Whoa, updates? Not much... :-(

Been doing a little bit here and there.  I've been attacking some rusty surfaces with wire attachments to my drill and it's been generally good.  Cleaned up around some rusty areas of the trunk lid, hit the lock bolts with liquid wrench (be great to be able to close the trunk and open it without a screwdriver).  Started de-rusting the driver's front wheelwell... not pretty obviously... and while I was at it, hit the frame rail some more.  While I was under there, I decided it was time to drain the tranny fluid in prep for pulling the transmission.  For the record, one of my least favorite vehicular maintenance tasks is draining transmission fluid... so many bolts, so messy.  I think I got it all caught in my pan, though.  While that was draining I started hitting the interior rust with the drill/brush.  It's funny, I'd thought it was moderately non-filthy in there... now there's all kinds more dust/dirt flying around.  Good times.

Had to come back and herd kids but still, good to get some stuff done.

I also finally acquired the correct bolts to pull the motor and bolt it up to the engine stand.  I first went to O'Reilly with a sample bolt from the bell housing (which matches the bolt holes in the heads which is where I plan to attach the chain for pulling the motor) and according to the bolt/nut size display, said it was a metric bolt... which surprised me.  I bought two (they didn't have any big enough for mounting on the engine stand), went home... they don't fit in the holes.  Last week I was at Ace Hardware and did the same thing... Ace's display said it was a standard fit bolt.  On faith, I got four long ones for the engine stand and two short for the engine lift... they fit perfectly.  So... kudos to Ace.  I still need a chain and the engine lift, obviously.  Maybe in January.

Also hoping the welding kit I'm looking at stays on sale at Northern Tool into February when I should have money for it.  Not holding my breath.  ;-)

oops

I've been, I think, fairly careful in the disassembly up to this point.  I realized something the other day, though.  I was relaxing with my Haynes manual, reviewing the 'pull the transmission' section when I realized that 'remove all of the bolts from the bell housing' came AFTER 'support the engine with a block of wood under the oil pan and use a chain to support the transmission.'  So... I need to do those things, I think.  Of course, rather than do them, I did a few other things this weekend.  Got another seat belt disconnected, swept out the interior a little more... then I did something really fun... I jacked up the rear end and took out the driveshaft.  It's surprisingly easy to take out... just four little bolts off of the U-joint at the rear and and then pull it out of the transmission.

Of course... I was supposed to mark the orientation of the driveshaft on the pinion so I could put it back the same way... <sigh>

Also came across this interesting bit... I have no instructions that say 'drain the transmission fluid' before pulling the driveshaft... however:

So that's great.  So much for my 'clean' garage floor.  Of course, the entire transmission is coated with coil and crud, so when it comes out that'll be nice anyway.  What I'm wondering if this means that the rear seal on the transmission needs to be replaced... of course if I'm going to have it out anyway, I should replace that seal as a matter of course while I'm at it.  Hoping to pull the engine this weekend, maybe I'll take the tranny out before that, we'll see how busy this week gets.

Here's the rear end.  I'm hoping the 'after' pictures look better... ;-)

back in the saddle?

Life's been pretty busy/crazy the past couple of months, not much time for the car.  Been doing little things here and there and just got some good time in the past couple of weeks.

I got a little hand-brush to clean the dust and everything out from the inside rather than using my broom.  I wouldn't say it's 'clean' but it's certainly 'less filthy'.  Took out some more seatbelts, too.

Hopefully before it snows this year, I'll roll it out of the garage one last time and wash the inside with soap and water, some scrubbing, etc.

I got both of the engine mounts unbolted so it's ready to pull the engine out there anyway.  Yes, it's filthy.  In some places, inches of crusted dirt and oil deposits.

Passenger's side engine mount.  Up and to the right you see the fuel pump mount (had to remove it in order to get my wrench on the engine mount) and the water pump.  The K-member here is where I scraped a lot of crusty dirt out.  Lovely.

Took the torque converter cover off to reveal the flywheel and whatnot, got the four bolts out connecting the flywheel to the torque converter.  I'm impressed by how clean it looks in there.  Actually, now that I look at it, I see a fair amount of dirt in there... hmm.  Anyway, it's exciting to be looking 'into the guts' of the drivetrain.

Disconnected the throttle cable and the transmission kickdown lever.

 Looking up at the bottom of the engine and the bell housing.  Note the rusty hole to the left where there SHOULD be a freeze plug.  Same issue on the other side.  This was why my brother stopped driving the car... I can only imagine what the waterfall of coolant was like.  Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing what all of this stuff looks like once it's clean.

I know I'm not doing anything with the frame right now until I can afford some things (like... frame rails and a welding setup), but I wanted this reference shot of the shift linkage mounted on the frame rail.  Looks like I might need some new bolts...

 Looking at the front of the engine.  The bottom pulley there is on the crankshaft, it was very exciting to me to turn that in order to rotate the engine to get the flywheel bolts off of the torque converter.  It turned pretty easy, so that's a good sign, I think.  Also, that pulley was so packed full of dirt, I couldn't even see the bolt in there.  I took a few minutes to chisel out the crud with my screwdriver.

So this is the front of the left-hand cylinder head.  That shiny bolt hole is where the negative battery cable attached... I'm thinking of putting a new bolt in there for attaching the chain to pull the engine out.  I can't see any better place to bolt in and I think it'll be strong enough... right?

My twisted pile of filthy seat belts.  I should have labeled them, it's going to be fun figuring out what goes where, I know.  Oh, well.

So this is the torque converter plate cover... I don't know why there's a little 'window' on the bottom of it, because considering airflow and whatnot, I would think that would just let flying rocks, gravel and small animals just get scooped up into the bellhousing.  I don't think I'll be putting this one back in, I'll get an 'aftermarket' with no 'window' in it.

The plan as of now is to keep cleaning and whatnot and Mark is going to help me pull the engine on Oct 29th.  With the engine out, I'll clean out the engine bay and want to pull out the tranny and driveshaft so it's as light as possible to roll out of the garage and do one last hose/clean before winter.  Then I'll break down and clean the engine and all.  I'd like to start 'work' on the trunk lid too, kind of to practice sanding down to a good surface and whatnot.  I'll probably start my welding/patching practice on the trunk lid, too... but I really doubt I'll be buying anything like a welding set until after the holidays are done... (February).  Until then, I'll keep cleaning and disassembling.  Plenty of that to keep me busy right now.

I would like to try to bend the roof supports back up, though... some lumber and a hydraulic jack... I may try that one of these days when I'm bored.  :-)

Labor Day labors

Made some good progress this weekend.  Mark loaned me his sawzall and I picked up some new wrenches, a screwdriver and drill attachments which I put to good work.

First order of business was to see if the screwdriver would get the trunk open.  No dice... so I sprayed about half a can of liquid wrench into the key hole... waited a day and the screwdriver popped it right open.  BOOYAH!  There was much rejoicing.  Then I took the trunk lid off.  There's some rust damage around the corners of it that I'll need to address before final paint, but that's a ways down the road.  It's structurally fine and ready to just be cleaned up for now and then stored.

Sawzall time... with proper eye protection, I cut away the exhaust pipe so I was able to pull out the exhaust manifolds.

With the manifolds and exhaust pipe out of the way, it was easy to pull the starter... and with it the positive battery cable.  Here they are sitting in the newly-opened trunk alongside the screwdriver that got the trunk open.

Meanwhile in the trunk... here's the passenger's side by the wheel well.  My brother had repaired this with a bondo-ish compound along with the structural foam so I'll get to scrape and pull all of that out of there before I do the metal repair over there.

On the driver's side, there was no repair work done... plus it's more rusted out anyway.  Lovely.  

Some shot of the engine bay with the exhaust out.  

Some more stuff done this weekend:

Swept out the trunk, cleaned a lot out of the trunk lid weatherstripping area (sitting under a willow tree for a decade or so will accumulate a good amount of... 'stuff'...)

Removed the bellhousing bolts (four of them, right?) They weren't very tight... I don't know if that should worry me.  I was thinking all I have to disconnect now was the motor mounts and I'm good to pull the engine, but then I remembered the flywheel/torque converter bolts... oops.  I need to take the flywheel cover off, there's a little door in it right in the front which is odd to me because that's like a perfect scoop to pick up gravel while you drive down the road, I would think.  I'll post a picture when I take one.  Plan to get a replacement cover that doesn't have the window eventually...

Speaking of the transmission, it occurred to me that maybe the reason the car doesn't seem to go into gear is because the shift mechanism levers are mounted to my disintegrated frame rail at one point so maybe the shifting isn't pushing the lever at the tranny all the way.  It would be nice to not have to have the transmission repaired or replaced.  I'll check another time... once the engine's out, I want to pull the transmission and driveshaft and take them to a coin-op car wash to degrease the hell out of them.  The trans in particular is coated with oil and dirt (thank you, rear main seal leak...)

Removed the fuel filter and the line from the fuel pump to the carb (used my new wrenches).

Removed the mounting dish things that hold the driver's side headlights. I need them out so I can get to the bolts holding the platform that the dishes mount on so I can get to the bolts that hold the fender on.  Ugh... hip bone's connected to the leg bone...

Tried to cut off a bolt holding some more metal in place, but I had settled for a grinding disk rather than a real cutting disk because I couldn't find the right attachment at Menards.... it didn't work so well.  The grinding disk did work well to grind down the tabs and rivets that held the trim in place, though... I ground most of those down on the driver's side.

Used a nylon spinning brush drill attachment to attack a lot of the rust on the driver's side, sprayed some rust converter on the quarter and b-pillar sections just to put the brakes on the rusting.  I need to get a circular sander and 80-grit pads for when I really want to go to town on that area, but that's probably not going to happen until after I get the frame sorted out.

27 August 2011

So... quick and easy I got the driver's seatbelt totally out (one of those bolts was a real sticker...) and got the exhaust manifolds all unbolted and ready to come off (soon as I cut out the exhaust pipe.  Did some more disassembly and labeling on the wiring harness, took the horn out.  That was the easy stuff....

Jacked up the front end from under the k-member mount on the driver's side and heard this awful crunching sound.  I wound up putting blocks under the center of the k-member to support the front of the car and as a result I could really see how the k-member is really only attached to the car by 3 bolts, not 4...

Jacked up and blocked...

 Manifolds disconnected... didn't break anything! 

 Wiring harness action.  Think this is the positive battery cable lead. 

 Shot of how the k-member is totally loose here, the part of the k-member bolted to the frame rail is totally rusted out.  It's not nearly this bad on the other side, but I can tell the metal of the k-member is compromised.  Need a new one or a donor.  

Another ugly spot... where the front frame rail (driver's) meets the torsion bar crossmember.  Problem: where do I support the car while I'm replacing this stuff?  I suppose I can support from the frame rail while replacing the torsion crossmember and then support from the crossmember while doing the frame rail.  

Here's the passenger side of the same connection... so that's how it's supposed to look!!!  

So... phasing again.  Most important is to get the body structurally solid, which means replacing the front frame rail, torsion bar mount and the rear frame rail all on the left side.  To do that, I'll be pulling the engine and transmission... well, mostly everything to get the weight down.  I'll leave the rear axle and all on while I'm working on the front, though.  I think I'll shoot to do the torsion bar crossmember first and all of the supporting steel in the rocker area, then while the car is supported from there, I'll do the front frame rail.  Nice project for the winter, right?  

speed/rpm calculations

Found a web site calculator for figuring engine RPM related to speed... with a 2.76:1 rear end and the A904 transmission, the engine would be running about 2300RPM in 3rd gear at 70mph... that's not bad at all, I think.

So... that whole 'overdrive transmission' plan is even more unlikely to happen.  If I ever get around to beefing up the engine, a 727 and new driveshaft is likely just to handle the horsepower and torque, but can probably leave the rear end ratio alone, though of course it needs a limited slip differential... ;-)   (that's like phase 4, though... actually I don't know what phase it is, probably phase 3, since my previous phase 1 and 2 are not just one big phase to get it running and safe on the streets.

No frame for you.

Got an update from a car forum contact... the car does not have a 'frame' per se, it's Unibody, with 'frame' elements integral to the body itself.  This makes sense based on what I was seeing under the car as well as my complete inability to find a '1974 satellite frame' in any salvage yards or anything.  Also, the pictures of one of the guys' 1968 project car (road runner) on a rotisserie looked VERY much like the shackle mount setup on the back of my car, and the other shots of that car made it pretty clear that there's no 'frame'.

So... there won't be any 'rolling chassis' for me to work with... time for a plan D, I guess...  Ideally, I'd dip/tank the whole body and major body parts (hood, trunk, fenders, etc) and dip prime them to kill all of the rust and protect against it, then cut out the rusted sections and replace with new metal.  From what I've found looking around, I'm probably looking at 3-5 grand to have that dipping work done... and no place local, the closest I've found is over by Chicago.  So... add a few hundred bucks in trailer rental and gas if that's where I have to go.  This would mean I won't be doing any welding this winter, probably... unless I just start practicing on little pieces.

Also, Sarah expressed interest in having a media blasting cabinet... then of course I'd need an air compressor... and probably need to get a 220v line run to the garage...  so... for now, I'll keep pulling parts and scrubbing.

19Aug2011 update

There were a few things I wanted to attend to on the car.  One was to do a visual inspection on the areas of concern on the frame...  so I jacked up the rear end to check things out.  I also got out the wire brush to clean things up so I could see the damage a little better.  I have mixed feelings about tapping the frame rail and having a shower of gravel and rust chunks fall out of the holes... on the one hand, it's good to get that stuff out of there.  On the other hand, it's not good that the frame is filled with gravel and rust.  Some of the chunks are... substantial.

At least the shackle mount looks okay?  

While sweeping underneath to clean things up (spider webs, etc), I would tap the underside of the car occasionally... each tap resulting in a little shower of gravel... so I got the brush and did the same deal with the frame up by the K-frame under the driver's side fender.  I knew that was another area of concern (especially right under where the driver's floor is)... more places where metal will need to be replaced... 

Looks like a crack... rusted thin frame rail.  

 Driver's side lower rear fender area... luckily they make patch panels.  

View looking to the rear, along the nearly non-existent rocker panel...  

Also started taking the front end apart... got the headlights and grill out!  I need a body manual so I can label parts better than 'body panel in front of hood'... 

Other fun stuff... the rodent jawbone that fell out of the frame rail and the wasp nest I found nestled under the brightwork around the headlights.  

Still can't get the trunk open, I'm going to get a bigger screwdriver like what my dad used to get it open, see if that does the trick.  I did try to crawl into the trunk from the back seat area to disassemble the lock but... well, I don't fit through that gap.  

I decoded the fender tag as best I could and verified that she just had the standard transmission... which I double-checked with trans pan pictures to verify that it's an A904 3-spd.  My continued research says that should be fine for engines putting out up to 300hp, assuming the trans is in good shape.  I also verified that the shift linkage is all still connected... but when it's in 'park', I can still turn the wheel and I hear a clicking from the transmission, so something's broken in there for sure.  I'm not keen on the prospect of rebuilding an automatic transmission myself and if I have to pay someone 600-800 bucks to do it, I might as well just buy a 727 transmission for about the same price (as I've found available online)... although then I'd need a new driveshaft, too.  I've looked at eventual overdrive transmission options to get better mileage on the highway eventually... a 5-spd manual conversion kit is about $5G (not counting the bucket seats and console I'd have to get), a 4-spd automatic kit is about $4G.  Neither of these is worth the savings in gas, but if I wind up driving her regularly someday, it would cut down on the engine RPMs quite a bit which would be nice.  

Or I could go with a different differential ratio... my rough estimations (turn rear wheel so that the axle rotates twice... take inverse of the number of times the tire turned (roughly 1.45 times), multiply by four (calculation I found online somewhere) and got about 2.76:1.  So that's already pretty 'highway friendly'.  I'd rather go with a higher gear ratio and an overdrive transmission... but that's not happening anytime soon.  

BTW... verified it's an 8.25 rear end, open differential.  

In other news, I can't see any way to disconnect the body from the frame.  I hope they aren't welded together... well... maybe that would be better, I don't know... but I wanted to get the body off of the frame so I could work on them separate (divide and conquer).  Oh, well.

My cousin Ron is hooking me up with an engine stand... whoo-hoo!  I really want to take the trans, driveshaft and rear axle to a coin-op car wash and scrub all of that oil and dirt off of everything... I'm not doing that in my driveway.  I'm going to leave the axle where it is as long as I still  need to roll her around... but I suppose once I get the engine out, I can pull the trans and driveshaft and clean them up.  With the engine out, I'll be able to clean up the firewall and all of those other areas a lot better, too... looking forward to that.

Washed up a few of the interior panels that I pulled out... I might start fixing cracks on them, if only to prevent against further cracking/breaking while they're stored out of the way.  

That's all for now... 

9Aug updated

Took some more pictures last night after I started on the interior panels and headliner (gross).  I started with a few pictures of the engine bay... showing it cleaned up a little more...

Digging into the interior.  So much dust... ugh...   Is this some special kind of cardboard?  I hope not...

 My stack of interior panels.

Some work here.... cleaning, I assume sanding, priming, painting... the fade line is pretty funny where the sun didn't bleach out the color.

VERY dusty.  I don't know if I mentioned but we lived on a dirt road through all the years that Grandma drove this car.  Used to billow up with dust inside as soon as we went from asphalt to gravel... assuming that's from the rust holes in the body.  That dust is EVERYWHERE... and 30 years old....

There is nothing holding that seatbelt in place anymore.

I think I need to get that roof support UP somehow.  My nephew smashed the hood down years ago from jumping on it.

I don't know what this is... I thought it was a wire, but it's like... insulator or something, the middle is kind of gooey... and it was attached to a cardboard panel which doesn't sound like wiring to me.  <shrug>  I'm sure it isn't important... ;-)

Engine bay coming apart...

Shots from when I started digging into the accessories and everything...

With the hood off...

Here's that bolt that I torqued off.

My results from trying to stop the rusting.

Think I need a patch panel?

All snuggled into my third stall...

This part is pretty clean, at least.  Well.. after I soaked and scrubbed it.

Battery tray's pretty shot... and look at those pristine alternator bracket bolts!  I think the entire coolant system is filled with rust and dried stuff...

Where the battery was...

This is what I did to the transmission fluid lines when I tried to disconnect from the radiator... dumbass...

Starting to open up a little bit...

Here's the negative battery cable.  I was unbolting the clip and the bolt just snapped... it was corroded to near nothing in the middle.  Acid rocks!