This gave me a great view of the stuff that had been sprayed inside the door to act as a rust/corrosion deterrent. I'm still not sure what it is. Where it is applied kind of thinly (i.e. up high in the door) it is pretty hard to scrape. However, wCloseup of door panel anti-corrosion goophere it is more thick, at the bottom of the door, it has the consistency of very thick syrup or slightly melted caramel. And it's cold here right now, so clearly when it is 80 degrees or more outside, it gets much thinner and runs out of the drain hole(s) in the, door, depositing itself on the rocker panel of the car and generally making a mess. I am going to have to remove this gunk and replace it with something better, but I haven't tried anything to do that yet. I'm not sure solvent will get rid of it. Experimentation will tell.
I also took a stab for a few hours at removing the window frame and glass. Easier said than done. Actually it isn't too hard to unbolt the window frame from the door, but removing the window and window regulator mechanism is difficult. I wasn't able to do it, even following the shop manual to the letter. So, I won't be able to get all that chrome off and glass out for painting. We'll just have to mask very carefully when the time comes. Or, perhaps someone can offer me a tip?
I took an introductory "lesson" of MIG welding with Brian Plaster of The Metal Shop in Carrboro on the advice of my friend Alex Maiolo. I was a bit hesitant to start up my MIG before the lesson, thinking I would do something wrong or screw something up, so I didn't. Brian showed me some basics and did some passes doing some butt welds on angle iron, and had me give it a go. Man, it feels pretty cool! He was actually surprised when I finished my first two weld beads and they "looked pretty good!" He felt I was probably a natural at it. So angle iron isn't that hard, but sheet metal may be a bit more difficult. I'm going to get some scrap 20 gauge this week and practice, practice, practice. I did go home after the lesson and load flux-core wire into my welder and practice on thicker scrap for a couple of hours, continuing to get the hang of things.
I ground a bit on the rear quarter panel area where the paint was badly cracking with a 3M paint stripping disc, and lo and behold, found a bunch of body filler beneath it. However, under the bondo, there is sound metal. So I'm not entirely sure what the filler is doing there. Perhaps there is some accident damage and it is smoothing things out. I haven't ground away enough metal to know. I've pretty much decided to have as much of the car stripped as feasibly possible without sandblasting before painting, just to make sure I get good paint adhesion. I will borrow a sandblaster and media blast out the areas of rust that are visible in the door sealing channels that I can't get to with my grinder.
I have done some preliminary grinding on the interior and OxySolvStripped interior after OxySolv application application. It does work. I'll have to finish doing that and then topcoat with Rust Encapsulator from Eastwood. There are some areas of heavy pitting where I will not be able to replace sheet metal, so I want to make sure if the OxySolv doesn't eat/convert all the rust, I have an oxygen barrier on top to prevent further corrosion. I have found that the front inside area of the passenger door has some bad perforation. Not a huge area, but large enough. I will have to fabricate patch panels for this area and MIG weld them in. Damn.
I've had good luck getting some new/used parts off the net (shipping included):
* Two used headlight lenses (one of mine is cracked): $12
* Used hood handle (less pitting than the one I have): $15
* New HVLP spray gun, for primer, Rust Encapsulator, etc: $40
* Reproduction Durant rearview mirror: $40
* Left and right vent window seals: $70
Again, not always terrific savings over buying things from Stoddard or Tweeks, but in some cases significant.
Last, I ordered Harry Pellow's (AKA "The Maestro") 356/912 engine teardown, overhaul, and rebuild video tapes. These things are a riot. Production quality is lacking, but the information is there. I know that when time comes to do the engine rebuild they will definitely be useful material.
Things are starting to come together in anticipation of beginning the major work on the structural problems with the chassis. The MIG welder, floor pans and longitudinal sheetmetal, and air cutting and grinding tools have all arrived. As I said earlier, the chinese-sourced air tools are reasonable quality. The other tools (body hammer/dolly set, impact socket set) are total crap. The paint on these parts is still sticky! They were cheap, and they should be serviceable, but it does back up the argument for buying quality hand tools.
I finished stripping out the interior over the holidays, and there is plenty of rust. Plenty. I attacked the rust around the perimeter of the floor pan where it meets the interior longitudinals and central tunnel to clean up the metal there, and I'll definitely be having to replace some of that metal. Good thing I ordered the angle-iron perimeter kit along with the other parts. I also ground some on the rust that was under the rear seats. No perforation, thank God, but definitely they are in pretty rough shape. I'm going to do some more grinding on there, but I don't think I'll be able to remove all the rust, it appears to have penetrated pretty deeply. These sections of the body are not available as aftermarket pieces. Because they still feel strong, and I haven't been able to put an awl through the metal, I will probably clean with Oxy-solv, and then overcoat with ZeroRust, and leave it at that. Not concours, just strong and good looking, remember?
I also removed the dash top, which is total trash. At least, it is so rusty and perforated on the edges thatRusty dash top it appears that way. However, this is another piece of sheetmetal that isn't available aftermarket. I saw someone selling a used one in good condition for $250! I'm not sure I'm ready to pay that much for it, especially when it is covered up in vinyl and is non-structural. I may end up using it as a lesson in bending and forming sheet metal. I.e. cutting off the ends, and reforming 20-22 gauge metal into something that fits the general contours, and then welding it on. It is going to be covered anyway so it doesn't have to be perfect.
More news on other parts of the car besides the body. The engine is not original, not even close actually. It's a 1959 1600 normal-type engine from a 356 A. I don't know when or why the original engine was replaced, I assume it was blown up at some point in the distant past. I'll try to get information from the PO, but it may be lost in the sands of time. This is kind of disappointing because the 1959 engine is not a good starting point for performance 1959 1600 normal engineimprovement work, and that was one thing I was hoping to tinker with. I even bought a set of forged big bore racing pistons, cylinders, and connecting rods (on eBay, yeah, shoot me) but that was before I thoroughly examined the engine and found out it wasn't a 1965 "C". So they won't fit properly. Crud. I'll either end of re-selling them, or mothballing them until I get to the point of doing an engine swap, and that might be awhile. The engine seems to run strong, and while I haven't yet run a compression test on it, I think it is sound, and since so much other work needs to be done, messing with the engine will come later. Engine swap or not, though, the engine does need to be removed simply to clean/degrease it and renew some of the gaskets where oil seems to be leaking. The smell when the heating system is in use is from caked up grease grime inside the heater flapper boxes. It is unbearable.
