Screw it I'm going in, An amateur restores a car (I hope) Options

[obscurity]

Well we pick up our story already in progress but I hope that by forcing myself to post some pictures I will be motivated to keep going.

I bought the car may years ago and have yet to truely enjoy it. I have started to restore it several times and always get distracted but this weekend the baby (and his mother) is out of town and we have a three day weekend so lets see how far I can get.

Here is where we are starting this morning.

[obscurity]

I broke out the sand blaster last weekend and cleaned up the inside of the long as best I could, then sprayed it with some Ospho. It came out pretty good but there are some more areas that I have not yet managed to get to. I am constantly amazed at how hard my sandblaster is to operate. It is one of the cheap harbour freight models. Between its tendancy to give me either nothing but air or mostly sand it is amazing that anything gets done. Between that and my undersized (for the job) air compressor and every sandblasting session ends with me swearing a lot and covered with sand. There has got to be a better way.



John

[obscurity]

After finishing center portion of the long I realized that there was a tiny hole a little further forward into the long where it gets much more complicated under the door hinge. What I found is in the picture below. Obviously I will need to cut it out. Unfortunately it means that I will most likely need to but the entire inner rocker instead of just fabricating the relatively simple area in the back as I had originally intended. I better open up the diriver side as well before I order the parts. No point in going out twice.



John

[FourBlades]

Sand blasting is great when the flow is happening but maddening when it is not.

Some tricks I've used are:

1. You need a water separator in your air line or moisture causes clumps that clog things up, I use a good one 10' from the compressor and a replaceable one right before the blaster, check your water separator and empty it every hour or so
2. Sift all your sand to avoid clogs
3. when stopping even for a few seconds, turn off the sand before turning off the air or shutting the nozzle or you will get a clog right away, turn on the air first and open the nozzle then open the sand last when starting up
4. Trying to blast when your air pressure is below 60 psi is usually frustrating, take a break and let your compressor catch up and you will get more done in the long run
5. Put a portable fan blowing on your compressor so it does not overheat from continuous running, even compressors with fans can use help from a second fan when blasting
6. hold the gun farther from the piece you are blasting than you think should and it usually works better

These things worked for me, you need to experiment with your set up to find what
works...

John

[dion9146]

In a sick twisted way I'm jealous of guys like yourself that take on a project like this. Sure, I love driving mine and not worrying about restoring anything on the car, but I've almost suffered a few weak moments in the last few months where I almost sold the car to take on a near-death project.....then my Wife steps in and reminds me of how much of a stupid idea that is. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Nice job, and keep it up.

[obscurity]

In a sick twisted way I'm jealous of guys like yourself that take on a project like this. Sure, I love driving mine and not worrying about restoring anything on the car, but I've almost suffered a few weak moments in the last few months where I almost sold the car to take on a near-death project.....then my Wife steps in and reminds me of how much of a stupid idea that is. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Nice job, and keep it up.

Thanks!

I suppose the grass is always greener. I spend a bunch of time hoping I can finish this so I can just drive the thing. On the plus side I have learned a lot. I'm not entirely sure that I am not slowly turning the car into much smaller pieces of steel.

John

[obscurity]

Sand blasting is great when the flow is happening but maddening when it is not.

Some tricks I've used are:

1. You need a water separator in your air line or moisture causes clumps that clog things up, I use a good one 10' from the compressor and a replaceable one right before the blaster, check your water separator and empty it every hour or so
2. Sift all your sand to avoid clogs
3. when stopping even for a few seconds, turn off the sand before turning off the air or shutting the nozzle or you will get a clog right away, turn on the air first and open the nozzle then open the sand last when starting up
4. Trying to blast when your air pressure is below 60 psi is usually frustrating, take a break and let your compressor catch up and you will get more done in the long run
5. Put a portable fan blowing on your compressor so it does not overheat from continuous running, even compressors with fans can use help from a second fan when blasting
6. hold the gun farther from the piece you are blasting than you think should and it usually works better

These things worked for me, you need to experiment with your set up to find what
works...

John

Thanks! I will definitely have to give all these all a try. Anything to reduce the frustration!

John

[SUNAB914]

I found the pics, would like to send them to you. Good luck with resto.
PM address again.

[charliew]

When you take a lot of structure out without REAL good bracing it will be a miracle if it goes back together as straight as it should be.

[trojanhorsepower]

The only way to make sandblasting better is to pay someone else to do it.

[obscurity]

It has been a while since my last post and I have been working but have not made any substantive progress until today. Today was all about sleeving the inside of the passenger side long. If you look at several of my previous posts you will see that I removed a significant portion of the bottom of the inner long because of rust. Following Jeff Hails advice in the Bring out the Dead thread I decided to sleeve the long to strengthen my welds. This is the piece I fabed today from 16g. There are two notches at the top that will be filled with the pieces that came out of them once the piece is welded in. All that is left to close up this side is to buy some 18g and fix the baffle at the front of the long (not quite visible at the right of the pic but it is in several other shots).

[obscurity]

This is what I got done this weekend. Not quite what I was shooting for but I got most of it done despite my garage being very hot today (I need to invest in AC) and having a spliting headache most of the time.

Weld thru primer applied.


Stiffener sleeve prepped and ready to go in.


Front baffle seam welded in but not yet cleaned up.


Stiffener in welded and primed.


Next step is getting cleaning everything up putting the heater tube in and welding on the outer longitudinal panel

John

[obscurity]

Didn't get that much done even though I worked at it all day but I do have the passenger side closed up!!. It still needs some grinding and the sill and lower door jamb.

Now my debate is do I open up the other side. It is not as bad off at the back as the passenger side but I really don't want to discover it needs done after I paint the car. On the other hand I hate to drill out all those perfectly good factory spot welds and replace them with my less optimal versions if there is nothing wrong with it. I wonder if anyone in the Atlanta area has a fiber optic camera that I could use? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Now for a couple of pics...

Heater tube back in


Everything welded up

[SUNAB914]

Did you get the pics?

[obscurity]

Did you get the pics?

I Did!! Sorry, I forgot to PM you to thank you!! With those pictures I would probably buy it again even through I now know what its issues are! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sawzall-smiley.gif)

[FourBlades]

Those are really nice looking patchs and welds. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/piratenanner.gif)

Very neat and professional looking work.

Your car will be good for 40 more years.

You may want to test fit your door to see where you are.

Some temporary bracing across the door is always good.

John

[Root_Werks]

Welding the stiffener on the inside is very cool! Nice work, keep the progress pics coming.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/welder.gif)

[obscurity]

Those are really nice looking patchs and welds. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/piratenanner.gif)

Very neat and professional looking work.

Your car will be good for 40 more years.

You may want to test fit your door to see where you are.

Some temporary bracing across the door is always good.

John

Thanks! There actually is a brace going from the upper seatbelt point to the floor boards. Some have questioned whether it is strong enough but so far it does not have too much tension on it. The door is actually also in place and I keep checking it and a few other measurements as I go. So far there has not bee much movement (if any). I have been very careful to keep my weld heat down by only welding a fwe things at a time and I have been trying to control weld shrinkage by welding seams first while the panel is otherwise loose before doing the spots

By the way I love the rotisserie in your profile pic! I have borrowed a metal rotisserie but I wonder if your version might be better to do the floors since it grabs the car much closer to the middle and might induce less flex.

John

[obscurity]

Welding the stiffener on the inside is very cool! Nice work, keep the progress pics coming.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/welder.gif)

Thanks! I hope I have enough in there to do at least some stiffening but I am thinking that I will have to still do the upper half of the to really make it stiff. I am also considering doing a 16 ga stiffener that extends through the firewall on the cabin side of the long to reinforce the dogleg since I have replaceed most of the metal in that area and am not entirely sure it is strong enough.

Thanks,
John

[obscurity]

Now that the passenger side is welded up, I have moved on the drivers side and I am pleasantly surprised. There is definitely some rust but as far as I can tell it is all surface rust. It was almost not worth taking it apart but while I am here I will go ahead and replace most of the rocker/outer long with a new piece (I already have it). The front under the door jamb doesn't look that bad so I will try to sand blast what I can and Ospho the whole thing but not open it up like the passenger side

[obscurity]

An interesting discovery while I had it open. I have always wondered why the brake light stayed on quite a bit while I was driving but I figured the switch must be bad or it was a wiring problem. I knew the hand brake had been replaced but the job looked pretty good so I figured it was not that. Turns out I was wrong. From the inside you can see that the new part does not cover the front holes that were drilled to remove the old part. Whoever did the work managed to weld the brake handle back on about 1/4" - 3/8" behind the priginal position so it fails to press the button in the down position. unless it sits just right. I guess I have to cut that off and redo that too.

Inside the cabin looks good



inside the long not so much