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...