Well, I talked myself into it. I called the guy at the Line-X place in Salem where I had the bedliner for our truck done, and he guessed that it would be about the same price to undercoat this little car as it was for the bedliner. The only challenge is that he wants the car standing on end so that he can stand the requisite four to six feet from it to spray on the material. I've been brainstorming some sort of carpet-covered wooden apparatus that will work as a stand that will allow not only his application, but my removal of the old undercoating from a comfortable standing position. While thinking on this geometric feat, I got a little more work done this weekend. I've been battling a broken bolt in the rear bumper bracket that has prohibited me from sliding it from the channel in the unibody. Well, now that I had dropped the leaf springs (and fuel tank), I had an unencumbered shot at the offending bolt from underneath. It took a little maneuvering, but I was able to insert a small cutting wheel from a dremel tool into a slot in the body, and cut off the remains of the bolt, allowing the bumper to come free. This left only the front break hoses and mud flaps, and the body would be only a shell. Of course, there is a ton of prep work to do before it will be ready for undercoating, but is nice to be done with the (except for the engine) deconstruction phase. —GP
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Body Deconstruction is Complete.
Well, I talked myself into it. I called the guy at the Line-X place in Salem where I had the bedliner for our truck done, and he guessed that it would be about the same price to undercoat this little car as it was for the bedliner. The only challenge is that he wants the car standing on end so that he can stand the requisite four to six feet from it to spray on the material. I've been brainstorming some sort of carpet-covered wooden apparatus that will work as a stand that will allow not only his application, but my removal of the old undercoating from a comfortable standing position. While thinking on this geometric feat, I got a little more work done this weekend. I've been battling a broken bolt in the rear bumper bracket that has prohibited me from sliding it from the channel in the unibody. Well, now that I had dropped the leaf springs (and fuel tank), I had an unencumbered shot at the offending bolt from underneath. It took a little maneuvering, but I was able to insert a small cutting wheel from a dremel tool into a slot in the body, and cut off the remains of the bolt, allowing the bumper to come free. This left only the front break hoses and mud flaps, and the body would be only a shell. Of course, there is a ton of prep work to do before it will be ready for undercoating, but is nice to be done with the (except for the engine) deconstruction phase. —GP
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Almost Stripped
The last few weekends have been relatively uneventful, or enough so that I've had a little time to get into the garage for some "Matilda Time". This has allowed me time to finish stripping out the engine compartment, and after a long struggle, remove the dash. I've also decide
d that if I'm going to go this far, I might as well pull everything off of the undercarriage. So today, I removed the spare tire carrier (to be powder coated at a later date), the rear shocks, and generally eyeballed the under-side of the car. I figure that once I drop the rear axle by removing the leaf-springs, that should only leave the monster-size six gallon fuel tank. I'm a little torn as to whether to grind off all the original undercoating and have it Line-Xed, or just clean it up and start the reassembly. I'll probably bite the bullet and start grinding, but I'll need a few days to talk myself into it.—GP
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