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1970 1800E Driver Restoration

Dammit! Oh well, I'll sort them out. Thanks for the photo of correct routing!

Yep, they're original. They were ensconced in copious layers of Waxoyl and don't seem brittle or cracked. Given that there's no engine in the car and no transmission I figure I can take risk in this area until down the road.
 
Brake lines sorted out on the passenger side and calipers and lines are all set on the driver's side.

Have a long weekend and planning to tear down the rear suspension and yank the rear axle so the rear end can be cleaned up and all fully sorted. If I really get ambitious I may drop the fuel tank and start sorting out the fuel lines too.....we'll see.
 
Got the cross member bolted up and "re-populated" the front suspension:

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Wow, looking so clean, I can't wait to see the whole car finished up like this!
 
Decent progress this afternoon.

But first, photos of the completed front wheel assemblies and brakes:

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Working to free the axle:

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Some time later....

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Still have to get the support arm and torque rod off the driver's side and one of the support rod's off the axle assembly on the passenger's side....some of the bolts are seized up in the bushings:

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Pleased to find that everything in the tub is solid. There's just a little bit of surface scale here and there:

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Discovered a convenient access point to inspect the passenger side rockers. Stuffed my handy HF inspection cam in there and was really pleased to find that they're solid as far forward as the camera can reach. Definitely good news. I plan to shoot them with Eastwood frame sealer before this spot is sealed up again.

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Here's another shot of the tub looking back toward the rear of the car - again, nice and solid

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Here's the liberated rear axle. Based on the jelled grease on it's belly and the splashes on the underside the body it seems like the pinion seal definitely needs replacing. Probably will do the seals for the axle shafts as well. Planning to clean, blast, and then paint the whole assembly before I re-install it. Also will open up the diff and put a new gasket on it.

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Decided to take the time to document the state of the driver's side rockers while I was shooting the other photos. Not good.

The outers and the tie-in to the front wing will definitely need patching:

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The inner rockers are mostly gone:

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The only good news on the driver's side is that (based on the inspection cam) it looks like most of the outers are solid.

Brakes back here will obviously need to be re-done. The calipers aren't seized but the rubber around the pistons is cracked and split; will probably get rebuilts. The soft lines look amazing - soft, no cracks, not spongy...but they're plugged solid. Even compressed air won't clear them out; so they'll be replaced too. Not sure how to inspect these things to make sure they're good. First thing I'll do is blow air through the lines from the engine bay and see if anything comes out this end. Anyone have advice?

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Tomorrow I plan to get the torque and support rods off the body/axle assembly. Monday I may drop the fuel tank so that I can start looking for a place to clean and seal it.
 
No work today. Decided to watch the AFC Championship game instead. It would have been more enjoyable if I had laid under the car and contemplated the inner rocker rot and my failed welding attempt....
 
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One of the support arms was seized up on the axle side and one of the torque rods had seized up bolt on the chassis side. The bolts basically were fused with the metal sleeve in the bushing. Even getting the bolts glowing cherry red didn't free them up. This is what they looked like after a lot of time with a good old fashioned Sawzall and a bunch of different blades. It may look like it was a lot of fun, but that's deceptive.

They're not in bad shape at all...most of the scale looks like it will blast off quickly without a lot of pitting. Most of them are still covered by Waxoyl and in good shape.

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This isn't relevant to anything in particular but I just love the look of the car and couldn't resist.

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Continuing to plug along despite the frigid temps.

Finally pulled the gas tank:

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Very happy to find that the mounting flange for the tank was really as rust free as it appeared before I pulled the tank. With the ability to water to attack this piece from both sides this seems like a minor miracle:

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Pulled the fuel pump mounting bracket with the pump still on it. I just cut the old lines since they're toast. The line feeding the pump was quite a sight....the inside is absolutely solid with what looks just like half-cured tar.

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Figured I'd deal with the scale and rust now that everything's as accessible as it's ever going to be.

This is my high-tech blast booth:

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It did an OK job of containing the media and dust so that cleanup afterwards wasn't a nightmare. It sure wasn't pleasant crawling around under there with a worklight, sandblaster, and wearing fogged up goggles over glasses and a respirator. I'll be picking media out of my eyes and ears for days.

This is the passenger inner rear quarter and frame rail middle through blasting the light scale. All of the rust here (and on the other frame rail in the tub) was just light surface stuff. Where the original undercoating was intact I just left it. This car will not be driven in bad weather and will be garaged....no way I was going to try to remove all of the old Waxoyl.

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Next photos are of the blasted areas after two coats of Rust Destroyer. After it has a good long time to dry (i.e. next week) I'm going to shoot it with Rustoleum flat black so that it blends in with the old undercoating. May shoot some rubberized undercoating on top of that down the road as well.

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Inner side of the rear valence is perforated toward the driver's side. Most likely I'll leave it this way until after the car is on the road. New paint isn't in the budget for this year and the outer side of the valence is also in need of patching so I'll probably have this taken car of when the car goes in for paint.

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Remainder of inner valence had only surface rust on the underside....of course there's no way to see the other side of it.

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The inner/under rear quarter pieces on both sides are also nice and solid and had only light surface rust. This is the passenger side.

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Back side of the passenger rear wheel well is also intact:

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I still need to blast the frame section up above the rear axle on the passenger side and inspect and possibly blast the inner/under rear quarter on the driver's side. I just had had my fill of blasting before I got that stuff done. Nasty work.

If anyone in the northeast can recommend a shop that does gas tank repairs and sealing I'd appreciate it. Otherwise I'll start searching on my own (when I tried to find a shop to work on the tank in SENF I never did find anyone local and ended up buying a cheap aftermarket tank. That's not in the budget for this project since there do not appear to be any cheap tanks for these things.
 
Temperatures soared into the low 40s here today; time to media blast!

Went through about 180 pounds of this:

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Here's the differential tag that somehow managed to survive under coats of Waxoyl:

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If anyone knows what that tag indicates I'd appreciate the info.

Uncovered what appears to be the date stamp on one of the axle tubes (21 August 1969)

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Here's the rear axle assembly about 1/2 way through blasting:

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That wet spot toward the bottom is from a pinhole in the diff cover that the blasting uncovered. It's toward the top of the cover....what to do?

Figured I would get as much crud off the pie plates as possible before I pull the axle shafts and such. Only ended up really cleaning up this one (five hours of solid blasting gets old):

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Another automotive archaeological discovery:

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Close up of the second axle tube before blasting:

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I broke this weld when trying to punch out the seized up bushing bolt. Then I dug into it with the sawzall cutting the bolt off.

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Rear suspension components all nice and clean:

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I mentioned in a previous post that the fuel supply line to the pump was plugged solid but didn't have any photos to share. Here's what I was talking about:

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Next steps will be to get the rear suspension pieces out for new bushings and to pull the axle shafts for new bearings and seals and finish cleaning up the pie plates. My goal is to get the rear suspension back together by the end of February....time and funds permitting.

Gas tank will go to a shop in upstate NY for cleaning in March.

Hoping to be able to move on to the engine re-build by April.
 
Rear suspension is off to High Performance Auto Service for poly bushings. Did some more spot blasting and sealing in the rear end yesterday.

Uncovered a small patch of rot behind the driver's side rear wheel:

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Also blasted around the rot in the inner wheel well on the driver's side rear:

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Today I figured it was time to have another go at welding.

The welder that my brother has been nice enough to loan me for the duration of the project:

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You can see the setting that I'm using dialed on there. It's what the info sheet on the welder recommended for 20 gauge.

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I tried to find some shielding gas and solid core wire today but all the places that sell them were closed. Here's the wire I'm using:

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First cut up some pieces and practiced on them:

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Some of the welds were pretty decent, others not so much, and every so often I was blowing through the metal.

Here's what the back side looked like:

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I did another practice butt weld and felt a little better about the result. I was going to keep cutting stuff up and welding it back together but figured I might as well combine practice with some practical work where the results wouldn't show if they weren't good. This is that inner wheel well rot on the driver's side rear wheel. There's a lap joint that is spot welded and it looks like the panel fitting wasn't really great and water got in and ate away where the to panels overlapped.

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I was happy to find that the area between the rear quarter inner/outer is nice and solid. I'll spray it with Eastwood frame sealer before I close it up.

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I cut a patch out of a 240 floor pan repair section scrap that I had left over from Project Senf.

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Again, a few decent welds, many mediocre welds, and a few blow throughs....but serviceable

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You'll have to take my word for it that the photo makes the end result look a lot worse than it is. For some reason the ground area shows up as dark black....though it just looks like ground metal to the naked eye.

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Next I need to weld in a patch for that overlaps behind this piece and then move on to the rot on the back side of the quarter panel. Hoping that if I keep at it my technique will improve eventually.
 
You should try running it hotter and with more wire. Also, get shielding gas.

You aren't doing yourself any favors by using flux core for sheet metal work. The main problem is that you really need to clean the weld area after every start/stop. If you don't, you end up shooting dingleberries all over the place because the arc won't start properly. And you will tend to get a lot of slag inclusion as well.
 
Karl - thanks for the suggestions. I will give hotter/faster a try. Yes on the gas; ran around today trying to find a welding supply house that was open but had no luck. Will be picking up a bottle this week. I'm glad you explained the bit about the flux impact on arc; did not know that...but I definitely experienced that problem.
 
All hail shielding gas....well, I hail it no matter whether anyone else does

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This is the inside of the driver's side rear wheel well/inner fender. One patch is mostly stitched in, two pieces below it have been ground down (more or less).

I can't believe how much neater and cleaner it is working with the gas. I still have to figure out how to avoid getting such "proud" welding beads, but I can see both sides of this patch and I'm getting what looks like good penetration. Plan to practice more tomorrow and Saturday....
 
Finished the patch on the driver's rear wheel well/inner fender.

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Started patching up the inside of the rear valence:

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Still need to finish stitching in the last bits and then finish grinding it. Hope to get the remaining patches done on the rear valence tomorrow...
 
Had the day off and spent it prepping and welding.

Here's the passenger side wheel well leading to the inner rockers. It's cleaned up and ready to be patched....if not for the other stuff that I found:

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This is the same wheel well but the outer at about the 1 O'clock position. Two small rust through spots that didn't seem too bad:

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Started investigating to see how far the rot went. Here's the bottom of the inner quarter. You can see that it's perforated a good 5-6" up, at least. You can also see that where the outer and inner rockers meet to form the wheel well is all messed up. The car was apparently dinged right under the rubber trim piece in the front of the rear wheel well. Only 2 of the spot welds from the ~1 O'clock position to the bottom of the wheel well were still intact.

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Here's another look at the inner wheel arch where the spot welds are all failed. I pried the pieces apart to get all the loose scale and crap out of there and figure out how much of it needs replacing. Kind of a mess.

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Basically figured at this point that I am going to need to find a patch panel for the outer and inner quarters here. This is just a driver restoration but I don't want to sink money into paint only to have the paint fail due to hidden rot and stuff. Now looking for the patch panels.

In the meantime I figured I'd deal with the small inner/outer rot on the back side of the same wheel well:

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Figured I'd do the outer patch on the rear quarter on the driver's side while I was at it. Here's the before:

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Here's the after:

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Started to clean out the rotted cross members and rockers on the driver's side this afternoon. There are so many body panels that meet in the rocker area that I'm confused about where to start.

My floor pan has some rot where it meets the rocker, the inner rocker is rotted out in a couple of spots, and there is some rot through on the outer rocker towards the front.

I'd appreciate any advice on how to tackle a rocker repair.

Should I start by removing the outer rocker skin? What's the best way to do this? I see all the spot welds that run along the bottom of the rocker and also where it joins up with the door sill. Should I just drill out the spots? How is the rocker joined with the front fender and rear quarter? Are there spot welds between the fender sections and the flange of the rocker that tucks underneath them?
 
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