Rotisserie

Is been a while since I posted, and a lot of people have been giving me grief about it, so here goes some updates.  After I got the front of the car blasted, I was ready to weld in the right front frame rail, but then started to discovered some more rust on the right side.  There were a bunch of pin holes in the front floor pan, and as I explored, it got much worse back over at the rocker panel.  The rocker panel is a structural beam that runs from the back frame rails and spring mount, up to the front torque box and frame rail.  The more I looked, the more rot I found.  I decided the only way to do all of the work needed to fix the rust was to get to the bottom of the car easily.

Here are some pics of the home-made rotisserie we made.  I looked around to buy one ($2500) and I looked at different sets of plans on the internet.  I settled on the simplest and cheapest option I could come up with.  A few pieces of tubing from the metal store, some casters from Harbor Freight, some trailer U Bolts from Agri Supply, and some 2" pipe nipples and flanges made it work.  We bolted it to the rear bumper mounts in the back and the engine mounts up front.  Works like a champ, especially once we dropped the rear axle and got the weight right.  I used double wheeled casters, so now I can roll it in and out of the shop with ease.

October Update

I have been doing a lot of work to finally start putting parts back in the car, not take off, so I have been working to get the frame welded back in. I had to blast most of the front end to get rid of all of the rust, dirt, paint, and grime. My air compressor died at the beginning of the task, so I bought a new big one that should not give me any trouble.


Here's a picture of Rufus in the car. He was real nasty after he got out. He loves to come and hope in. He says "car" and runs to it. Hopefully he can drive it one day.

Here's a shot of the front after blasting. I used my shop crane to lift it up high so that I did not have to crawl under with the blast gun. That would have been a mess. I have now started to fit in all of the new parts to make sure they fit before I start welding. I am going to prime everything good and then weld it in place.








Here's a pic of the RH door. I wanted to get them taken apart so I can blast them with some other parts. It's in pretty bad shape, and I thought it was the better one. I and going to have to cut it apart and get to the inside to cut out and fix some parts. These doors were bad for not letting water drain out and rust on the inside.

A Little Work

The last few months have been crazy with traveling, people coming by, and others, but I have gotten back to some work on the car. Most of the work has been getting back to good metal on the right front side. Here are some pictures of the work I have been doing. I did not want to take the rest of the car apart on the inner rocker panel, so I cut the worst of the rusted section off


A friend of mine made me a new piece at his shop. It looks great and should fit just right. I had him make it long so that I could massage it back in place. There isn't much strength coming from here, its more to hold the torque box in place.

Here is a shot of the swiss cheese I had to make to get all of the parts out. It is a lot of work with a drill and pneumatic chisel. The old metal is kind of soft, so I have to be careful. I'm glad I started where a panel will cover and carpet will never show some of my learning. Other parts of the car when I get to them will require my A game.
Here is an under belly shot of the RH side. I got the old floor support out without too much hassle, and was able to keep the tunnel support in good shape.
My next steps are to clean up the area good / blast it in the necessary places, and get some primer and PUR15 rust paint on before I close it all up. Primer and paint won't get in here once I close it up. I have also found that a big wire wheel in the grinder is the best for dealing with the under coating. Trying chemicals, gas, paint stripper, thinner, etc just makes that junk like putty.

In between the major metal work, I have been working on getting parts blasted and primed. Here is a shot of the fender apron braces. They had some rust pitting, but cleaned up pretty good. The picture below is of the parts sprayed with an acid etching primer. Most people say that is the best for this type of stuff. I am going to sand them down good and shoot them the engine bay black later on. Right now I want to get as many parts cleaned and primer as possible. I am having a lot of problems with humidity. My sand blast gun was shooting straight water one day, so I have added extra filters to my compressor, but even that is not enough. I can get maybe 30-45 mins of blasting in before the gun clogs from the media being wet. It's been near 100 degrees each day and almost that for humidty the last few weeks. Maybe that will back down some, or I will have to wait on fall.

Update

Another crazy month has went by, and in addition to it being freezing cold outside, I had another Germany trip, so production is not what I would like, but I have been doing a little work. Below is a shot of the RH Torque box and the RH Front Frame rail before I pulled them out. We knew about all of the rust in the rail, but as I started cutting, I found more. The RH rocker rail is chewed up on the end, but I think I can fix it and paint with the special anti-rust paint I have.


The frame rail and torque box are out except the back plate of the torque box. It has about 20 spot welds to the firewall that I am cutting from the floorboard. I am going really slow with this so I don't dent the floorboard.



One other thing I got done, was to pull the gas tank. It is in really good shape. Just a little clean up and new gaskets will get the job done here. The rear trunk area in in good shape except for the outside wheel wells, which I knew were in bad shape from the beginning. I am not going to go in here until I get the front completely fixed. I had to pull the gas tank to keep from blowing up the joint when I was welding. I'm glad I didn't go far when I cranked it up when I got it here, because I got about half a gallon out of the tank !!

I had the transmission hot tanked and it got all of the grease and grime off, but there is still aluminum oxidation on the outside of the housing. I have tried to wire brush it off, but it is not real successful compared to the amount of work. After talking to some people around on coatings and such, I am going to mask off all of the machined sections and lightly blast it.


I got to a point where I really needed a blast cabinet. I had been waiting until they were on sale at Harbor Frieght, and finally hit it and had a 20% off coupon. This one works pretty well. With the Shop-Vac hooked up, a light inside, and the air compressor running wide open, it works pretty good.

This cabinet has pretty good room in it. I have the fan blade in there laying down right now.

I was able to get the fan pulley and most of the fan blasted today. It was just warm enough to paint the fan pulley, so it is done. The fan will be ready for paint soon as well. I have to be patient when blasting because it doesn't take long to run down the pressure on my compressor.

Progress!!

I hadn't posted in a long time, but work has been going on slowly.

After I brought the engine home, I started to cut and grind out the right front frame rail of the body. It took a bunch of spot weld cutting, but I got it loose.

Since my plan is to keep a mechanical and body project going on at the same time, I also started to tear down the transmission. Here is a pic from the start.

The first step was to knock the gunk off. I then used a wire brush to try and clean some of the suface oxides. This worked ok, but I will need more work later.


I didn't take any pictures with is all apart, but it is done. None of the parts are damaged, just some wear on it. It was rebuild years ago, and looked in real good shape. The fluid was clean and no chips or anything in the pan. The rebuild kit I got for it should be ok. I took the parts to be hot tanked before I start re-assembly.



I will put up some pics of all of the parts before I start re-assembly. Hopefully the build is as easy as the tear down, the Ford service manual was really helpful.

Motor Is Home

Brought home the motor this weekend. I've started putting parts on it to seal up all of the holes. So far, I have the fuel pump, distributor, spark plugs, and temp sender in. I'm going to do more tonight.

I finished the distributor all but a small e-clip that I broke. The pertronix system I put in was real easy.

Distributor Rebuild

Since the engine is ready, I have started to put in the solid state ignition system. Before that however, I am pulling the shaft out to check the bearings and give everything a good cleaning. An old oil leak really has this thing gunked up. The input gear looks good.