11/17/07
Have not really had a lot of free time to work on the car, just little things here and there and of course driving it! I did get new wheels and rims this week. Boy what a difference!! I got them off of Ebay , I will post that info later. They are 255/45 17s. I was afraid they might be a little to wide but boy they look good.
New tires and rims look good!
Another view
And another
I just put the tires on last night and the care definitely handles differently. There is more road feel and the car is more responsive. You would expect this in going from basically stock tires to high performance tires. The tires are ever so slightly larger in diameter than the stock and I used a calculator and this result on only a 1/2 mile error in the speedo at 60 mph so it is not even worth worrying about fixing the speedo gearing. I will post more about the tires later.
08/24/07
I have not update the site lately. Been doing cosmetic stuff to the car, installed stereo, alarm, other minor stuff…oh yea….I also have been driving the car! Its running great, no drive train issues. Only real problem was what appeared to be low oil pressure according to the factory gauge and running a bit hot on the 95-100 degree days. It was right on the line at the H on the gauge. So I installed a 3 gauge set to augment the forty year old gauges and turns out I have almost 60 pounds of oil pressure at engine start and once its warm about 40 at cruising speed so no issue there, the original gauge was just reading wrong. As for the temp it was reading correct. On the hot days the engine was running at 210-220 degrees. I put a 180 degree thermostat in, new radiator (stock), from what I read the old cars had marginal radiators and I guess that is correct. Anyway it has not boiled that is not “over heated” so now that it is cooling off outside all is well again.
I am going to put some new pictures up soon, also going to create a better before and after section. Maybe add a search engine and index so people can find what they are looking for. As for the future I need to replace the rear torque boxes, shocks, springs, and check out the rear axle but that is a winter project. Also I want to paint the car again as I know better what I am doing now but it done look bad at all that may wait a year or so.
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04/01/07
Ok I found something I hate more than drilling out spot welds……PAINTING!!! I just cannot seem to get it the way I want it. There are still some minor body repairs you can see…ahh well. It still looks good just with all the time I am investing I wanted more. It is just a lot of work to get right. Take a look at the picture below. I took it today, basically I have the entire car painted now except for half the trunk area, the drivers rear quarter and the drivers door. I still have not put the chrome, antenna, etc. back on but it does look good. I am going to put white GT like stripes on the bottom of the door area.
I had a real time getting the door to line up. I replaced the hinge pins and bushings so now the door does not sag but some previous owner had just kept widening the holes in the hinge mounts to keep adjusting …. bad Idea. The holes were so big that at one end it detached and in the middle too. So to fix that I welded in new metal with the MIG and then ground it flat. I was very pleased as when it was done it looked brad new and was strong as could be. Anyway once I got the door on correctly with good hinges I discovered that the door was slightly warped at the handle end. The bottom was kicked out which made it impossible to get the seam lined up…..unless you put your knees on the bottom of the door and pull at the top real hard that is……. Now she is straight as an arrow!
I plan to keep cranking on the work as it is getting warm and want to start driving it a lot. I will post pictures of the finished product and also the drives door and quarter as I prep them.
The passenger side door did needed some real work, I got new door handles and welded in new corners now it looks well….perfect….
There she is, at this angle you cannot tell I still have to do the drivers rear quarter and door…..not to shabby huh….
This is the metal plate I welded into the passenger lower corner
Same thing as above but the other corner.
03/08/07
Been driving the car a bit, it still is driving good. Getting back to work on it though. I took the passenger door off to prep it for paint and replace the hinge pins. I did the drives door a while ago but did not document it. I have read on the web sites about people wanting to replace the hinge pins but not knowing how, thinking it would be to hard so I took some pictures to show the process.
Door removed, top hinge also removed.
Old hinge with the new hinge and bushings next to it. Sorry for the fuzzy pics..
Here you can see where I cut the pin in half and took out about a 3/4 inch section
I then pushed out the pins by rapping on them with a hammer…they can be hard to push out.
Here you can see I removed the bottom bushing top one is still in place. You remove them the same way just tap them out.
Hinge painted and new bushings in place. You gently rap them in and then put some grease on the inside before you slide new pin in place.
Hinges painted and new bushings and pin in place. Need to trim off excess pin.
02/02/07
Put the fenders and hood back on so I could drive the car to put gas in and just get some drive time in on it. Just put the fenders on with a few bolts for now. This is the first time I had the car outside and what I painted looks REAL good at ten feet so I am meeting my goal for sure. It is really going to look nice. I plan to work more on it tomorrow but the Superbowl may get in the way…
Well, the front of the car is painted now so I can start to see what it will look like, Passenger door comes off next for a referb, new hinge pins and painting. You can see I already started to fix some imperfections on the rear quarter.
01/14/07
I have not worked on the car for a while but started in again this weekend. Weather was very warm, definitely NOT normal January for Maryland. Wish I had it driveable. I painted the front clip and cowl area . There were chips and some dings from a hail storm. I sanded primed and put the color coat on this weekend. After that I just placed the fender on to see how it will look. It looks good. The more I paint the better I get at it. I can shoot it on and get a nice even coat now. Here are some pictures. It is hard to get a feel for how it really looks but here they are anyway.
Passenger side, fender is just temporarily in place
Passenger side
Passenger side
I found the real trick is getting the paint to the correct thickness and then setting up the gun properly. Lots of trial an error there. For me the paint needs to be a little thinner than a warm milk shake if that makes any sense. The Primer should be very thin as well. The Gravity feed gun is definitely the way to go I really like it.
I am trying to get the entire front of the car done so I can drive it again. Next I plan to paint the passenger door and replace the hinges. I already replaced the drivers door hinge pins. Also I replaced the fuel sending unit so not my fuel gauge works.
11/05/06
Well it has been a while since I updated the web site, this is due to the fact that I really have not worked on the car very much. A little here and there. Guess I got to busy with work and house stuff, plus I needed a break and was a little disappointed in the paint results I was getting. Also I was getting a little frustrated. When this happens I just walk away rather than do something stupid and really screwing things up.
Well I started working on the paint again. I have had the fenders and hood off since August so I have not been able to drive the car. I miss driving it each weekend and want to get it back on the road. I started back in by wet sanding the fenders with 320 grit paper, using a sanding block to keep it flat. I sanded it, remember I had already put 1 coat of color on. Well I found some little chips or pits I wanted to get rid of. Again ignoring my rule of just making it look good from 10 feet, these were very small chips but they bugged me.
What I did to fix them is wet sand and then place a drop of paint that was thinned and had hardener added. This basically made a droplet of paint that filled the chip and was higher than the original paint. I then wet sanded this droplet down until it was all nice and flat. The imperfection was gone. When I wet sanded it had to go down to metal again is some areas so I re-primed those areas. Then I wet sanded everything with 600 grit, cleaned it all up with paint prep and shot another color coat on. This time I mixed the paint 3 parts paint, 2 parts reducer, 1 part hardener.
This made it much thinner than before and definitely reduces the orange peel look. The passenger side paint went on well, the drivers side had a little run, also an area where the paint went on to thin at the peak of the fender. So I cleared the passenger and need to go back and fix the drivers side before clearing it.
Passenger side with two coats of clear. Looks good.
Drivers side. Had a few paint runs, so I could not clear. need to fix before I can put clear coat on. overall looks good though.
Here you can see where I had a run and the paint did not cover. I have to go back and fix this.
The paint is looking better, my methods are improving and right now I would say it is looking like a five/ten footer. I am not going to get any awards but it is going to look good.
9/04/06
I sprayed on the second coat on the hood after wet sanding for about 2 friggin hours, I sanded, sanded, sanded….did I mention I sanded. I know I said it will be a 10 footer when I am done, I am not looking to win any shows, but when I get down on the paint I see little things I want fixed, so I sand. I found that most orange peal was easily removed with elbow grease and 600 grit wet sand paper. Once the sanding was done I sprayed on the second coat, It all went on real nice except for one little corner in the front where there was a little fish eye and two other small fish eyes. The on in the corner also had a little over spray and a slight run (about 1/2 inch long). When I saw it I stood back about 5 feet and could not see it, when I got close I could, this is supposed to be a ten footer and practice paint job so I should have left well enough alone….I did not. So being of short patience I decided I could make this area dry quicker with a blow drier and then wet sand and shoot it again……bad idea. All I managed to do is dry it then sand it obviously to wet as a small area peeled up (about 1/4 inch square). I managed to really annoy myself. So I stopped and walked away for a few hours.
After cooling down I put the hood to the side and started working the passenger fender that I had already primed. Again not listening to my own 10 footer rule I saw some minor imperfections I wanted to fix. Now that it was all one color I saw a bad fix someone had done in the past, also I saw two new little dimples that I had missed before. The car had been in a hail storm once and there were some dimples from that. I had bought a kit from Harbor Freight to remove them. It consists of a metal hammer and some heavy flat metal blocks to place on the other side you are hammering. I was really surprised at how I could remove the dimples with this setup. Most I got out so good I cannot find them. Those that I could not completely remove got a little bondo to flatten them out the rest of the way.
Again I spent a lot of time sanding and I could not leave well enough alone I tried to remove every blemish I could. More than I had to. I then removed the other fender and started working on it. It is not as bad as the passenger side and is going quicker, I plan to primer it then allow it to dry.
My plan is to now get both fenders base coated with paint, clear the hood then prep the cowl area and headlight area on the car. I will then paint and clear the fenders and cowl etc. Then the entire front clip is done with paint. I will put it all back together for real this time. At that point everything from the doors forward will have new paint and already I can tell just by placing the hood in place it is going to look GREAT. Once the front clip is on I will remove the passenger door, put new hinge pins in fix any defects and then paint. Then the rear quarter on that side and from that side of the car it will all be new paint! Then the drivers door and quarter, the rear and I am done. I want to have it all done this month. I may or may not make it. So far the hardest part is all the sanding. It is a close second on my list of things I do not like to do, only surpassed by drilling out spot welds….but not by much..
New compressor and filter set up.