Disassemble and Make Piles

I haven't given up on this thing yet!  Over the last week I've been further ripping apart items, making piles, and locating people to help me with the next step in this process.  Red on for more excitement!





I've finally been able to find a few businesses that are interested in helping me figure out the next step in the process on this.  That would be striping the car (via media blasting of some sort), then repairing any spots in the body that are discovered, and getting it all ready for paint.

I'm more than a little anxious on this process.  I have trust issues!  I'm not keen on the idea of having someone else do stuff with this car since it is so important to me.  That said, this is all part of the overall learning process so moving forward I must!  If I tried to do the work myself I know it wouldn't end up the way I want it to.

There are two places near me (within 10 miles) that are able to do media blasting.  These are both powder coat companies.  I've raised concerns with metal warping using sand to blast a car body and both of them were able to give me references for cars they've done.  One of the companies regularly blasts cars for a restoration group nearby.

In order to make this effort worth it, I've started to make two piles.  One pile is a 'to blast' pile that will be for sandblasting only.  The other pile is a 'to powder coat' pile for blasting and coating parts.

Dirty

So far, the majority of parts I'm looking at powder coating are going to be the rear axle, the front crossmember, a few suspension and steering components (though most are being replaced), and the pedal assembly that bolts under the dash inside the car.  I'm still debating on the color to go with for these.  Likely will be black, but I'm still not 100% certain.

Empty!

likely not using

To get these parts ready for blasting and power coating, some items had to be further disassembled.  While I'm not likely reusing the rear axles, third member, and brakes, I am going to reuse the housing.   I removed the rest of the four link from the axle housing, then pulled out the axels, and finally the third member.  Once it was out, I pulled the studs from it as well.  This thing had a TON of dirt, grease, and oil on it.  I scraped a lot of it off, but will also pressure wash and degrease it prior to handing it over.




I also had pulled apart the steering gear box so it can be coated. Amazingly I was able to find seals for it, a replacement pitman arm, and a new pitman arm at rockauto.com.  That will make rebuilding it easy!  The top of the gear box where the adjusting screw is has a copper bushing that's worn through, so I'm going to see if a dealer can help me find that.  Cross your fingers!

no limited slip? Philistines!

Here's hoping that sometime next week I can have this thing all stripped down and ready to have some sheet metal work done.  I'll be working on replacing the floors and trunk areas, but any external body stuff I still need to locate a shop to help out.

Pedal assmbly

Over the next week I'm going to be drilling out broken bolts like a madman, and trying to locate someone to help with bodywork/fab/paint.  I've also still got to line up getting a different third member as well as a few body parts.  Here's until then!