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.
I Love Craig’s List
Last night I emailed someone that had a listing on Craig's List for an impact wrench. The listing included a slightly used Ingersoll Rand 231G 1/2" impact wrench and extras, that included an SAE deep socket set, an extension and a 360 degree swivel fitting. After a few emails back and forth today, I sent him the link to this blog. He read the part about me needing a grinder. He just happened to have a Craftsman electric grinder, that was used once, for $20 and a sawsall both listed on Craig's List as well. He also said that if I bought a few things from him, he would throw in a few cans of primer and rust inhibitor and some body work tools that I will need later.
Needless to say, I took a trip out to New Philadelphia after work today and came home with the impact wrench (and extras), a grinder, and a bunch of aerosol cans full of contents that I will need in the not-so-distant future. I came home and ordered a few pizzas and then used my impact wrench to take off the lug nuts of the passenger front tire. I ended up having to read the directions to see what knobs I needed to turn to get the right direction and power to the wrench. It turns out that the wrench is an air hog and I just needed to adjust the pressure a bit. I started to disassemble the passenger front suspension, but I ended up pinching my hand, so I stopped and called it a night.
Sorry folks, no pictures today. I'll have some photos of my new tools tomorrow.
Summit, Title Transfer, and Drum Brake
On Friday after work, my brother-in-law and I went to Summit Racing Equipment to see if we could buy either an impact wrench or a grinder. I 'll tell you that I was a little disappointed and Summit was not what I had expected. It turns out that it's more of a show store and a retail pickup location, rather than a full retail store. I did buy a deep impact socket set for $20, but nothing else. I have been looking adamantly for an impact wrench since then—on eBay, Craigslist, and retail stores. Perhaps I should ask an uncle to borrow one.
Saturday, I finally got the title to the Nova transferred into my name. There were a lot of people at the Title Bureau and given that it was a Saturday and in Akron, I enjoyed people watching. I didn't get to work on the car at all.
Monday, I was determined to start some more dismantling. I jacked the Nova up and put it on jack stands. Then I proceeded to take the tire off and eventually the entire drum brake assembly, by disconnecting the tie rod, and the upper and lower ball joints. Then I read the Hayne's manual and it suggested to take the brake assembly apart before taking it off the control arms. I managed to get enough thread on both upper and lower ball joints to get the nuts back on.
I did as the book suggested and took the master cylinder cover off and put a ziploc bag over top and snapped the cover in place again—to help prevent drainage. I took the rest of the brake assembly apart and disconnected the hose. I realized that I should have been prepared with another plastic bag to catch the dripping fluid. After taking it apart, I cleaned up the 1/2 inch thick grease that was around the lower ball joint. It was pretty thick. Using the wire wheel, the grease went everywhere, so I decided to use the wire brush instead. Hopefully, I can get enough parts together to make a trip to my uncle's house to use the sandblaster. I hope to clean up the entire engine compartment before installing the engine.
Disassembly
Monday, June 15
I imagine that as I get more backed up with work on the car, my blog posts will become shorter.
Today, I removed the right front fender, the radiator support, the headlights and the headlight wiring. I realized that a breaker bar or an impact wrench would be a great investment. I'm also starting to realize what needs replaced.
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.
