Royce Burnett's Journal

Well, sort of. Built a car dolly to set the car on so I can remove the rotisserie mounts and get those areas cleaned up for Primer... the next great step in this procedure and one I'm looking forward to finishing. I thought I would be long past this by now, but everytime I look at the car I see something else that really should be fixed up a bit better before I start putting primer and bondo and paint on.. like getting the chrome bumpers mounted where there were none before.

Well, its been a while since the last entry. Since then, the front cross member has been cleaned up and refitted with a new bottom, and painted; the rack and pinion has been cleaned up, checked out and shone up; and I've managed to gather up all the engine parts I need ( I hope). Got the crank polished, new camshaft, rods resized, new pistons, bored the block, and have a big pile of new bearings and gaskets etc to go together. Got my engine paint scheme decided on and have nice looking shiny red valve cover, timing cover and tappet covers to go against a black engine...

Right now, however, I'm in the process of finishing off the front fender metal work, with new headlight mounting rings having been fashioned and welded on, and new t-beading installed. Just now finished a couple of coats of rust paint on the under side of the fenders, as well as one last blast on the underside of the car. Next weekend, or even maybe through the week, the engine is going together.

As I mentioned in my last post, the front crossmember I'm using was not in the best of shape, so yesterday I got started on the repair.

I'd forgotten how much I miss drilling out spot welds.. especially in material that is a lot thicker than floorpans. However the advantage of thicker material is the fact that one can very satisfyingly swing away to one's heart's content with the largest hammer and a sharp chisel without fearing too much destruction of the underlaying material. Took about 2 hours of drilling, and 3 hours of grinding and pounding and I was able to take the last of the old bottom off to the scrap pile.

I had a chunk of material laying around for the new bottom, not quite the right thickness ( a bit heavier than needed) but should suffice. I just have to figure out how to get it bent to fit.

I'm out of sandblasting media so I'll have to wait until I get back from a trip to pretty things up.

Continuing to work on various bits of the car over the last few weeks. I've got one coat of Zero-Rust paint on the underside of the car which looks very good ( no pics though) and will be doing a bunch of seam sealing now before I put more paint on. The engine is still sitting here when it should be at the machine shop but have been unable to get there during the week to drop it off. Maybe next week.
I've been tearing the front crossmember apart, which is going to need a bit of work before it goes back on the car. Disassembly went really well with very few broken bolts.. until I found that someone had welded one of the wishbone pivot pins on for some reason. Thankfully they had done a poor job of welding it on so a bit of grinding and it was off.
Spent today cleaning up all the bits and even got them painted. I'll have to replace some metal on the crossmember itself as the bottom is rusted out, but this will give me a real good chance to clean up the inside of the unit and get some paint on it to keep it from rusting out further.

Welp, took the engine apart on my new mount (which works great btw). Rod bearings were down to the copper in a few spots, mains had a few scratches on them, but the crank itself seems good. Cam is good on the bearing surfaces but one lobe shows signs of pitting, I think I should be able to get it reground. The head however... it looked good inside but an external inspection after I got it cleaned up showed a typical crack in the usual place. Dammit.

I consulted with a friend who has been fixing these cars for 40 years, who said he had a completely finished head kicking around, with all the hardened seats etc already done! brilliant! Just have to wait until a bit of the snow melts as he has it stored in a back building that he never goes into in wintertime.. has several feet of snow around it and I don't feel like shoveling.

Block looks ok, will be getting it bored out. Have to make a rig up to hold my pistons while I press the pins out.

Got one floor pan in yesterday, other one today, and we'll be laying on some underside paint. Progress is a beautiful thing.

I received my flyer from Obsolete Auto a week or so ago, which has a lot of engine parts on sale. I haven't had time to work on the car much, still have to get the floors in, but I wanted to take advantage of the sale pricing for the parts I will need. Of course I have to tear things apart first, so I spent much of the day building a side mount for the block since Hap's setup looked like a hell of an idea. Finished it a few minutes ago, and I think its gonna work great. I should be able to tear the engine down this week and get some stuff coming.