byakk0
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Everything posted by byakk0
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I've actually had an offer from a US manufacturer of the ABS covers to buy one for well below retail, which is a great bargain. I contemplated FRP but its messy and cost of supplies for something that size that is already reproduced aftermarket makes it pointless (to me) to attempt. I've taken a liking to metal fabrication, so its primarily an exercise and practice for me, especially as the final product will be hidden from view and thus any unsightly blemishes will be hidden. Fabricating this from steel is certainly not saving me any time, though the metal has only cost me around $20.
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more work on the cover today. made a paper template to transfer the pattern and cut out the steel. Then started shaping the panel. I marked and trimmed the excess off and tack welded it. tacking the new panel in trimmed the excess off of this side and tack welded. Took the piece I cut off and added contours. Last patch added and tacked. Test fit side by side. Still have the hole around the shifter to work on and add the mounting flange.
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not bad. you definitely had a better starting point than I. But don't forget the bulge in the side for the starter.
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I'm afraid it's too late for me John. I started sliding the moment I bought a welder.
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I think I'm starting to take after John Bonnet. In between coats of primer and paint on my door I decided to tackle my seriously mangled transmission tunnel. Now, before you start telling me, I am aware aftermarket and ABS and fiberglass are available. This is purely an exercise in metal bashing and 'can I do it'. It will no doubt need sound deadening, and in the end I may purchase a preformed unit, but until then, here you go. I tried holding it together with duct-tape. It's so dirty and oily that didn't help any, but at least the form is close enough. I decided not to form the depression in the top. Does it even serve a purpose? And this portion rough fit. Looks like its good so far.
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I finally got the door window scrapers so I can put them back together properly, but the passenger side needs painted on the inside still. I discovered it has a dent causing the inner side of the opening to bow. I ended up using welding vice-grips and some angle iron to raise the dent. I got it primed and then my spray tip on my paint clogged and I need a new one, so I didn't get it painted today. Bit of dent here. Believe me, its there. See how bad it's bowing? Clamped up. I just worked my way in from the outside edges. I hit it with a little heat too. Primed and ready to go. Still a bit of a bow, but I think I can live with it. All painted, on the inside.
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I set out today with the intention of getting my car licensed. Thankfully the DOT is literally right across the street, but I didn't get that far. I've had troubles with my turn signals, primarily that of the right ones, and not flashing or even turning on. It's not the flasher, because the left side works on the flasher clicks. So, I removed the cowls from around the steering column and loosened the switch. With the repairs I recently made I was hoping it would be something simple... Not so. See the culprit? Not gonna be able to fix it without removing it. Yep, a severed connection. Thankfully I already had experience taking these apart and the repair was a snap. I also needed to reinstall the brake lenses and housings, and with that complete I hopped in to fire it up and... ...the choke knob broke off in my hand. It sheered off right at a hole drilled in it for a retaining pin. Fortunately I managed to pull it out with some vice-grips. ...So that means I am now in the market for a dual-choke cable setup. Anyone know of any sources? I think I've seen them for sale somewhere but it slips my mind right now. In the mean time, Abby had her own ideas.
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You may recall from an earlier post I was testing the quality of the El-dorado style carpet. The following was a floor mat I made for my van, just to see how it would hold up with frequent use. The front-side, with a few bits where the carpet balled up. Backside And a color comparison. I like the lighter grey color much better.
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I've got bits of the rear end so it came in handy for fitting the carpet outside the car, at a good working level without having to hunch over in the car. It was truly a back-saver. Got them rough fit using some stiff paper and transfered that to the carpet. And test fitting in my car. Still a little trimming to do, but close. I'm contemplating sewing the two together, but I'm not entirely sure if that is a good idea. Thoughts?
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Got my new carpet... Now another stage of fun begins, getting it shaped around all those contours. It's Overton's Marine grade 20 oz Malibu cut pile, color is Midnight. Comparison in quality and color against the Eldorado Front for the color And the backing. The Malibu had more coverage of whatever they use for backing. Hopefully it won't fray on me. quick comparison against the body color and arm rest Laying it out. Making adjustments to the striker And a rough fit. I likely can't go much further on it today than this, but I gotta do something!
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Looks like all your meticulous work is paying off, John. It's starting to look like a car once more
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I'm contemplating making a faux rear seat, in that the upper portion hinges in the same manner as opposed to just lifting completely out. Faux in that it will be storage and only the upper half of the seat. I dunno, just my brain working OT when I'm not able to actively work on the car.
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Been in the triple digits this week (over 37°C) and as luck would have it the compressor on my house AC took a dive so its a new system all around, hopefully. The unit was installed in 78 so it's got a lot of miles on it, so to speak. So, I haven't had the time to devote I was hoping for. So, I did some work on the rear deck boards. Picked up some steel rivets to transfer the hardware over. My steel rail will come in handy for beating these suckers on with. My little helper comparing the new and the old. I placed a square on the brackets for the jack handle to get measurements. I didn't need them in the end, but the reference may come in handy for someone. All assembled and Abby approves. The paint is a bit stripey, so I may roll on some flat black later to get a uniform coat. I decided not to repaint the metal. There's not much on my car with any original paint, so I thought it fitting to leave them as is. Set in place, with Abby doing some modeling for me.
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I was wondering the same. I actually tried that earlier for a different problem and it didn't work so I removed the packing. Too bad I didn't notice this issue then.
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Just me jumping around. I scored a full sheet of 1/4" hardboard at work today so I cut out the rear deck boards. Needs a little more fettling but they'll work. (Ok ok, it's 3/16". Stupid nominal sizes. No one sells full 1/4" hardboard anymore.
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Nice Nick. I bet that's a great feeling after all your hard work.
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I've also discovered my hatch needs to shift to the left about 1/8"~3/16". Anyone have any ideas how to do that? I've loosened the bolts at the hatch-to-spring and the spring-to-roof and there doesn't seem to be any sort of right-left adjustment.
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more progress. Got a layer of epoxy primer down. Brushed it on as I need to sand it looking for imperfections, I've since sanded the rear emblem panel and it is a bit wavy. Hopefully some high-build primer will be sufficient.
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I've needed to adjust the alignment of my front left tire ever since I put the rolling chassis together. I just slapped it back together and the tie rod only threaded on less than an inch. I was concerned but diced to tackle that job later. Maybe I should have done so sooner. I didn't really bother as I know I need new tires. I didn't realize it was adversely affecting the rotor. Look at the groove I found from the new tie rod end rubbing-and this a brand new rotor too. So, I dug into it a little deeper and jacked it up. I couldn't figure out why the end would thread on any further as there was plenty of threads left to go. So, I pulled it off and hit the town. not much open after 5 on a Saturday that would sell a 1/2-20 tap. The FLAPS only had a 1/2-13. The local ranch supply store had one in a kit, but I didn't want to spend more than the cost of the tie rod end in the first place. So, I've got my car on stands and I needed to get it back together and in the garage, so I priced out new ends. No one stocked one (shocker) but for a very hefty price they could get one in. No thanks. I'd rather go through Spitbits. So I bought a 1/2-20 bolt and cut 2 slots to use it as a thread chaser. Worked like a charm-look at that crud that came out. The rod rend threaded all the way on this time. The only problem is I wore a hole in the new rubber boot. Think regular bicycle tire repair patches will work on this? Just for kicks, here's a shot of the inside of my old driver's side A-pillar. Nasty nasty...I was cleaning out my garage and decided it was time part with all the unneeded rusty bits. Moving on, the past few weeks I've been stripping the top of all the previous bodywork and paint. Layers of bondo, primer and paint. Funny thing about all the bondo. I only found 2 small areas in real need of filler Found some blemishes on the sail panel too. I'm using Evercoat Metal2Metal, so I mudded up one of the small dings on the top, one on the passenger side sail panel of my own creation, and the driver's side sail panel as well as the emblem panel on the back. I got that area as good as I will ever be able to get it with metal finishing (At this point in my skill anyway) so I figure I'll get a better finish this way. I since sanded most of these but those pics will come later. Next immediate step is epoxy primer and some serious sanding with my longboard to see where the true blemishes lie.
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Finally got the time to complete the welding on my passenger side rocker. I had to add some metal as backer, so welding from underneath was needed. What a pain, but I succeeded. I only needed about 1/4" but I cut the strips wide and trimmed them to fit after the fact. before. Underside shot. You can see the different I need to make up. I cut some metal strips about 1" wide. Easier to work with than a 1/4' strip. After welding I trimmed the excess off. Just need to clean up the welds a little more, maybe. I had the passenger side of the car up on stands over 1 foot and welding was still a pain. Thankfully not many people will see how bad it looks. I would have hit it with primer but I'm currently out. I'm at a point now where I can do bodywork, so I'll likely leave it as is because I plan on stripping everything back to bare metal and epoxy priming, then I can do the mudwork a panel at time. I don't anticipate much filler, but I guess we'll see. Wrapped up the day with a quick run down the street.
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Discovered the issue with my turn signals is my switch. I couldn't verify if the flasher was the problem or not, and as I suspected the switch I jumpered the flasher and the turn signals worked just fine. That pinpointed the switch. The thing that drives me bonkers is I bought this particular switch off of someone on ebay back in 2004 (ish) along with a new chrome liscense plate cover and glass lens. Fortunately they were a good price. So, I pulled the column out---again. I needed to loosen it and recenter the wheel anyway. Anyway, this is what I found. You can see a circular shaped crack around the center hole. This allowed some flexing and loss of contact. The old lube/grease was dry and brittle, surely adding to the symptoms. I've got the old grease cleaned out here. I hit the contacts with 600 grit lightly enough to clean any corrosion away. I had a broken switch in my spare column so I dug it out and thankfully the housing is intact. I used a dremel to remove the rivets on both. Then I carefully pulled them apart, not knowing what to find inside. There is a spring and a bearing, and thankfully they didn't go shooting across the garage on either one. Spring and bearing shown here I lubed it with white lithium grease Then reassembled with a small bolt, but a long rivet would work as well.
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Seems to be the consensus. Back when I was driving it, it was my daily driver and never sat long enough to require the priming lever, so I don't have a point of reference.
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ok, so the battery holds strong. Takes quite a few cranks (30 seconds, maybe more) to fire, but it's been sitting for nearly a week without being started. Is this normal? I don't recall it taking so long. Still working on getting the carbs just right, so maybe that is a contributing factor. Anyway, I reinstalled the rear loom this past week. I pulled it to look for damage as I melted the brown/green wire (reverse) right at the lamps. I wasn't sure how far back the damage went so I pulled it to inspect, which involved un-wrapping and re-wrapping). Luckily only one wire was damaged, and only just the last 6". Phew. This time I snaked it through the little hole in the inner sill. That required taping all the ends as close to the main harness as possible. I then fed a feeder wire up through the hole and taped the wire to to the loom so I could just pull it through. Took some persuading in places and in the end worked nicely but took some time. Makes me wonder how the factory did it. I was afraid I'd have to use my new fuse block but I connected everything with the stock fuse block still in place and everything but the turn signals work, not even the front. All other lights work, including the dome light. Chasing that down is another day's project. I hope I didn't ruin the switch when I melted the reverse lamp--something shorted somewhere but I'm not sure what. I did discover I neglected to put the little black boots on the back of the lamp holders the previous time, so I'm thinking I caused an inadvertent short. I got them on this time, so perhaps that was the fix. At least I can put off installing the new fuse block for now as I want more time to think up where I want it and how to mount it-I'm leaning on the inner A-pillar, but I want to build a speaker box there I can mount it to.
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Got a new battery-the parts store swapped me. It was less than 3 months old and dead already. Starts like a champ now. Got a new volt meter too. It's a Klein tools knockoff I picked up on eBay for next to nothing. Should be sufficient for my needs. At least it is auto-ranging
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Bill, look back up at the first post on the previous page. I do have CDSE, and you'll see the gaskets I'm using, with the proper cutout. Unless you mean an additional cutout, then I'm afraid I don't know which gadgets you mean.
