1772/2000: A love story

[prove_it]

For cleaning grease stains and dirt, go to the dollar store and buy some stuff called. Awesome cleaner. Looks like this:

Stuff is absolutly amazing. It cleans stuff so well. better than simple green, and only a 1 dollar for spray bottle. Plus it's super concentrated. So it lasts.

I use it in my steam cleaner for my house carpets and it does better than the bissel cleaner at 20 bucks a half gallon.

 

[badams]

Dye the carpet... you won't regret the two days of work you put in.

Before:

After:

 

[prove_it]

Is that the black, or navy blue?

 

[badams]

That was black dye. The lighting in the picture makes it look navy though.

 

[prove_it]

Looks real nice.

 

[vr4hotness]

Welcome to the club

 

[weirdbeard]

I am planning on installing some evo 8/9 seats in the future so I will dye them then. I am literally swamped with homework so it is hard to take on big projects at the moment.
I will post some pictures a little later and let you guys judge. I think it came out pretty good, I could probably go over it one more time but I am happy as is.

 

[donniekak]

I've had really good luck with purple power, and hot water for cleaning automotive carpet.

 

[weirdbeard]

I use a stuff called Folex. It is magical.

Pics will come tomorrow of interior. Again it came out fairly well. Smells a hell of a lot better.

 

[weirdbeard]

I did some things /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/applause.gif

Oh and for the record. I replaced the fender bolts because they were completely crusty, the fenders never came off and there was most definitely no accident. I am just replacing all the hardware that is rusted out.

I have to drill out the front right fender bolt because it snapped, and then my extractor snapped off inside the bolt haha.

I still have a lot of stuff to replace but this was just the first round, I'll slowly get this thing looking fresh. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[GSTwithPSI]

Next thing I would do is pull the front fenders and inspect the rocker panels for rust. If you have this much crusty stuff on the exterior/interior, there's a good chance you will find a surprise behind that fender.

 

[weirdbeard]

Yeah I'll do that eventually.



Oh I almost forgot!!

Josh came over today and swapped the tbelt tensioner out for me. He knocked it out in like an hour and a half. So 1772 is back in action, woop.

 

[GSTwithPSI]

As a quick check, look at the pinch welds right behind the front wheel wells. if they are rusty at all, you need to pull the fender. I wouldn't wait if there are signs of rust.

Just sayin...

 

[weirdbeard]

Yeah I will probably pull them next weekend. The car is in AZ now and sits in a garage so rust wont be spreading much anymore.

Good call though man, I appreciate it.

 

[donniekak]

I love Arizona. You could strip all the paint off your car and you'd just have a silver car, for years.

 

[IncorpoRatedX]

I am so happy with how this is turning out. The detail work Brandon is doing is everything I wish I had time to do and his goals with the car are right in line with what I was planning. Now with the car living close to home, i get to visit it and help with it's progress.

I would like to say I've learned my lesson a few times over on not using aftermarket tensioners, but right before we left is when i did the work on the car and I checked the stock one, it was ok, but had some oil showing around the seal, then i got worried due to driving the car cross country, and i had a weekend to finish up the job and wasnt going to be able to get an OEM one before the weekend so i got an aftermarket, I couldnt slow the progress down and miss my window to finish the car, i kept a close eye on it and drove it around for the couple weeks before we moved, there were no issues so we drove it to AZ, still no issues. Of course a week after selling it, issues! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif

I am so thankful that he's only 15 minutes from my house though, Ive done timing jobs so many times that I wanted to offer up the work of replacing it. I wouldve been devastated if this happened to someone half way back across the country. All that said... I'm pretty impressed with my 1.5 hour start to finish running car to running car elapsed time. We should have competitions on doing a T belt on a stock 4G63 (with air). That would be kind of fun for an M.O.D. event.

 

[weirdbeard]

Yeah, well unfortunately the majority of the work I can take on at the moment is all the little details. I will have to wait until after summer in order to tackle the larger items.


Ok, got bored and decided to start pulling driver side fender, there are way too many bolts that I did not feel like getting to at the moment so I got it pulled back enough to access the crusty bits.




Here is from underneath, note the snapped bolts. Thanks Obama


the lower fender

and here is the dirt that was caked in the inner fender, spray can for reference.

I pressed on everything really well and it all seems solid, there is nothing that goes through that I could find. I am going to hit it up with a wire wheel and see if I cant get most of it off, then get some get some rust preventative on it.

 

[weirdbeard]

So I caved and removed the fender. Wire wheeled everything and shot it with a coat of primer and paint. It was definitely not as bad as I was expecting being a Midwest car. Got the fender back on, just gotta adjust it then I'll do the passenger side.

 

[GSTwithPSI]

Damn, dude. I had a feeling those fenders would be hiding a nasty surprise. Your car looks almost exactly like mine did. My hardware was even snapped off like yours. You'll need to drill out the old crap and re-tap the hole.

For the rust, you'll need to completely strip the rust down to the metal. Any metal that's rusted through will need to be cut out and replaced. If it's not rusted through anywhere, you're lucky.

After you remove ALL the rust, you'll need to apply a rust inhibitor (POR-15, Rust Bullet, etc). Regular spray paint won't do anything to inhibit the rust, so make sure you get the right stuff for the job. After that, it's best if you apply a top coat of some kind, just to ensure longevity of the coating.

You can check out my build thread for reference. It outlines pretty clearly how to address the problem. If you have any questions, you can PM me, or ask here. I'd be happy to help out however I can. Charles' thread (Bobdole) also does a great job outlining how to tackle rust.

My rust thread
Charles' rust thread

 

[weirdbeard]

I appreciate the help man. And I definitely agree, I think we can all thank the previous owners for taking care of her.

I have used both por15 and mastercoat on previous cars/trucks I have built. I am no stranger to rust, car builds etc.

Like I mentioned I just wire wheeled everything and got all the rust off. Hit it with some primer/paint (both rust inhibiting)

Here in AZ, rust is almost impossible to spread.


I plan on going through the rest of the car and de-midwestifying it.