project drivabeater 2.0: 64 el camino this time

E36 M3. Found more sanding scratches on the final round of blocking. Art says will paint in am. Too tired to do a good job tonight. And I have work so I won get to see it...

Better to handle them now then after the color is laid down!

Although I know what you're thinking, the painter isn't going to touch it, you're going to be under the knife, and it will sit there for a bit. Let's hope that doesn't happen.

so, budget first:

current total: 8293.74

step one: play the video, and turn up as loud as possible. repeat as necessary.

http://youtu.be/pAgnJDJN4VA

step two: look at the pictures. grin like a madman. I know I am!!

(also, I have now realized that I have documented almost this entire build with a cell phone camera. need to get the good one out...)

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satin on the dash, base clear on everything else. matches the doors great. even got all the rest of the parts painted, just not in the picture....

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blocked a final time with 400 grit

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the money shots!!!!!!!!

I was soo excited last night I couldn’t sleep. like a kid on Christmas eve. couldn’t wait to leave work today. just soooo happy. and amazing quality for right out of the gun in a dirt floored metal building.

oh, I also restored the park brake mechanism. cleaned thoroughly, shot in black, re-lettered the thing with a sharpie paint marker.

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additionally, y'all remember that free old smith tach my friend gave me? (obviously not done yet, just a mock up)

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what about the mags that came with the elky?

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im done for tonight. should have the truck back in my possession tomorrow afternoon when the rollback drops it off. painter still has the tailgate, cowl panel, and front bumper filler to finish.

michael

Sweet progress man. Looks like it came out well.

I must have missed it but did you go with single stage paint or is it still waiting for color sanding then clear coat?

nope. base clear. will be having another guy doing the wetsanding and buffing. I was going to do it myself, but I have way too great a chance to turn it into a clusterberkeley.

Sweet!!!

You mean to say that you shot it in that filthy flored space and it came out that nice?

What am I missing?

Im pretty sure that Art has a lucky rabbit foot buried somewhere in his anatomy. Hell, he ain't even got an exhaust fan, filter, or respirator.

Dusterbd13 wrote: Im pretty sure that Art has a lucky rabbit foot buried somewhere in his anatomy. Hell, he ain't even got an exhaust fan, filter, or respirator.

He's got luck alright, because you didn't beat the tar out of him when he couldn't find part of your project and was a few months behind schedule.

ok, mostly text update.

first, I still cant find my good camera. wife will be home this weekend, so hopefully she knows where it wandered off to.

next, I have made the decision that it will not be going frame off. I want to drive and enjoy this thing every day, and it is not rare enough or stock enough to have value added by going to that extent. nor does it increase pleasure of the driving experience. however, that being said, I am still painting the frame, seam sealing the underside, and shooting it in some sort of coating.

additionally, I sat bolt upright in bed last night with an oh E36 M3 moment, which I confirmed when getting pictures today. I never drilled the pan for the seat belt mounts or seat mounts. the seat mounts will be easy to work with, though I foresee some difficulty and strings of profanity with the seat belt mounts. suggestions and advice are strongly encouraged.

next, I scheduled the glass guy to come out Saturday to the body shop and out the front and rear windows, as well as the window molding, on the truck. this is exciting, as I have never actually seen the molding on here. when I bought it, kenny and his brother in law had filled the window channels full of silicone caulking in an attempt to stop the leaks. they should have put door weather-stripping in instead, as there was none.

the truck will be picked up by my father and myself on Sunday after church. we are taking it to his shop, where it will spend the next 6-8 weeks sitting with nothing happening to it as I am having ankle reconstruction done on the 25th. I hope to get the doors hung and seam sealing done, but I'm not holding my breath for actually accomplishing this.

also, I have decided upon further inspection, that this truck will definitely be getting wet sanded and buffed, as soon as I figure out how to do it. I cannot afford to pay the guy that I was going to have do it, so I will need to do it myself. if anyone has suggestions, I would LOVE to have them. especially tried and true foolproof methods. dealing with orange peel, and small trash in the clear.

I am super excited to have this old girl home. when I am able, the next step is to pull the engine, and fix the freeze plugs from where it apparently froze up over winter and pushed the ones above the motor mounts out. I'm hoping that’s all it did. painter said that he drained the water out, and I had asked that he add some antifreeze. if he did, it wasn’t enough. hopefully the block isn't cracked.

while the engine is out, I will clean up and paint the firewall. then bring it back to my place where I can finish reassembly, wire, build interior, inject it, etc. god I'm looking forward to seeing it complete and parked in front of work. it will be my daily....

oh, and some outside of the building pictures so this aint just a big old wall of text.

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michael

Looks pretty sweet from here!

Cool Man.

hey; since your ankle's going to be bummed. you might as well sit on a small roller stool in your dad's shop and get to sanding and buffing!

that thought had crossed my mind. reason it will be stored there is so that I am less tempted to do something stupid and try to make progress on the truck instead of following medical advice. hes 40 miles away.

still probably wont stop me though. im becoming a professional at doing stupid things.

so, budget first:

previous total: 8293.74

43.50 for seam sealer

118.83for rear disc, fuel pump, pdl connectors, rearview mirror to try to play with, ac block

230 to the glass guy

5.50 at home depot for sealer

binder clips from work (borrowed) free

help from brother Dustin: free

cracked block: free

52.64 to speedway motors for an oil gauge line adaptors, o2 bung

27.72 and 21.45 to npd for turn signal lenses, body plugs, and windshield clips

current total: 8793.38

I have a feeling my self imposed limit of 10k is gonna get blown here....

so, when we left off, I had the truck at the body shop still, waiting on the glass guy and the wrecker. glass guy called me the day before he was to come, and asked if I had the molding and clips ready. nope. no clips. got the powedercoated molding though. he told me to get the clips. no problem. it’s a chevelle, right?

so I went to pull-a-part on the way to my friendly local NPD. lucked into a 2002 Camaro with the almost complete rear disc setup. the rotors were junk, and so were the pads. fresh calipers and hoses, backing plates still there, so I pulled it. that wasn’t fun, car was from up north. wasn’t till I got home that I realized I forgot the abutment brackets and hardware. crap. also got the in tank module from a 98 or so monte carlo ss with a 3.4 dohc to adapt to the fuel tank in the elky, per this: http://www.gearhead-efi.com/gm-ecm-pcm-conversion/in-tank-fuel-pump-conversion.html

recent airtex pump that still had the shiny on it. took my cordless sawzall and I about 15 minutes flat to get it in the wheelbarrow.

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left there and stopped by npd for my molding clips. figured since they were so cheap, id grab the missing lenses for my turn indicators, and the plugs for the floor pan holes.

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while I was walking out the door of npd, at about lunch, my wife calls me from across the state, a day early, to come get her and my daughter from their vacation. crap. well, ill have time to do the clips before dark...

I get back with about 45 minutes of daylight left. go down to the body shop and go to install the clips. compare them against what was there before. completely different. E36 M3. aint gonna work. its now almost 8, npd closes at 9, glass guy comes at 10am tomorrow morning and I have to work. and npd is an hour away.

so what do I do? what any self respecting guy who watches hot rod road kill and reads car craft/grm and idolizes leMons racers would do: BANZAI!!!

made it to npd 7 minutes till closing. talked to Casey at the counter, explained the situation, handed him my two remaining molding clips, and we went into the warehouse. where we spent an hour with a digital caliper and every window clip in the store. we found some that looked completely different that what was there, but was exactly the same in every critical dimension. I then spent the good money and headed out to the wife's station wagon. by the time I got back to Albemarle it was almost midnight. I had to clock in at 8am. so I went home, got a few hours of sleep, and was back at the body shop before sunrise. drilled all the holes I needed to, screwed and sealed all the clips, laid out all the moldings and rear glass, and went to work already tired. at work I did track inspections and pre-hpde service for a 2013 camaro ss and a 2002 zo6 corvette (from earlier in the thread).

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as I was backing the Camaro off the lift at about 11 or so, the glass guy calls me and tells me that we have an issue with the tint on my rear window. I tell him ill be there in an hour, and leave work. when I get there, in his broken English, he tells me that he cant urethane to tint, and did not want to trim the tint due to liability. that’s an easy enough fix. we set the window in place on the setting blocks, I grab a razor blade, and trace the opening from the inside. put it on a sawhorse while he's installing the front trim, and I peel the outline of the opening. goes in without a hitch after that. we get to talking, and he's a really neat guy. legal immigrant from Mexico, along with his legal wife and kids, opened his own business and is making a better life for his family. much like my grandparents did from Scotland and Italy. anyway, if you're in the greater charlotte nc area and need a good, cheap glass guy, let me know. ill give you his number.

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I'm loving it!

so then Sunday comes around. dad and I were to use his trailer after church to go and bring it to his place. we get everything ready, and go to pull out the ramps. we only have one. one has gone missing. lock, ramp and all. we were both proud, as neither of us cussed. we spent the rest of Sunday morning riding around hoping to find where it fell out of the trailer. never did.

Monday, we paid a local rollback driver to take it home. only charged us 50 bucks, which was awfully reasonable if you ask me.

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over the course of the week, I've been working on restoring the interior trim,, and collecting almost all of the bed molding and supplies from where its been stored, as well as refinishing the other inner fender that’s been sitting ion the corner of the driveway for 6 months.

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so this brings us up to yesterday, when I had the day off. first order of business was assessing the pushed out freeze plugs and engine condition due to freezing. I knew it still ran, but had frozen over winter and the oil pressure was lower than I remember. drove it around the shop to the lift, and started a visual inspection underneath. found an obvious crack near the starter. E36 M3.

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not to be too pessimistic, I got the two pushed freeze plugs kind of back in, and filled it up with some water. fired it up, and once the thermostat opened that crack started leaking water. also, it was blowing quite a bit of water out of the tailpipes. and making free milkshakes. the motor is officially done for. berkeley!!! money I didn’t have, that I don’t need to spend....

anyway, I wasn’t going to let that ruin my day too long. I refuse to be miserable about things that I cannot change. so I went on to the powdercoated bed molding install, as that needed to be done before I could do anything about the headliner. got some recommendations on how to seal the studs that go through the cab, and wound up buying two bricks of this at home depot.

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only needed one, and I still have a bit of it left. this is how I applied it, and squeezed it down for a good seal while tightening the nuts.

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now that that was done, I needed to do something about the headliner. based on the financial setback of the engine, I really didn’t want to order one. so I decided to save what I have. this aint a show car...

I read a bunch of stuff on the internet about installing these headliners. all of them recommended using vinyl top adhesive and binder clips. so that’s what I did. went from this:

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to this:

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I also pulled down the rearview mirror, sun visors, etc, and cleaned everything the best I could. then, using the SEM vinyl dye I bought a while back and used on the moldings, as well as some fancy cardboard masking, I dyed it in place. use plenty of ventilation and a respirator when you do this. it hurts otherwise...

also, I went to clean up the sun visor and mirror hardware, and repaint them. while cleaning, I discovered that under the discolored paint that they were all chrome. so I stripped the paint off...

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anyway, what it all looks like put back together. the crappy cellphone camera makes it look all sorts of splotchy, but it really isn't as bad as it looks. barely noticeable in daylight.

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about this time, my best friend Dustin arrived. we needed a guys night. and he enjoys doing bodywork/resto stuff as well. so we decided to hang the doors.

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so that’s about it. hoping to test fit the new to me side mirrors tomorrow and see if I like them, get my nieces drivabeater test driven, and prepare this thing for a few month slumber. Monday morning I go in for reconstructive surgery on my left ankle. Tuesday-god knows when, ill be flat on my back, and after that crutches. so ill have plenty of time to think through the next steps of the resto.

if anyone has a decent small block chevy shortblock within 100 miles of charlotte, nc, that they want to let go for cheap or damn near free, let me know. otherwise, tuna55 has volunteered to snatch me a vortec longblock from his local junkyard, hold it for me until I'm cleared to drive, and only charge me cost and a 6 pack of beer. id rather save him the effort, but, then again, id rather not have to do a motor. oh well, what the hell....

thanks for reading this guys. please, start some sort of discussion. I have lots of time to kill....

Michael

Car really looks to be going together nicely. Sucks about the motor.

If tuna needs a hand pulling that motor...And I head up to charlotte all the dagone time so I could haul it to meet ya halfway at some point.

Ill let you get up with tuna on helping him. Would be able to meet up with you on Charlotte without a problem as I only live about 40 miles out. Thank you guys.

Pretty sure that the you and tuna route is the way to go for me, but will wait to hear from aflac this week to be certain.

I'm a crack addict without any product so ya'll are saving me MAJOR money right now.

(I do not have a project car at this time and I'm trying to keep from having one...)

Good luck with the surgery.

How Did surgery go?

Went well. Dr said that he found the best case scenario when he got in there, and everything went like it was supposed to.

Hurts now though. And trying to do anything one legged is going to be toigh. Especially getting in and out of my house due to gravel sidewalks and living on one hell of a slope. Going to the bathroom is also not easy, as one foot us the suze of my head and im not allowed to put any weight on it.

I appreciate you asking. Means a lot to me.

Time to weld you up a buggy to put the foot into. i.e. rollerskate. :D

Hope you feel better soon, what is the supposed downtime?

I'm glad to hear "it went well" even though it sucks. Let me know if/when you're ready for us to pull together to get that motor to you. In the meantime, get some rest dude.

Thanks Brian and mad. Mad, what's your real name?

Ill let you know by the end of the week or so on the motor. Kind of waiting to see what aflac dies to see what kind of funds I have to work with. This fall has been really expensive due to my insurance sucking a big hairy one. The last two months i have had to put out seven grand and all the bills haven't come in yet.

Thanks for being here with me guys.

Oh. Ankle not weight bearing for 4-6 weeks. And yes, welding up a leg roller coaster would have been a great idea before this. Think im going to try to use my rolling shop stool to do the same thing. The walker is a pain in the ass.