Front beam gets some love

Moving on in a non-linear fashion, I turned my focus to stripping and cleaning the front beam (truth be told; most of the sequence below has occurred at random intervals over the last few years and this is my attempt at tying everything together with my current progress)

Firsty, I removed the spring leaves from the front beam. The beam has sway away adjusters installed and I had to wind the centre screws back in order to draw the leaves out. Before removal I added a few cable ties to the end to keep everything together:

Then it was just a case of withdrawing them with a suitably sized pair of mole grips:

Rather than cleaning the old grease off at this point, I simply wrapped them in cling film:

I then sealed up the ends of the beam to prevent dirt and crap getting in their as I wire wheeled the outside:

Nothing magical to show here, just takes time. Lots of time:

I tidied the sides of the beam by cutting flush the remnants of the old bump stops. These stubs are the result of the bump stops being crudely cut sometime in the car's past when Gretchen was lowered;

Used the power file to smooth things off perfectly level:

Now that the worst of the crud has been removed and those stubs addressed, I can switch to the shot blast gun to ensure the cleanest possible finish and a decent key for laying fresh paint on. Time to fire up the compressor...

Scuttle and under-bonnet stripped and primed

Continuing on from last week's blasting endeavour, I spent many hours ensuring that all the hard-to-access nooks were spotlessly clean (NB: I left a couple of sections of original paint where it was in decent enough condition to remain in place for the time being):

Everything recieved several coats of Zinc galvanising spray for protection. It calms my mind to see less rust on the car!  

Blastin' the crud away

With the blasting drape making life considerably easier, I have been progressing with the clean-up under the scuttle and on the bonnet. I confess that the surface rust which had established so voraciously under the bonnet area and along the top of the scuttle was as a result of my own negligence. These are areas that I had previously taken back to bare metal and then not treated with any paint to prevent flash rusting. I don't know why, I just seem to make mindless mistakes occasionally (will I ever learn?!): 

I was making steady progress until I dropped my trusty old shot blaster and it snapped at a brittle weak point where the grit hopper attaches to the bottom of the gun. Damn it! Unfortunately It cracked off part of the casting that had an internal thread, which rendered it beyond repair:

I picked up a replacement gun that operates slightly differently:

It utilises a pick-up tube and syphon hose that can pull the blast media from a bucket. The main advantage being that I don't need to constantly stop to refill a hopper anymore. Assuming a big enough bucket of media is used, then the limiting factor is really just the duty cycle of the compressor:

As soon as I started using it I kinda wished that my old spot blaster had broken sooner as by comparison it was starkly apparent that it had become rather inefficient over time. In summary, I am happy with what has turned out to be an unplanned upgrade. The gun is far superior and faster to blast with:

 

DIY Blasting Drape

Whilst browsing the resto threads over on The Samba, I came across a DIY idea so simple and effective that I was compelled to steal the concept and make one for myself. All credit to Jeremy G for this stroke of genius! Basically, he created an adaptable blasting booth out of a tarpaulin that can be draped over whatever large item might need blasting. This significantly reduces the spread of the pervasive grit media that would otherwise colonise every inch of the workshop.

So, I grabbed some scrap plywood and set about copying his idea. The internal framework is as simple as you can get with a couple of hinges connecting the sections to allow for adaptability:

I stretched out an old tarp and marked up the centre:

Cut out the necessary apertures for the window and gauntlet couplers in the middle of the tarp and secured the flaps back with gaffer tape. Didn't realise at the time, but I inadvertently created a face expressing shock astonishment (check out those luscious lashes!):

Mounted the perspex window between hardwood gaskets that I cut from scrap (actually found the hardwood fly tipped by the side road and as luck would have it, it was exactly what I needed when I needed it!). Between the perspex and tarp edge I sandwiched some rubber foam tape to help seal things up when bolted up tight:

Mounted the gauntlets:

...with everything fastened up, it was finally ready for a test run:

 

First impressions are very encouraging and this should make the tedious and filthy task of blasting discrete parts of the body shell a little less loathsome:

Quickie: sheared bolt extraction

Whilst I had good access under the scuttle area with the demister vent removed, I was able to deal with the remains of an old stubborn bolt that had sheared off from when I removed the bonnet;

This needed to be carefully drilled out. My goal, as always, was to go slow and not damage the threads of the mounting point;

I carried on drilling with slightly larger drill bits to increase the diameter of the hole. Eventually I was able to start picking out remnants from the thread. Using the correct size tap to finish up;

I could then check with a new bolt that everything was as it should be (with a liberal coating of copper greased for good measure);

Admittedly a small step, but this restoration malarky is all about ticking off thousands of these odd jobs. I will keep on inching forward...

Demystifying the demister

Continuing on from last week's undertakings... 

On the cowl section of the donor cut there was a 6" section that was totally shot along the rolled edge that forms the seam;

 

I flipped the piece over and marked out around the affected steel with a dotted line. This was duly cut out:

 

 

To make a repair piece I used a section from a different part of the donor panel. I had to pie cut the end to accurately recreate the corner curve using the old piece as a pattern;

Repair section was then glued into place:  

...and then ground back as per usual;

I then trimmed up the section to match the profile of the area to be filled;

Out with the old an in with the new; both pieces blasted and ready for fettling and final fitting;

Passenger side demister vent

A quick point of clarification up front; some of the following work was done in the old garage a few years back, but I didn't make significant enough progress to blog about it at the time. However, as I am now picking up where I left off you may notice that the environment changes in a few of the photos.

With the front of the car removed I have comfortable access to the rear dash area. There are a bunch of tasks that I need to do at the front end before I am in a possition to reinstall the bulkhead and heater channel assembly. So, I figured I would start with a job that I have already done once before on the drivers side - the demister outlet vent and surrounding rust. The underside revealed the extent of the undesirable mess;

As before, the whole area was pretty crispy and peppered with rust holes. Some of the worst heavy pitting extended downwards onto the cowl (outlined in red sharpie);

Learning from my previous experience, I knew that the best approach was to split the repair into two parts: the front (outside cowl) section and rear (inside dash) section. I marked up the outside cowl section with blue tape and set about removing the bad steel;

Once removed I had a better view of the sandwiched vent outlet section. Although not as bad as I expected it to be, I determined that it was too far gone to save, so opted to use my donor section to repair the entire piece. Once again, I outlined my cuts with blue tape and set about surgically removing the affected section from the inside dash;

Unfortunately the donor scuttle/dash was not without its faults, so it required a few repairs before I could use it. I split the panel into the two sections as per the above proceedure:

Once I had roughly blasted the vent section it became apparent that the steel had become paper thin on the end piece. I cut out this thinned section and fabricated a small patch:

Welded and smoothed to an invisible finish (a shame this neat work will never be seen);

 

 

On the flipside I cut the excess from the repair section using a low tech, but very accurate method. Basically I added masking tape to the original cut section and then used a dirty finger to trace the outline of the area. I then peeled this off and positioned on the doner section;

Gave me an accurate result;

The next step was to repair the angle grinder gash, which was the result of whoever cut up the doner car. Oh well, better make it solid again;

Almost there...

All welds ground down and looking like new again;