Pictures to go with my previous post:

Gastank refurb is complete! I think I spent about $100 altogether on paint, POR-15, and about a week's worth of time for painting, curing, etc. Hopefully it will hold up for another 35 years! Don't have any before shots handy.... but its a HUGE step in the right direction.


Fooling around with making my own gauge cluster, since I can't find one I like. This is (obviously) just a mock-up of what I could do in MDF and fiberglass... 4 might be too much.



Spots that are getting the POR treatment: This is the one that i had submerged in silicone...



And this is the spare well (duh) with the fiberglass patches... Looks worse than it actually is, but its still pretty bad.


Started rebuilding the brake MC. Any tips on cleaning out the barrel? there isn't any rust to speak of, but it couldn't hurt to polish out the innards out a bit.



And the obligatory old vs. rebuilt CV axle shot:

Posted by Harrison Krix at 2:34 PM | Permalink | Comments

I think there exists a special place in "Automotive Hell" where Satan brings you the first car you ever worked on, and he then makes you correct all the dipshit "repairs" you did to the poor thing in the first place. I have the unique benefit of still owning my first car, so I get to gaze upon my past "repairs" with a bitter cocktail of awe and horror; what the fuck was I thinking when I did that?!

Pictures to follow soon, but of particular note are 2 floorboard repairs done at least 2 years apart from one another. I got better from one to the other, but not by any largely noticeable degree.

#1 happened during my first year with the car... I think i was 15 when I "repaired" the spare tire well. This more or less consisted of cutting out the worst of the rust (at the time there wasn't a large amount) and filling the well with several layers of fiberglass cloth and maybe a gallon or two of resin. I'm exaggerating of course, but not by much. Nearly a decade later, I learn that fiberglass over bare metal does little more then trap moisture between the metal and the 'glass. Given the choice of which one to eat through, the moisture attacks my trunk floor in an effort to escape, and I'm now looking at a heavily pock-marked wheel well with at least 2 dozen more rust holes. Genius.

#2 was a repair done in College. The area under the passenger rear seat had all but disintegrated; this time I knew fiberglass would not do the trick. Coincidentally, I had been taking a welding class at school. I pulled the car up to the shop one weekend, and patched the floor with some spare 12ga sheet that was laying was laying around. So far, so good.

Thing is, I must have been in a rush... or severely drunk... or possessed or something, because I never primed or painted the underside of the car. I painted the inside, sure. The underside, however, was treated with roofing silicone spread over the bare metal in about a 1.5" thickness. I know this material very well now - I spent the better part of four hours peeling it off from the underside of my car this weekend.

I'm very glad I only really have to deal with my own idiocy where my car is concerned. At least this way I know who to get mad at.

Gas can refurb and CV refurbs are finished. Like I said before, pics to follow. This time, it almost looks like I know what the hell I'm doing...


...almost

Posted by Harrison Krix at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments

Small update. didn't get much done because all the work under the car took a lot out of me.

I think I was the nastiest I've ever been in my whole life this weekend. That sort of thing happens, you know, when you decide to scrape off all th old dirt, oil and rust from underneath a car. Its especially bad when you're under the car as well, and your instrument of choice is a wire-wheel on a power drill.

This is me. I'm having a good day, really.



Seriously, i felt like someone had stuffed me into a sandblasting cabinet for a few hours.

This is the view I enjoyed for most of the day:



Its getting there. The rusty spots are getting hit with some POR15 and then some Herculiner. Everything else just gets the Herculiner. Right now I've finished from the firewall to the rear seat bulkhead. I ran out of paint there, and theres also a few spots that need to be patched also before I move on.


More dirty work here. CV joint rebuild. my boot kits are on backorder, so i've got a bunch of nice clean steel parts sitting in WD-40 filled bags while I wait.





I also repainted my rear springs.



I'm in the middle of re-sealing my gas tank with the POR-15 kit right now. Should be done by tomorrow, and i can repaint the outside this weekend. Will update when I get a little closer to done on that project.

Posted by Harrison Krix at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments

Quick photoshop to see how the Axis OG wheels will look on the car:


niiiiiiiiice.

Posted by Harrison Krix at 5:36 PM | Permalink | Comments