It’s been a whole year

[Ulu]

Grrr.. the pea soup fog continues here. No good weather for joyriding about in an open car. Well, it needed wax anyway, and I slathered on the Turtle Wax with a generous paw.

Many many things could be done to improve this car, and I will certainly do many of them in the near future.

For now I desperately need to put in a grab handle and a foot rest so my wife can ride in the car with me.

I also need to desperately reinforce the rear tail light and license plate mounting brackets. They are so floppy they will come apart going down the road in very short order.

 

[Ulu]

Too damp to drive, so I am working in the garage.

I marked the front valance and fenders with blue tape and a sharpie. Then I took a pneumatic grinder and trimmed the ragged fender tips to be even. Finally I sanded them flush with a long board-sander. After I took the pictures, I touched up all the edges with red paint.

I can’t believe nobody did this stuff 30 years ago.

Also a new glitzy chrome plate frame fills the gap.

Before trimming the fenders.


After trimming.


Perhaps the sun will come out today & the streets will dry up and I will take the car out for a ride, but it’s just been very foggy and damp here lately.

 

[Ulu]

I removed the steering column so I can improve it, as it is spliced together from literally 5 bits of tube. Long story….

To cover the ugly gash where column penetrates fender, I made an aluminum trim cover and gasket from scratch.

I cut a rough piece from this old aluminum window frame With an electric sheet metal shear called the nibbler.



Next I roughed it out with a drill press and grinder




After hand filing and lots of sanding.


Painting in a cold garage with a heat gun and a hot box to get/keep it all warm.


First test fit with hand-cut rubber gasket.


The true ugliness below:

 

[Ulu]

I had to weld the steering shaft, and I burnished it and painted it. The paint was still too soft and I spoiled it.



I got the car out again and it ran the best ever, but the heads need torquing. She is seeping oil so I am going to regasket the whole engine.

Here I am hoisting the back off of the car.

 

[FJB]

having fun yet?.... Thanks for sharing. Looking great!

 

[Ulu]

It would be maddening if I had not expected everything up front. Except receiving the car covered in gas. That was the real PITA and it is history now. I expected everything else.

Fixing the car is no issue as there is no schedule. Nobody needs it back on Monday. I can work as I please, or not.

If this was my only car, it would be a disaster!

 

[Ulu]

I assembled two carts. The short one holds the rear body now,



and the long one will soon hold the front.



I will hoist the front body today.

Both of those are made from old Planhold brand architectural drawing carts. I recycled these from our old engineering office, because they went paperless this year.

 

[Ulu]

I circled a little spot where the axles hit both braces I added. It’s smacks hard, under full power launch.

I thought there was an awful lot of hammering going on.

I added the square tube brace across the shock towers and the four silver tube braces suspending the rear frame.



All of the stuff will have to change later. This was very quick and dirty when I constructed it, but it was only meant to get me by inspection. I was not trying to build a good car.

 

[Ulu]

The weighting is the hardest part!

The messy counterweight was necessary to keep the hoist from tipping over as I lift the front body.

I used a piece of conduit as a crossbar & the front bumper as a spreader bar (because it is very sturdy and it was quite handy as well.)


Here it is off on the cart.



Now I can do what needs to be done.

 

[Ulu]

Well it has been another year, and my car has been apart the entire time. It has not looked like this since last February.

I spent the entire year working on my motorcycle, going fishing, and building bicycles.

The chassis has been parked in my boat yard under a tarp this whole time and I finally went out yesterday, uncovered it, and started getting things arranged that I can actually weld on it now.

I will have to flip it upside down to do the bottom, and if I don’t take the transaxle off all the oil will probably run out through the vent. I’ll have to figure out where that is and plug it up. I will probably drain the transaxle as well. I doubt it’s had an oil change since the 1980s.