It has been a fierce few days at the Weisswurst Wattle Wonderland. Cold as hell at night, mouse scurrying, mouse eradications, three-wheeled shopvac tipovers, exploding halogen lamp bulbs, extension cord tangles galore, dust and more dust, sand, and vicious toulene/acetone/benzine headaches through-out the undercoating process, many avalanches of crap and spilling tools and stepped-into buckets of gasoline, huddling at the halogen lamps for warmth, tape, there has been tape, and meals wafting in under covering dishes. What did I, dressed in clothes that would embarrass a coal miner after a double-shift, ever *do* to deserve pork roast on a platter?
As an aside, I took out all floor galvanized strips. They had developed a white rust and some real rust underneath:
Sanded, followed by a very light coat of aluminum engine enamel, followed by three coats of clear engine enamel, and they still look galvanized, but fresh, and I hope, seriously protected:
Yes, yes I did, in fact, wax the paint inside the spare tire compartment, and I sanded the floor plywood to look more fresh I did:
The galvanized strips, nice, yes?
I was terribly slowed by the nastiest secrets under the car. The road salt was CAKED on the entire undercarriage then lazily painted over with asphalt undercoating (I hate the stuff), then it was subjected to a build-up of silt covered over by overspray. Every inch of the underneath of this car had to be scrubbed, scraped, blasted with air, then brushed and air-blasted again:
The salt was everywhere, everywhere. It was "easier" inside the frame rails only by virtue that the overspray didn't reach in that far, but inside of each out-rigger, inside of the boxed frame sections, inside of the torsion tube collars at the rear and inside the front beam, salt had enjoyed a twenty year head-start against my rust eradication efforts. I modified the rust catalyzing paint nozzle to accept a carb spray straw and drenched/air-blasted every drain hole and every hidden corner of the entire chassis/body.Took out all (and they were all beautifully present and still pliable) rubber plugs and compressed-air/rust-catalyzing primed the rocker panels and dog legs:
Each corner of the car took a full ten hours:
What The Heck painted the rear drums, and wheel bearing housings and backing plates. Looks like a bored weekend teenager job, but too bad! I figured each inch of coverage against oxidation as a victory:
Drilled holes in the front beam to help drainage. Right side here, a few rust particles, not too bad:
The left side was a horror. I knew I was in trouble when I drilled through the bottom of the stamping that holds the tubes together, and saw a red ooze drip out, water! This, five days after the last precipitation?? When I surface-scuffed the stamping, I almost didn't find good base shiny metal along the bottom, there were rust spots that never cleaned up. Had to drill a big hole on the inside to be able to remove the larger chunks of rust with my hooked hanger wire. I think it was the end of Day Two at 11:30PM when I found this disheartening destruction from sloppily applied asphalt undercoating clogging the drain hole on the left side of the beam.
I swore to the car that I was going to get every last piece of loose rust out of that beam no matter how long it took. I ran that hanger around in both of my new drain holes there and switched the air nozzle from hole to hole and got peppered with hours of metal flakes and chunks that had to be broken up before they would clear the larger hole. At 1:50AM, I could not get another flake to fall out of the front beam, not one:
I drenched the inside of the beam, my hands, the air nozzle, and my eyeballs ( to protect the clarity of my safety glasses from any muriatic acid drips, I took them off ) with rust-catalyzing primer. It flooded out of the carb spray straw and blasted deep into the front beam stampings with that compressed air. I prayed and sprayed. Finally! The underside of the car looks like the BobD:
There is so much more, but I have to get to Walmart for plastic sheeting for the front door vapor barriers. I am embarrassed and grateful at how accommodating the Florida Flapping Fowl Farm has been:
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles