#12 - Rolling, Rolling, Rolling...
Well my vacation for the Thanksgiving holidays is officially over. I got a lot done on Cornholio. It was a lot of work and time, but I almost met my goal for the week.
First I had to finish the brakes and bearings. When I was done and putting the wheels that I noticed on some of the drums that the wheel bolts were left hand threaded. It had been such a long time since I took them off that I had forgotten about that. Now I had the rear passenger side and the front driver side with them. I had to think a bit on which side they should go on. So then I had to take the wheels off and swap the drums around. Duh.....Screw up number 1 fixed, notice that I am numbering them, this is called foreshadowing, keep up. But the tires were on...as you can tell I still haven't selected the color for the rims so they are still rusty. I was going to paint the body a pale creamy yellow with black fenders but now am leaning to a deep maroon or a steel grey. These are both still factory period colors.
I got the motor on the chain hoist and completely stripped of all of its parts, did I mention that there were 117 parts that came off the motor, this includes carb, manifolds, bolts, washers and such but they all had to get to bare metal, primed and painted. I stripped everything with a combination of a variety of wire brushes, sandpaper and abrasive wheels. A lot of nooks and crannies to tackle. Then I scrubbed with "Oven Off', detergent then Simple Green. Then a coat of Rust Cure and let to set a couple of days while I worked on the other 116 pieces. Then there was a coat of two part epoxy primer and then two coats of high temp custom engine enamel that was mixed to match the original color.
The next step was to roll her into the garage and drop the engine in, I decided to ask for the help doing this so I had to find a friend to help. I was afraid of chipping the paint, this old cast iron block was really heavy. I had to grind off the original front mounting bolts so I was prepared with new 2-1/2" and 2" stainless however it seems that is needed 2-1/4" who would have thunk it. So the one set bottomed out on the bolt and the other wouldn't reach. But I got the back bolts in perfect, got the engine centered and added some washers to the front long ones after giving up on finding the exact ones.
Then I began putting things back on. Luckily I still had the old engine which helped like you wouldn't believe in jogging my poor short term memory. Bythe way the manual it doesn't tell you that a 5/8" box wrench fits perfectly in the hole vacated by the oil dip stick tube. I would change that. It seems that the wrench did a Flying Walenda, spinning in the air and fell directly in the hole and slid down 3"almost into the oil pan. There has never been a more perfect penetration, each your heart out William Tell and your stupid apple. So I drove 15 miles to get a perfect magnet to retrieve it before it fell all the way in and I had to take off the oil pan and ruin my beautiful paint job. But just like Lassie I saved the day. I was freaking out, but things all worked out, thanks for your prayers.
All in all it was a good week. I didn't get everything on, the exhaust manifold is getting ceramic coated. I need to find tubing for the vacuum lines, fuel lines and brake lines next. Plus finish all of the engine stuffl. Then there is the gas tank, drive shaft, u-joints, real seal, pedals, steering wheel....The list continues to grow. I wont start any body work until everything of this nature is done. Even thought I want to drive it bad now...
First I had to finish the brakes and bearings. When I was done and putting the wheels that I noticed on some of the drums that the wheel bolts were left hand threaded. It had been such a long time since I took them off that I had forgotten about that. Now I had the rear passenger side and the front driver side with them. I had to think a bit on which side they should go on. So then I had to take the wheels off and swap the drums around. Duh.....Screw up number 1 fixed, notice that I am numbering them, this is called foreshadowing, keep up. But the tires were on...as you can tell I still haven't selected the color for the rims so they are still rusty. I was going to paint the body a pale creamy yellow with black fenders but now am leaning to a deep maroon or a steel grey. These are both still factory period colors.
I got the motor on the chain hoist and completely stripped of all of its parts, did I mention that there were 117 parts that came off the motor, this includes carb, manifolds, bolts, washers and such but they all had to get to bare metal, primed and painted. I stripped everything with a combination of a variety of wire brushes, sandpaper and abrasive wheels. A lot of nooks and crannies to tackle. Then I scrubbed with "Oven Off', detergent then Simple Green. Then a coat of Rust Cure and let to set a couple of days while I worked on the other 116 pieces. Then there was a coat of two part epoxy primer and then two coats of high temp custom engine enamel that was mixed to match the original color.
The next step was to roll her into the garage and drop the engine in, I decided to ask for the help doing this so I had to find a friend to help. I was afraid of chipping the paint, this old cast iron block was really heavy. I had to grind off the original front mounting bolts so I was prepared with new 2-1/2" and 2" stainless however it seems that is needed 2-1/4" who would have thunk it. So the one set bottomed out on the bolt and the other wouldn't reach. But I got the back bolts in perfect, got the engine centered and added some washers to the front long ones after giving up on finding the exact ones.
Then I began putting things back on. Luckily I still had the old engine which helped like you wouldn't believe in jogging my poor short term memory. Bythe way the manual it doesn't tell you that a 5/8" box wrench fits perfectly in the hole vacated by the oil dip stick tube. I would change that. It seems that the wrench did a Flying Walenda, spinning in the air and fell directly in the hole and slid down 3"almost into the oil pan. There has never been a more perfect penetration, each your heart out William Tell and your stupid apple. So I drove 15 miles to get a perfect magnet to retrieve it before it fell all the way in and I had to take off the oil pan and ruin my beautiful paint job. But just like Lassie I saved the day. I was freaking out, but things all worked out, thanks for your prayers.
All in all it was a good week. I didn't get everything on, the exhaust manifold is getting ceramic coated. I need to find tubing for the vacuum lines, fuel lines and brake lines next. Plus finish all of the engine stuffl. Then there is the gas tank, drive shaft, u-joints, real seal, pedals, steering wheel....The list continues to grow. I wont start any body work until everything of this nature is done. Even thought I want to drive it bad now...
posted by Kyle at 3:27 PM
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