Gonna do this post a little differently… well no one will know it but I figure if I update this little by little I will be able to put down what I have done. This might make the post longer cause it will be done over a few days. Guess we will find out by the time this is posted.
First things first… My shell is now at the body shop. I actually dropped it off exactly 5 months to the day from when I started all this. Body guy says it should be 3 to 4 weeks. Have my fingers crossed its more like 3 weeks lol.
The work doesn’t stop with the shell being gone. I just now need to shift focus on cleaning up some parts and fixing some leaks. Both the front and the rear subframes had plenty of attention over the past year when I was driving the car. So I decided (really for my sanity and to stop the fire in my wallet) to just clean up the subframes (the rear is new anyways) and just run them. The whole idea is to have a car I can drive and not worry about. I think if I went with a full nut and bolt resto I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it as much. Either way I cleaned up the front subframe already and hit it with some paint in spots. Came out pretty good. I’m a little worried about the rust on the brake rotors and steering knuckles but I figure once its moving that will sort itself out (mostly).
Next up I decided to dive into replacing seals on the engine. I rebuilt this in December of 2018. I found the timing cover had a leak and the thermostat housing had starting leaking after I swapped thermostats (shouldn’t have left the bottom one in… my bad). While I was at it I swapped all the gaskets for the speedo drive, the cover plate gasket was damaged when I did the build so I figured now was a good time to fix it. I also took the manifolds off, kinda have to take them both off when you want one off. I plan on painting the exhaust manifold as it is already rusting and its not that old, 2 years ish, and finally I got one of the engine mounts swapped out, the current ones look ok but when the car was mobile I always felt the engine had too much movement, they are cheap and now is the time to do it.
I will say halfway through these repairs I was thinking I should have just lifted this thing back on the bench. Oh well, its done now I’m only a little sore.
Next up was time to coat the manifold. I bought this Maniflow LCB back when I got the car 2 years ago. After about a year it started having some rust on it.. actually lots of things have rust on them that I cleaned up… go figure. I had waffled on painting it so much that I actually forgot I bought some rattle can ceramic coat… and it happened to be blue. Not sure why I bought that color but it almost matches the rocker cover.. so we will go with that reason. It didn’t come out that bad, hopefully it works.
Next up I swapped the other engine mount on the radiator bracket and replaced some parts on my shifter. The main shift rod was bent, I noticed this when I redid the copper bushings on it doing my engine rebuild last year. I was not able to find a reasonably priced rod so I straightened it the best I could. I happened to stumble across a new rod when looking for new rubber bushings (which I think I was sent 2 different brands, oh well screw it ill run them). Heres to hoping I can now find 1st gear all the time when shifting into it. That is one thing I noticed going to the Kad quick shift first gear would not always be where you thought it was. I don’t believe its a gear box issue as it wasn’t grinding it was literally as if you were trying to put it in gear between 1 and 3. just hard stop couldn’t go in. but if you used 2nd gear you could get the alignment just right (basically shift to 2nd then back up to 1).
I was planning on tinting my windows myself, but I have never done that and the cost of materials and tools vs. just paying a shop who knows what they were doing was not a huge difference. No pictures of the tint yet but I did remove some rusty window tracks off the front windows before I dropped off the glass.
Then I moved onto setting up my steering rack. I contacted mini spares and they said the rack is prefilled and good to go. I definitely noticed plenty of grease in the alignment hole so I guess they weren’t lying. I had bought new tie rod ends a while ago and figured now was a good time to use the. I lined up both racks with the centering pin and eye balled the tie rod ends, hope it gets me close. The only spot that makes me nervous is where the column pinch bolt goes the old rack and the new were about a quarter turn apart, guess I will find out how much of a pain that is when I got to put it all together. I also hope a quick rack isn’t too much work to turn.
Finally I cleaned up my rear subframe and took a look at the rear drums. Prior to dismantling the car I replaced the rear shoes, cylinders, drums basically a whole brake job on the rear. Well while driving I occasionally noticed a loud clicking sound usually after hitting the brakes. Well spinning the drums I found the LH side definitely had a click to it. I can’t remember if I tried this side as I was very convince it was the RH. No pictures of it but I took the whole drum apart and put it back together and the clicking was no longer present. Hopefully I don’t have to chase this issue once the car is done. Oh and heres a pic of the rear subframe (this was refreshed last year so I didn’t have to go too crazy on it).
Well I guess I will wrap this post up for now. I have only a couple things left that I can do before I have to wait on the shell. The goal is to make the reassembly go quick and smooth.
The Rust chronicles 