Frantic Prep

August 18-22, 2011

Certification Loomed on the horizon the way a cold front plows up a bank of thunderheads in the distance; no escape but to push headlong into it. With the Safety and E-test check booked for the 23^rd, I gave the beast a pretty thorough inspection and whipped up a short list of things I would need to complete over the next couple of days.

I street legalized all the Bondo work and got most of the bare steel painted for the trip north (should I get that far), as well as reinstalling any trim that needed to go back on. I pillaged the old TJ bumper from storage and welded up a few quick mounts to hold it in place as a temporary bumper while my real one was being fabricated.

An electrical check revealed my rear side marker signals didn’t work; with the multimeter reading about 2 volts instead of the required 12. Without the time to do proper continuity tests to find where 10 volts either escaped or couldn’t pass through a bad connection, I rigged up a splice to piggyback the power off the more robust tail light signal circuit. It meant they didn’t alternate blinking but it meant they now were legal.

 

On the evening of the 22^nd, about 16 hours before my test was booked, I took the vehicle for a quick spin to warm it up past driveway idle; with the intent of finding any weak points that otherwise wouldn’t appear until a road test.

The test worked.

When the power steering fluid began warming up, the pressure in the steering system increased to reach its normal operating temp/pressure. This caused a small pinhole leak in the low pressure line to begin dripping in a fairly constant 1 drip per second pattern. I reached in and gave the steel line (where it exits the box) a slight wiggle and it ruptured; bleeding itself out all over the garage floor like a mortally wounded Buck. Seeing as how it was passed closing time of Canadian Tire, I proceeded to dismantle the low pressure side of the system and took stock of what I needed.

 

In the morning, I slipped over to CT early to get the best start on my day. At T-6:00 I was told they didn’t stock parts for the Saginaw Steering system, the box that lived under just about every 4wd truck pre-1994 (and possibly after). Since I had the piece with me the Desk-Guy and I went to their fuel and brake fitting section and paired up a nearly identical match to the old fitting. I didn’t care that the line was intended for a GM sending unit, it bolted right up and I had steering in under an hour after purchase. I refit with new hose, clamps, and o-rings and then topped up the fluid. A few last minute dustings made it look semi-presentable before my brother in law came to pick it up for its appointment.

 

Big Booth

August 13, 2011

Manhandling a driver door into a small paint shop is easy; manhandling 4 doors, a hood, fenders, and a grille into a paint booth requires more space (still not hard), but fitting a 16' long truck into the same booth can be a sizeable task. Throwing a 19'x10' airtight structure together in a couple days requires that most of the work already be done for you.

Enter the Barn, Circa 1900. This building has an extended threshing floor for extra space, and solid 2.5" thick floors on Hemlock Beams. Bracing, Posts, and Swing Beams make for perfect backing components; just build the booth indoors. I began with a full bundle of assorted wood left over from church production props (Adventure to Bethlehem no less)

In Brief, the structure used a rib-like design that can later be collapsed and stored in pieces so i can use it again. It has a peaked roof, Garage style flip front door, and proper ventilation. The floor is sealed with large layered lumber tarps, and the walls are medium (about 8mil) vapour barrier. the man door is sealed by leaving a flange of vapour barrier around the perimeter that is trapped when it closes. a rear evacuation system uses an auxiliary fan from a 1990 Ford Taurus, sucking through 3 furnace filters (medium duty) the intake vents at the front are up higher than the rear exhaust, this causes the vapours and overspray to be sucked downwards.

Update from Early September. I left the vapour barrier until i needed it, this way it was dust free.

 Sneak peek

Late July – Early August 2011

Having booked myself in at the local Subaru Garage for a safety test and an e-test, it was time to tie up the remaining loose ends and get the vehicle into a passable condition. For the Wagon this meant mostly doing some more realistic Bondo prep and sanding; not to mention spraying those panels with primer to cover the bare steel.

In Typical More-than-I-bargained-for fashion, the Bondo was taking more time than I would have cared to allot to it in the first place, but since the clock was winding down I had to press on regardless of how long it was taking me (might have aided myself to have used some better bodywork tools; a long Lowes paint stick was the backing for all my sanding, allowing me to get the curves more or less right.

By the time I was more or less happy with the bodywork (aside from spot putty and final sanding) I shot some red oxide primer on it to keep whatever rust that wanted to form away from it. I also finished up the CAD for the Front Bumper I have been proposing all these years. I got in touch with a local metal fabricating shop that I’ve been in contact with for a few years (dare I plug them here?) called Templeton and Sons here in the GTA. These guys do excellent work and they are very reasonable in terms of their pricing (a full custom bumper turned out to be roughly the same if not cheaper than an OEM replacement). They do laser cutting, cnc press bending, and are fully certified to weld all sorts of metals. I will in the short term get a rear bumper done there of the same design persuasion.