by Preston Brown
I then removed what was left of the diagonal member, which I will be replacing. It was easy to remove; just cut off flush on either side of the lower part of the torsion bar crossmember.
After I was done doing this cutting and welding, I turned my attention to doing ab it of cleanup inside the tunnel. After all, after the new floor pan is welded back in place, this is going to be a hollow, largely inaccessible cavity. Though I had cleaned out the emergency brake, clutch, and heater cable tubes before in the past, there was still some grit and junk in those because they have been exposed. I sent solvent-soaked wipes shooting through them with a blast of compressed air and cleaned them out even more thoroughly. Then I scraped grease out of the area between the bulkhead and the battery box, where the torsion bar crossmember is. Even though the car was media blasted, the media didn't remove the greasy undercoating in a number of places. This is one of the areas where it was applied very thickly. It makes a total mess when you remove it, especially now that it is summertime because it is much more like grease and much less like undercoat. I curse the person who applied this in the past, even if it did keep parts of the car from turning into iron oxide.
I finished by painting the inside of the right longitudinal with Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator for good measure. I did that on the left side, too. It can't hurt, and there is some surface rust that is on the heater tubes and upper part of the inner longitudinal, so best to control it if possible.
Thursday I should have time to weld in the replacement diagonal brace, and then get to work trimming up the right side outer longitudinal.
Posted by pbrown at June 22, 2004 04:18 PM