Forgotten Things and an Anniversary

Collective From Earlier in 2009

I know I haven't written in ages, but since I figure that no-one is actually reading this, I can do what I want. 

I'm breaking chronological form here to tidy up a few things I had done earlier in the project. As with any zealous blogger (not me) or totally professional auto restorer (not me again), you will religiously take pictures and sort them so you have an action by action account of your project. While I very much wanted to do this at the beginning, it's been a bit harder to remember recently as i just dive into the issue and take pictures once im done.

anyways, im noting here one of my bodywork pilot projects, which I only took finished pictures of, and some other painting stuff for my transmission.

You may recognize this as my rear right door, the one that had been plagued by such vicious rust that anyone else would have deemed it unsalvageable.  seeing as how wagoneer doors are hard to come by, I decided to take a crack at fixing it full on. I popped open the tin of paint stripper at 2:00am in the schools shop, and tried it in an inconspicuous area first. One thing I learned is that this stuff; although gell, dries really fast, before really having a chance to work on the paint. I made a deep-night dash down to the cafeteria with a classmate (nameless) who helped me snag a bunch of aluminum foil from the dispenser. industrial sized, and thicker than regular stuff, it covered the paint stripper well when I smeared it all over the door, and kept it from evapourating. The nice thing was i could use it again for the second application. once the paint was all removed I ground into the rust with no remorse, and treated it with a rust converting liquid. Note: the pictures above are a preliminary primer, thus still a bit rough.

once it was clean and roughed up, I applied some lovely glass-filled body filler (napa-brand), which has short strands of fibreglass in it to give it strength over holes. I have so far been using it on any areas that are perforated. it sands really well, and I built myself a number of sanding blocks from MDF scraps and old sanding belts. I then honed my model making skills with subsequent bondo-ing, sanding, spot puttying, etc - all the way down to primer. I was pretty pleased with the results after painting but you can see it in a certain light.

Also, I stripped the paint from my tranny pan and let a classmate use up some expensive acrylic paint he had leftover from his motorcycle he was painting (you know who you are). I prepped it with a new gasket and filter from Carquest for $20 since my old seal leaked and the filter was black.

Lastly, today (Nov 23/2010) marks the 3rd anniversary of my owning the wagoneer. Man time flies. anyways, I had thought long ago that it would be a shorter project, but such is life.

Diving In

May 16-18, 2009

I grabbed at one of those freebie weekends that students get once uni. lets out for the summer, and before they're into summer jobs. Since the job hunting was a little slow, and no one was going to contact me on the weekend anyways, I picked up the cut off wheels, pulled the beast onto the driveway, and began mapping my patchwork with a sharpie.

Sit-rep; there were a good number of rusted out areas, in places that would continue to rust and pucker out any subsequent bondo work. Seeing as I didnt want to make this a rolling Bondo ad, I had already decided the best fix was to cut and remove the badness, and replace it with new 18 gauge steel.

All in all, I think I decided on cutting out 8 of the worst (or most accessible) areas. Some were small (a few sq inches), and some were rather huge, as you'll see.

I wish I knew a little more about welding surface tension before welding in these patches. The tension up front there warped the panel a bit, but I managed to coax it back into place with some light body hammer tapping and a steel dolly.

My largest, most complex patch yet, which encompasses 2 angular body lines, and a sweeping curve, as well as a "cross curve" lip to follow the old fender lip line. Tricky. I decided the best way to tackle it would be to do it in 3 stages, through each of the 3 "stepped" areas.

Step 1 encompassed the first angled body line and fender lip.

Step 2 covered the 2nd patch area, leaving the largest and most complicated for last.

All in all, I was pretty pleased. There is a bit of a recess where patch 2 and 3 meet, along the fender line, but I can probably just bondo that in.

I also patched the top of the latter fender, and the rear of the opposing side.

This patch; I probably could have cut more out of. some rust treatment though should halt any remaining orange avenger.

All in all, I cut back the body filler required to make these areas look better again. It should be noted that I do not intend to make this a show quality vehicle. Although I will surely put painstaking time into doing the bondo right (as an Industrial designer, you learn to do a lot of bondo work on models), I intend this vehicle to be used as it was intended; as a Jeep. I'm painting it with Tremclad, because as I know, "it's bound to happen again."

RR Brakes

May 14, 2009

This is a short post. I had the right rear drum off to a) finally replace it, and b) hook up the right e-brake cable. Having done the other side already, this side was a snap.  I grabbed a shot of the brake guts, and if you look closely, you can see the new brake cable armouring at the bottom.

Also, if you look closely, you'll notice the rust scaling on the frame. It's not too bad, the passenger side (pictured) is better than the drivers side. This probably had a lot to do with the gas tank being on the other side, and nothing trapping moisture on this side. The only real way to fix this is to pull the body off the frame and sandblast it, yadda yadda. ugh, i don't want to do that, so the frame will remain rusty. I don't care about this particular jeep enough to devote that kind of time and money to it; maybe someday with a better candidate that cost a bit more than $250.

Here you can see all the nasty rust that has plagued this thing. By the looks of things, it has been bondoed more than once, and not for rust every time. there are a few "rusted" patched holes, and a few "dented" patches, indicating the lack of care somewhere in this vehicles life (I should call the 8 previous owners and see who's responsible).

All that rust there was beginning to bug me, to the point that i didnt think bondo'ing would be strong enough to hold that kind of a gap. My decision was (with little reluctance, because I like welding) to again grab the grinder and cut out the cancer. More to come on that.

Slappin the Paint

May 2, 2009

To the best of my recollection, my plan was to paint every engine component that I removed. This way, I could more or less colour document what I have had to fix (or at least remove). some of these parts were gummed up with nearly 20 years worth of old oil, and it showed.

I started by popping off the rocker covers, which needed new seals badly. They had been leaking (mainly the passenger's side, noted in picture below) through a homemade silicone gasket and were now well into lubing the manifolds. Although this prevented a lot of rust in that area, it did make for a rather great plumage of smoke once the engine warmed up, not to mention smell.

To my surprise, the rocker arms, seats, and springs were astonishingly clean and free of gummy buildup (which often appears either as black or white buildup). The fact that it was so clean meant the engine is likely pretty clean inside, and bodes well for longevity. It also means i likely have less crankcase gasses, which aids my cause in the e-test depertment.

With the rocker covers off, I took the wire wheel to them and polished off all the old paint, which was peeling and allowing rust to pit some areas. I used some leftover paint from a school project (which happened to be high heat orange) and gave them both a nice healthy coat, same colour as the air-box.

I then moved on to paint the distributer cap, AIR manifolds, and the oil vent filter.

With my new cork rocker gasket installed, and a new exhaust gasket ready to go in, i began reassembling everything, with the obvious intent of sealing the oil and exhaust for good this time. The colour combo of hot orange with gloss white (mixed with a dash of accent red), makes for a pretty good bit of colour. In time more stuff will be painted as it's fixed.

Lastly, I grabbed the mega rusted Y-pipe and began stitching it back together. the old weld seam fixed up no sweat, but i had to cut and patch a lot of the rest of it, so flow is probably less than ideal through that area. Then I gave it a thick coat ofhigh heat white, to match the manifolds.

Note the Grenade/Ammo box.. good for a few BHP.

Totally Exhausted

May 1, 2009

I havent typed in a while, been working on thesis. With that out of the way now I can get back to work, and back to writing.

Late April of 09 I finished up 3rd year ID, and set to curing my dumb leaking exhaust. Which meant dropping the y-pipe for patching. That being said, the bolts had likely been in the manifolds since new.. and were getting relatively thin-shanked, not to mention fusing themselves to the manifolds. 3 of the 4 bolts broke off, leaving me with a predicament; a y-pipe that couldn't be reattached unless I dropped the manifolds and took the old bolts out.

Getting the manifolds off was actually rather easy. Jeep used hollow bolts that allowed for expansion to release pressure inwards, so they didnt seize. The manifolds came out in a few minutes each. The gaskets however, were a lost cause. one side had more or less disintigrated due to oil leaking onto it for a long time. So I grabbed some new Gaskets at the local Carquest.

With the manifolds off, I removed the AIR lines that hooked up to them, and ended up breaking one, so I plugged it. I wire brushed the rest of the manifolds and grabbed some super high heat paint (gloss white) to go well with the colour of the valve covers and air box.

Cleaned Up a Bit

March 30, 2009

   I decided to get back at the beast and finish up some of the loose ends I'd been tackling for a while. For starters, I finished patching up the exhaust, and got the ebrake work all sorted out. i was finished the frame, so I put the Gas tank back in and hooked everything up.

   I seem to recall the day i dropped the gas tank out, in late 2008. I had to cut it free more or less from it's moorings, because like most of this vehilce, they had rusted fast. I had to break off one of the strap brackets and weld it back together later, and after all the supports were out, and the lines disconnected, i jiggled it free from it's stead. it was about a 1/3 full (roughly 25L), and i was sitting/laying beneath it when it dropped out, in such an awkward way that it pinned me for a bit. long story short, it was an absolute bear to remove, and to re-install.

   After it burbled to life, i took it for a quick spin around the block and parked it back in the driveway (always nose down, otherwise the fuel drains back into the tank and it wont start).

 

   With it in the driveway, I figured it was a good time to drop the Class 3 hitch reciever off, in order to gain some much needed departure angle height. I already designed a bumper for the front, so i might as well do one for the rear, with an integrated hitch (should save a bit of weight by combining the purposes). Most of the bolts put up a huge fight, and i recall breaking a couple. no matter, it might not have passed safety if i left it on. not having the hitch definitely gives the truck a better look, with a slightly more aggressive departure.

 

  

I also popped in my repaired taillights. the chromed plastic housing had broken on one, so i repaired that, plus a broken mounting stud.

Miscellaneous Small Stuff

January 10, 2009

Usually in a project, you come to a point wher you have some small niggly little foybles mounding up, which hinder you from the juicy tasks. Those niggly things came in the form of some of my most despised mechanical tasks; brakes and exhaust. I think this has something to do with the fine dust, and general malicious nature of said tasks. exhaust parts inevitably get hot, thus rendering the pipes, and their accompanying clamps one unit. no bolt ever comes off in exhaust work, and brake-work isnt much better. a myriad of springs keep drum brakes in place, and they require a lot of force to remove them. Plus there's the mess of being underneath the vehicle, in winter.

it feels good to get this stuff out of the way though, so i plunged into the task, tackling the rear brakes first. the old drums were near useless, so i binned them, and bought some new drums (the old shoes were actually fairly new, so they stayed). before throwing the new drums on i cleaned and painted them with calipre paint in grabber orange for added stopping power (not really).

 

  

 

After the brakes were replaced, and new rear lines for the e-brake were installed, i moved on to attaching said e-brake cable back to the front half of the system. the guide clips were rusted off the frame, and the cable hookups had rusted, so i had to build new clips and hookups, as seen in the picture below.

 

 Since I was lacking a spare rim, I searched Kijiji for some replacements. Low and behold some guy in Toronto had a set of 4 for a really good price, so i picked them up. what i can do now is have a set of different tires on these rims, for winter.

 

I also had a lot of rear exhaust work to do. the seam behind the muffler had rusted out, so i cut it out so I could put a sleeve in. I also replaced about a foot of pipe closer to the back. On my way home from Canadian Tire however, my car was struck in an intersection (didnt write it off, but almost). That being said, it would be a while before I worked on the wagon and finished up those jobs, because I had other stuff to do now.

 

update (as of Feb 3, 2010): the muffler is actually fairly rough, so I'll replace that and the seam i put in, to make the beast a bit quieter.

Spinal Fracture

December 12, 2008

   Not me, the G-Wag. As it turns out; Jeep in all their boundless wisdom decided the best thing for the Gas tank was to put a skid plate under it. While I would normally praise this as a slice of factory brilliance, they didn't go about it in the most longevity conducive manner. Since the tank follows alongside the frame, the skidplate ran the length of the tank, also following the frame. This would have been fine if Jeep had left open "ports" to allow debris to fall out, or if they had closed off the front of the skid pan so that dirt wouldn't get in. Unfortunately Jeep; the essential authors of modern-day four wheel drive-forgot almost everything about skid plates when they made this one. It allows dirt and debris to be flung up onto the inside of the skidplate, where they trap moisture and salt (a lovely combo) against the frame. Wagoneer's from the mid 80's to 91 had severely rust-prone frames, and mine did not escape.

   I found a rather poor patch job completed in the same method as the old floor patches. a smattering of rivets were procured, along with some galvanized duct-work metal, and the weekend warrior broke out the tin snips and rivet gun. the patch job was then iced with a slurry of undercoating tar to hide it from any suspicious mechanics. I broke out the cutoff wheel and went to work, slicing out the badness where necessary.

   I ended up with a long chunk of the bottom of the rail being cut out, and found a small crack beginning to creep up the side of the frame a 1/4". I made sure to weld that up nicely, and set about forming some 3/8 angle iron to fit my frame.

 

    I had to make a few cuts so i could bend the metal to fit the frame shape, and then patched the cuts back up with the scrap metal and some welding.

   Some test fitting and then clamping allowed me to line the whole thing up and weld it in place. Although the rusted portion was near the back, I ran the angle iron the entire span of the frame, thus making it a double purpose patch and skid-rail for off-road use.  I was more or less pleased with the patch, and it should allow the vehicle to pass certification. It's amazing how many problems I didn't know about when i bought it (I may have waited and bought a better one had I known, but that's neither here nor there at this point).