It's been a while...
So the previous few weeks have been dedicated to visiting with in-laws and Easter holiday and not really much time to deal with the car. I hoped to resolve that this weekend. When we last left off, the engine bay was being prepped for getting sprayed. As time went on, a change of plans occurred. If I'm going through this much effort to get the bay sprayed, and i'm going to paint the exterior eventually as well, I might as well take the whole thing down and do it at once. So the preparation began on doing some light body work in anticipation of putting the car on a trailer and driving it to my family's barn in Louisiana. There I will spend a couple of long weekends getting the car painted. I've managed to recruit my father and my wife (she owes me after two straight weekends of in-laws) and we will start the project in early June and try and get it back in the garage by July for the engine swap. With that being said, let's look at some pictures of progress...
The steam cleaning was working ok but sanding did a better job of taking off the cosmoline...
It's a tad more yellow on this side
We're getting better over on the passenger side but I think I'll remove those brackets.
Both of the Coil Pack brackets were removed. Here's a good look at the difference between the removed cosmoline side and the untouched side.
To really do a nice job, I needed to remove the ABS pump and all those brakelines.
Each line was marked so that I would have a good chance of putting it all back together.
That looks a bit nicer.
Hmmmmm....
For the record, I did consider an ABS relocation. In the end I decided against it. I intend on using the 535 airbox and I think I can make it work nicely with the ABS in its current home.
Bored with the engine bay, I moved to the back of the car to further assess the damage. You might recall that the split metal looked something like this on my rear quarter panel.
After a while of trying my hand at hammer and dolly, I managed to get it to look something like this:
Better but still not where i want it.
I continued to work the shape so that I can at least weld it. I'll continue to work it some more. This is the first time I've tried the hammer and dolly and the only real way to learn it is to go out and do it. It is better that it originally was and that makes me happy and tends to offset what i manage to screw up learning the proper techniques.
Also thought I would continue to remove the rest of the bondo on the lower valance.
It's pretty wrinkled. There's a dent on the spare tire carrier so the previous owner backed into a pole pretty good. I'm disappointed in the repair but we'll get it fixed this time around.
Thought I might check and see where my rear tires are rubbing as well.
Turns out it rubs right about here. how cool would it be if I could tuck 245's this high up! :D
Where I would like to be ride-height wise.
And finally I took the rear bumper apart so I could better assess the damage.
And that's about it for this weekend. I've got a new front valance on the way and I hope to get that ripped metal welded up next weekend. I'm sad that I won't be driving this until later in the year but I think it's going to look pretty sweet with some new paint and a straight body.
So the previous few weeks have been dedicated to visiting with in-laws and Easter holiday and not really much time to deal with the car. I hoped to resolve that this weekend. When we last left off, the engine bay was being prepped for getting sprayed. As time went on, a change of plans occurred. If I'm going through this much effort to get the bay sprayed, and i'm going to paint the exterior eventually as well, I might as well take the whole thing down and do it at once. So the preparation began on doing some light body work in anticipation of putting the car on a trailer and driving it to my family's barn in Louisiana. There I will spend a couple of long weekends getting the car painted. I've managed to recruit my father and my wife (she owes me after two straight weekends of in-laws) and we will start the project in early June and try and get it back in the garage by July for the engine swap. With that being said, let's look at some pictures of progress...
The steam cleaning was working ok but sanding did a better job of taking off the cosmoline...
It's a tad more yellow on this side
We're getting better over on the passenger side but I think I'll remove those brackets.
Both of the Coil Pack brackets were removed. Here's a good look at the difference between the removed cosmoline side and the untouched side.
To really do a nice job, I needed to remove the ABS pump and all those brakelines.
Each line was marked so that I would have a good chance of putting it all back together.
That looks a bit nicer.
Hmmmmm....
For the record, I did consider an ABS relocation. In the end I decided against it. I intend on using the 535 airbox and I think I can make it work nicely with the ABS in its current home.
Bored with the engine bay, I moved to the back of the car to further assess the damage. You might recall that the split metal looked something like this on my rear quarter panel.
After a while of trying my hand at hammer and dolly, I managed to get it to look something like this:
Better but still not where i want it.
I continued to work the shape so that I can at least weld it. I'll continue to work it some more. This is the first time I've tried the hammer and dolly and the only real way to learn it is to go out and do it. It is better that it originally was and that makes me happy and tends to offset what i manage to screw up learning the proper techniques.
Also thought I would continue to remove the rest of the bondo on the lower valance.
It's pretty wrinkled. There's a dent on the spare tire carrier so the previous owner backed into a pole pretty good. I'm disappointed in the repair but we'll get it fixed this time around.
Thought I might check and see where my rear tires are rubbing as well.
Turns out it rubs right about here. how cool would it be if I could tuck 245's this high up! :D
Where I would like to be ride-height wise.
And finally I took the rear bumper apart so I could better assess the damage.
And that's about it for this weekend. I've got a new front valance on the way and I hope to get that ripped metal welded up next weekend. I'm sad that I won't be driving this until later in the year but I think it's going to look pretty sweet with some new paint and a straight body.
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