Swap Meet, Ball Joints, and Bushings
Sunday, July 19, Uncle Kurt, Uncle Jim, and I took at trip to Canfield to spend the day at Dave & Ed's Canfield Swap Meet. Uncle Jim bought the most stuff and he did end up visiting the ATM only once. I had been looking for a product called Por-15 for the past few weeks. It is a rust preventative. After spending a bit of time talking to a very knowledgeable person about it, I left the swap meet with a can at reduced price along with another product used with it. I also bought some work pants that ended up being too tight, a few chuck keys, and a few chamois cloths.
After the swap meet, my two uncles met me at my house, so that Uncle Jim could see my garage and my progress. He had a little fun with the neighbor kids as they rode their bikes up my driveway. We then took a trip to Harbor Freight before it closed to pick up a few things, before heading to Uncle Kurt's to do some more sandblasting. This visit was when the sandblasting pot was taken apart and the sand was filtered.
One of the days it rained last week, I couldn't do any sandblasting outside, so we decided that this would be a good time to remove the ball joints and the bushings from all four control arms. This involved a lot of hammering and the use various punches, the impact hammer, and the bench vise. Nothing too exciting happened when removing them, but we did have to consult the Internet for an image of the bushing to see what part actually needed to be separated from the control arms. The Internet is a wonderful thing.
Sandblasting
It's been a few weeks since my last post, so I thought I'd post today before I forget everything that I have done thus far. There are a couple things I need to mention before getting started. There is someone that deserves to get credit for his help and is entitled to be publicly recognized. This person, despite the fact that he is a hardcore Ford guy, has been helping me with my Nova since the day I made the purchase. Uncle nameless, with his permission, will now be referred to as "Uncle Kurt", or Kurt for short. Please see my previous posts for references to Uncle Nameless. And while I'm at it, I might as well say that my self-proclaimed "Fav Uncle" is Uncle Jim.
The Saturday after my last post, Uncle Kurt and I made a trip to the west side of Cleveland to pick up my brother's winter tires for his newly purchased Chrysler Crossfire. We were talking on the way and I ended up passing the interchange I was supposed to take and we were about 10-15 minutes later than I anticipated. On top of that, it rained the whole time we were at the dealership, so we were not able to look at the engine. We did, however, sat in and inspected the interior with our approval. We headed back to my house in the rain and our planned out day was not looking too great.
When we got back to my house, we put the tires in the rafters of the garage, to keep them out of the way. I showed Uncle Kurt my whole garage setup and all the work I had done thus far. The pictures taken don't really do any justice. We had planned on removing the front sub-frame and taking it to his house. Since I had sprayed the body mount bushings a few nights before with PB Blaster several times, we spent only a few minutes removing it. Since it was still raining, we decided not to take the frame to his house to start the sandblasting. Instead, he helped me fix a few things in my garage like, the sagging support for the garage door opener.
We made plans for me to go to his house on Monday with the frame and start the sandblasting. He called me Monday after work and said that the plan is a no-go. His well pump failed on him and he would be replacing it that evening. Since I had planned on going over there anyway, I offered my assistance to carry out the replacement. It's a good thing I did, because the sucker was heavy and awkward to pull it out of the well and lower the new in. Plus, I was there until nearly midnight. As a side note, the pipe that had been replaced is still laying in the grass in the side yard (as far as I know).
I believe I came over the next day to start sandblasting. The picnic table was moved over to the corner of the garage. The sandblaster was filled with sand. The "beekeepers hood" and the hot gloves were brought out. The air hose was unreeled to reach outside the garage. All vehicles were moved out of the sand over-spray zone. And finally, the frame was moved and set on top of the picnic table. Uncle Kurt started sandblasting and getting the pressure and the sand velocity dialed in. He handed over the hood, gloves, and the blasting tool and said that he'll be a few yards away, splitting wood.
It was going pretty smoothly for about 5 minutes, until a few things went wrong. There was a lot of stopping, shaking the tank, adjusting the levers, emptying the moisture filter, unhooking the air hose, emptying the air, unscrewing the nozzle, and unclogging the pebbles. These pebbles, we thought, were the remnants of unfiltered sand that was reused by the last operator of the sand blaster—Uncle Jim. After we completely emptied the tank, unhooked all the fittings, and unclogged the lines, we filtered the sand we just emptied and put the sand back into the tank. We found a couple handfuls of pebbles that were waiting to clog the nozzle.
After a few debates and accusations of how these pebbles got into the tank, we decided to filter the next bag of sand before using it. Surprisingly, we found a handful of pebbles in a single bag. We did point out that the bag does say commercial grade sand and says nothing about use with sandblasters. A big apology was made to the accused and he was let off the hook. We have all learned our lesson and will now filter any kind of sandblasting media before using it.
Here are a few before, during, and after pictures.
Preparation for Front Sub-frame Removal
Yesterday, I actually accomplished quite a bit. On my way home from work, I called my self-proclaimed "unnamed uncle", and talked to him about the comment he left on the blog on my previous post found here. He determined that it would be best to disconnect the front sub-frame from the body and have it sandblasted.
After finishing a few chores at home, I went to the garage and got started right away. Let's see, I located all of the brake line and fuel line brackets and removed all the screws. I disconnected the brake line from the master cylinder and removed the whole brake line from the engine compartment. I removed the passenger upper control arm and all the bolts. I removed a few sway bar bracket screws, but I decided to wait to take it completely off until I have the lower control arms off, because of the awkward location of the screws. I removed the center drag link, by disconnecting the idler arm from the frame and the drag link from the Pitman arm. I also removed the steering gear from the column and the frame.
Last but not least, I followed the correct procedure in the Hayne's manual—at least I thought I did—and removed the driver side lower control arm. The manual said to strap a chain around the spring and put a jack under the control arm while taking the bolts out. I did that up until after I took the bolts out. I didn't realize that the spring was still compressed, so I took off the "chain" (rubber hose) and removed the jack. As I was unbolting the the shock absorber at the shaft, the shaft came completely out and that's when the control arm finally broke free and the compressed spring shot the control arm to the floor where my foot was. I almost broke a toe, but luckily I'm ok.
All that's left to do now is remove the passenger control arm safely and then unbolt the front sub-frame from the body and then finally I can make a trip to my unnamed uncle's house to use the sandblaster on all my disconnected parts. I hope I will have time to do this tonight. I also took a few more pictures of my progress and tools. These can be found in the photo gallery. The left photo below are all the labeled bags I have so far full of nuts, bolts, screws, etc. The middle photo is of the culprit. And the right photo is a shot of most of the parts I took off yesterday.
Ball Joints and Parts Application
Since the last post, I got smart and purchased a ball joint separator tool at AutoZone. I brought it home and started using it right away. After about an hour of taking turns with my brother-in-law and wailing on the pickle fork with a sledge hammer, bending the forks, and trying to loosen the lower ball joint, I decided to try the upper ball joint. I came in from the side of the car instead of front or back and the upper ball joint separated within a few whacks. Now that I could rotate the lower ball joint on more than one axis, I was able to separate it without a problem. After all was done, I remembered that the Hayne's Manual said to separate the upper ball joint first.
Since CHEVY Nova parts are so abundant and easy to find on the Internet, and since I possess the knowledge, I created a small web-based application that allows me to enter and compare prices of different car parts. For example, I'm currently looking for a front end suspension rebuild kit. One of these can be found at all kinds of online stores. All of these stores also have different ideas of what the kit should contain. I would add the distributor and the part to the database and include the price, url, and the notes. I can later bring up the part and do a price and content comparison and determine what is the best deal.