Painting!

^Front Spring Before, After Soaking, Painted

^Inner Fender after soaking, Painting

Valve Cover Before, after soaking, scrubbed, Painted

Freshly painted Valve cover on the engine waiting to be pulled so I can rebuild and paint it!

So I got the replacement tips for the sandblaster, got them installed and..... nothing! I dumped out the sand from the hopper to see if it was the problem, but no... the siphon tube that was supposed to be sucking the sand up through the blaster nozzle was blowing air into the hopper! Thanks Harbor Freight for a $20 piece of junk!
Now in their defense a lot of their stuff is awesome and I spend WAY too much money there, and if I take it back they'll probably give me a new one. I just don't feel like driving to W-S to do it because the GSO store doesn't carry this one...
Anyway that ticked me off and set back my plans for world domination.... OOPS I mean the restoration...

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Frame Up!

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The front end is down to frame only! Well the engine is still in until I get the transmission & Stuff unbolted but I'm excited! I was stuck on how to get the Upper and lower arms separated from the hubs I spent a few hours trying to figure it out when My best bud Kevin Conklin showed up with his father in law Bob McCue. This man knows his stuff! In like 30 minutes we had that thing completely taken apart. Thanks Bob!!!

When I attempted to do the other side by myself today I had a bit of trouble... I did everything we did yesterday, but the ball joint just would not come free from the spindle so since I have to replace the ball joints anyway I used the trusty recip saw to cut the ball joint Bolt in two. Now the problem is that the cut off bolt is stuck in the spindle arm. I guess I'll try to drill it out tomorrow.

^Just to prove the molasses does work, here's a part that 3/4 of it fit in the solution and 1/4 was hanging out. I hadn't even hit any of it with a wire brush yet, from the rusty crap on the right to bare metal in 4 days.

^Crankcase Breather tube

^Oil Filter Holder

The springs are soaking in the molasses so we'll check on them in a few days and i'll post more pics.

Before & Afters Rust Treatment

Fan Before & After

Jack Base & Hood Latch Bracket After & Before

Jack Pole

Grille Before & After

Fan, Radiator Support wall, Battery bracket, & Water Pump Pulley Before & After.

Here's some before and after pics I took after leaving these parts in the Molasses from Thursday night to Monday morning. I pulled the parts out of the solution and hosed them off and gave them a quick scouring with a wire brush and there was bare metal and original paint! I noticed that after a few minutes the parts began to "flash rust" I wasn't too surprised since I'd read about that happening. So I brushed off the parts again, rinsed dried and sprayed them down with "Rustoleum Automotive Rust Preventing Primer" so that they wouldn't re-rust. More to come!

JACKED up

I got the other fender off today, the frame and engine are kinda grimy and rusty.

After about 10 minutes of using a wire brush you can actually see the original paint and some bare metal on the engine!

Yanked the Wheels off to get them blasted and repainted!

I am about exhausted from all of the physical exertion involved in tearing apart a car! I only had to cut off 3 bolts with a recip saw because the nut/frame was so rusted it couldn't be held onto.

I forgot to mention that my 5gallon molasses experiment was ruined by the garage door knocking over my hood causing a syrupy mess of molasses all over the garage floor. Needless to say I was P.O.d The rust was dissolving really well though I could see bare metal on all the pieces I was testing so I went with a bigger idea that can't get tipped over by anything smaller than a car... I filled up the 80+gallon Trashcan (like the company gives you) with 70gallons of water and 7 gallons of Molasses! Its big enough for me to be able to get the fenders into when I pull all of the other stuff that's soaking out of it!

will be posting before and after pics...

FEND FOR YOURSELF!

Got the Grille, Radiator and all of its support brackets, the drivers side inner and outer fenders off! Most of the parts are soaking in my giant vat of molasses/phosphoric acid to strip the rust off. Tomorrow I'm going to try to get the other fender off so I can pull the engine

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HOODwinked

I managed to get a few things done today...
I got the doors and floorboards totally stripped down to the metal (no upholstry or molding),
the entire driver's side floor pan was rusted out so I ripped it all out.
I got the Hood off and the hinges and springs soaking in the molasses, the battery box and a few other engine parts have been removed. It doesn't sound like much but it tok a long time to do.

fRUSTration

Well I tried to get started on the de-rusting campaign with the wire brushes, manual & drill versions to no avail. The rust and old paint just kinda laughed at me while i sweated at it. So I gave up on the wires and broke out the Sandblaster for the first time, dumped in the sand i had just laying around and.... nothing happened apparently the sand was damp and too clumpy for the blaster. I dropped/threw the blaster in frustration only to have the ceramic tip shatter on the concrete. Have to run to the harbor freight to remedy that problem.

Tonight I ran over to the tractor supply to pick up some Molasses, that's right Molasses just like the cookies grandma used to make. Well not exactly, its feed grade molasses for deer hunting but I have another use for it. Mixing 1gal of molasses to 4gal of hot water produces a gross gooey sweet smelling substance full of phosphoric acid. this solution is ideal for dissolving... can anyone guess? RUST!! So i mixed up a batch and plopped in some super rusty parts (original '55 jack, hood bird), I'll leave them in there for a few days and post before and after pics.

OOH! I almost forgot I did pick up a 50# bag of black diamond sandblasting media to test out when i get my replacement tips in.

I'll let you know when I do some more!

Progress Pics

^Floor pan trunk^

She's Home!

I finally got her moved into the garage! Cleaned out the old carpet and crap, stripped floors and doors to bare metal, ready to de-rust and weld/rivet in some new sheet metal. also got the trunk cleaned out to bare metal for the first time in 30+years, it's ready to be de-rusted and welded too. Can't decide if I want to yank the engine and get it started rebuilding it or if I want to start on the bodywork.?.?