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.
Rust Removal and Reel
June 17
I bought some Rustoleum from AutoZone to see if it would help with the pitted rust in the engine compartment. After using it, we decided that we need to buy a grinding. My brother-in-law and I decided to take the front bumper off to get at the rotted bumper support. If anyone has any suggestions on what to do about it, please let me know. The rest of the front frame is in good condition and I'd rather not replace it if I don't have to. The rusted support is shown below.
June 18
I went to Harbor Freight after work today and bought an automatic drainer and a lead in hose for my air compressor. I tried installing the drainer, but I don't have enough clearance on the bottom and also I would have to cut the tubing connecting the tank and the shut-off switch. I want to do it right, so I need an expert's opinion (hint).
Today, I also unmounted the hose reel and re-mounted with better support connecting to the wall stud. I ran into several problems in doing this. I first took the reel off the piece of 2x4, drew the holes by laying that piece onto a new 2x4, and drilled the holes. I found out that that was a bad idea, because the holes were nowhere near the correct location. So I did it right and took apart the reel so that I could drill straight holes into the 2x4. After that was all done, I screwed the 2x4 into the stud instead of nailing it and then I mounted the reel. All of this took me about 2 hours to do. But it is up now ad the picture is below.
Clean Up
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Preface
Before the delivery of my Nova, I had to make preparations to my garage in order to have enough room for everything. One of the improvements was done in April when I rewired the electricity in the garage and the breaker box in the house to allow for 220 volts in order to run my air compressor. After a few phone calls between my dad and other electrical experts, I installed it the correct way.
The next improvement was to repair the leak in my air compressor. This was done in the beginning of May with the expertise of my uncle. I thought it would have been an easy weld to patch a tiny hole, but I was wrong. Long story short, he cut the motor mount bracket and welded a steel plate to cover the entire leaky area.
Repairing my leaky—and apparently partly moldy—roof, was done on my birthday weekend, with the skills, knowledge, and help from my dad. We were both a little sore the next day and I learned a new trade. The most recent improvement which was completed on Saturday before the delivery, was a 9 foot work bench. This, I constructed with the verbal help from my uncle, and a borrowed saw from my other uncle to make a few cuts. Currently, the bench is completely covered with car parts. Perhaps a shelf between the bench and the floor would be a good improvement for extra storage space.
All of the above mentioned people deserve a big thank you for helping me thus far. Someone else I would like to thank is my great uncle who left most of his tool collection to me after he passed away. Without it all, I wouldn't be able to get started with this project.
Post
Today, I went to Harbor Freight to purchase over $100 worth of supplies and tools, including a few wire brushes, mechanic's gloves, safety goggles, and a new air hose and reel. I started my work by vacuuming out the interior and cleaning certain areas of the windows, as shown in one of the above pictures. I also started cleaning up the engine compartment using the wire brushes I had purchased. The first two above pictures are closeups of the engine compartment before I started cleaning.
My brother-in-law spent a lot of time cleaning the engine compartment with the a little help from the wire brush, the air compressor, and the Goof Off that I purchased earlier. Nowhere on the bottle does it say anything about rust removal, but it seemed to have done the trick. I spent some time disassembling a few parts, looking up the parts in a catalog, putting the nuts and bolts into Ziploc bags, and labeling them accordingly.
I removed both inner fender wells and set them on the floor of the garage. I later found out that when my dog got scared when my air compressor kicked on, he bolted out of the garage and he *censored for graphic content* cut his leg on one of the fenders. That incident resulted in a trip to the veterinarian emergency room at 11 at night. He is doing OK now. The five stitches come out in ten to fifteen days.
We also managed to remove the driver's front fender to have better access to the engine compartment. The work that has been done is shown in the photos below.
