Busy, busy, busy...

So, you know the feeling:  You've just done something extraordinary, or maybe spent a pretty penny on your favorite ride at the dealership, and ... you just want some hard evidence that all that work/money was worth it!  It really sucks when the new shocks and struts feel just like the old worn out ones.

This is the feeling you get when restoring an old car.  Your dirty filthy all the time.  The chemicals are converting your skin to Naugahyde and time blows by like nothing.  You want to believe all this tedious labor is for the SOMETHING.  But somehow, the car and your pile of parts look mysteriously unchanged.  This is the way my weekend went.

Okay, some levity:  In fact, I did see some progress.  I installed the clutch.  It's hidden by the bell-housing so there is little obvious change, but it's significant.  Here are some boring pics of the pressure plate and clutch fork.  This is probably a few hours work.  Much of that time was arresting the rotation of the crank while torquing everything.

I then went ahead and installed the clutch slave cylinder (sorry, blurry pic).

The parts of the engine block uncovered by components like the water pump and thermostat housing are not immediately discernible so you have to over lay the gaskets, draw a pencil line and then coat those areas outside the gaskets.  It's that, or rattle can around the parts after they're installed.  Since these parts are bright aluminum, which I intend to buff out to a "bling", I chose not to mask and spray.  Now I wish I had.  I am using a high-temp POR-15 engine paint that must be brushed.  On smooth surfaces, it sucks.  These surfaces were smooth, therefore the results suck.

Runs, drips, errors.  Uhg.

Most will be hidden by the components so not to worry.  Breath in.... Let the stress leave your body... breath out....

Where was I?  Oh yes, then there was (a) Miscellaneous Part #1, a small stone guard that appeared in a random box.  I have no clue where this baby goes, but it needs a coat of that ding-proof paint.

Then, while sorting out some of the linkage for the tranny and transfer case, I came upon Miscellaneous Part #2:  It is the hi/lo range linkage for the transfer case shifter (yes I had to research that).  It has a ball-joint covered with a small rubber boot and a threaded adjuster (which I am opting to leave alone, for now).  So first, does the rubber look serviceable?  Yes!  Is the ball joint worn?  I don't know, so let's take it apart and see.  Ooh... Damn.... That's a lot of rust.  Some vigorous cleaning and wire brushing and I think I can make it work.  The lube that might have once resided in that joint was replaced by a healthy amount of rust which had no place to go because of the boot (which did it's job) so it acted like a pseudo lubricant.  A bad pseudo lubricant!

I softened the rubber boot with WD-40 (bad for rubber but good in small doses), Painted the adjuster, then packed the joint with molybninum grease (good for ball-joints).  And....not bad!  The process to restore this diminutive part was time consuming but fun.  Imagine, that rubber being supple after 33 years!

There were several batches of bolts that needed reconditioning and painting, none of which warranted photography.  I coated the raw steel exhaust hangers with POR-15 and then hung the exhaust system for good.  Incredibly, there was so little room between the headers and the head (a good thing) there were a few minutes of wrestling to get the manifold gasket in place.  Now, can't wait to get the gleaming intake bolted up.  Patience!

There were a few other parts installed today:  The oil cooler, which is mounted to the filter bracket, all bolted to the block, plus the fuel pump.  Note the brass outlets which are brazed to the cooler housing.  Too cool.  The mounting bolts are hollow and are sealed with bronze washers on the front and o-rings on the back.  Interesting system, but it's a wonder it works long-term.  The filter is the right thread (Ford) but the wrong diameter and only there as a dust shield.  A leftover from a car I sold decades ago!

Lastly, the thermostat housing is in place.  I would have installed the t-stat and the cover, but I think I have the wrong gasket!  (hmmm, how'd that happen SOR?)

Good night.

Short (post), but oh so sweet!

I found those bolts!  Now, after a little wire-brushing and cleaning it's time (drum roll)... to get that engine BACK WHERE IT BELONGS!!

Here it is:

Minutia

I can't understate the loss of momentum caused by the hours of searching for that clutch kit.  I liken it to the momentum in sports that can be lost after giving up that long pass or cheap goal.  I was following a "road map" that had a few things banking on my engine resting in the chassis by the end of Wednesday.  Primarily it was the loss of one bay of the garage.  Sucks to be so anal retentive!  I intend to keep each and every part of this vehicle dry until the big reveal and I needed the entire garage to do this.

I coped, but the grand order of things had to get shuffled.  So while the shitty weather and the inability to find some key hardware put the mating on hold, I went to work on the remaining minutia.  To find those bolts, I'll need to unpack each box in successive order.  Whilst doing so, I might as well attend to the restoration of those forgotten parts.  So, that's how I spent the last few days.  Here is the engine with painting complete and the missing bellhousing which awaits the discovery of the missing bolts!

And some of the minutia...

Now, here is one of those items that likely never make it into the restoration process.  It is the heat shield that bolts to the cowling of the tub where the exhaust passes (under the accelerator pedal).  Consequently, it is baked fried, broiled, beaten and bathed in hot oil nearly constantly.  Imagine this going on for 30 years?  What are the odds of it being salvageable?  100% bucko!  An adhesive sealer literally glued it to the tub but it was still pliable when I removed it last year.  It took some patience but off it came.  It's aluminum and could easily have been damaged.  Inside there is a foil covered fiberglass mat which I saved.  The first photo is the removal AFTER power washing the tub.

The insulation and some residue sealant (which is staying).

Now the miracle:  That baked on oily,greasy clay coating came off like melting chocolate with the POR "Marine Clean"!  This bright aluminum cover looked like this after 2-3 minutes of light brushing.  This, my friends, sets this restoration apart from all others!

One more problem.  I had the engine rebuilder remove the air-rail plugs which were welded shut when the engine was de-smogged.  They looked awful.  Here is a good photo showing this amateur job.

  My goal of finding a replacement plug with this nutty M14-1.50 thread ended yesterday.  So, I cut off the caps and ground down the burrs.  Now I have to figure out how to cleanly cap these guys off to look purrrfect..

Lunchtime!

Choices...  A boat still covered in late May?  Blasphemy!

Oh, that pesky rear differential

I had intended to make a bit more progress today, that is, until the "other" project began spiraling out of control!  Most of the day was spent firefighting (metaphorically, of course) with complete incompetents.

But, said I, I did manage to install the cylinder head, sandblast a few of the neglected parts and then tear open that noisy rear dif.

First the head.  After a final cleaning and some obsessing over the less-than-perfect mating surface of the block (in the perfect world, I'd have had that planed), on she went and following the tightening pattern prescribed in the manual, torqued the 15 bolts to 95 ft-lbs (in four steps).

 

Then with the help of my buddies sandblaster, I prepared the remaining unpainted parts for refinishing.  The hinges are for the hood.  Beside them are the brackets which hold rubber pads for resting the folded-down windshield (Rat-Patrol style!), and remaining are the running board brackets which mount to the chassis.  I really did mean to have TNT paint these parts but they were buried in a box and were forgotten.

Finally today, my good friend Orlando gave up his evening to coerce me into checking out that noisy rear pumpkin.  This was the "aching tooth" of this project.  And just as I feared, this baby will need a root canal!  But, I had enough rebuild parts to put it back together so that the project can continue.  It's far better than it was and a more thorough repair can be scheduled for later on.  TG!

Chassis prep, undercoater and a missing box of parts!

Today was a busy one, but progress is necessarily slowww.  Started the day with all intentions of getting the flywheel, clutch and bellhousing installed so that I could place the engine back into the chassis.  All that was needed was some minor detailing to those parts so things were looking good to meet that challenge.  And this is a good thing because Ikea is delivering my next project tomorrow and I really need that bay of the garage!

But first let's get that engine prepped.  First install the side cover.

Then, complete the touch-up of the bare metal at the flywheel end and of the flywheel itself.

Now go look for the clutch kit I had stored away.  No easy task considering the number of boxes of parts.  Keep looking...  Look again... Okay, look in places you didn't store parts.... Now look under all those body parts... in the attic?... Hmmm.

I CAN'T FIND THE CLUTCH KIT!

I am sure this stupid box is in plain sight, so I shake off the lost hour of searching and move on to the undercoating.  The weather is perfect for painting and I can do the clutch tonight (once I remember where I left the damn thing a year ago).

Complete the masking of the tub and clean off the bits of debris blown into it yesterday and I'm ready for the goo.  Undercoating does two things:  Protects from corrosion and deadens the road noise.  Frankly, I'm more interested in the latter.  This truck brings a lot of fun to driving (the white-knuckle variety) and it would be great if I could HEAR the laughter of my passengers!  And really, undercoater makes the undercarriage look smart!

My exhaust was custom made and fully welded.  I made the decision (because I could) to remove it intact and store it as such.  I was successful at both, but now I need to get that bad-boy back under the chassis.  It needs to be in place before I can drop in the engine.  Of course I still need to find that clutch...

Removing the exhaust, I recall, took patience.  My recollection was that there was one, and only one, way out.  Something about jacking up the truck and removing the left tire/wheel....  It took several frustrating attempts, but it's back in the chassis.   FYI: POR high-temp (1300 F) silver was used on the headers.  They make some incredible claims about this product!  We'll see.

Wondering about that missing clutch?  I spent another hour-and-a-half obsessing before the light went on.  I had never taken the box out to the shop after I had received it over a year ago.  I put 2+2 together... Nancy probably got tired of tripping over it and "somehow" it made it to the basement.  Too late to install... Bruins game 3 vs. Rangers is on!

Oil pan, intake assembly, valve cover and undercoater.

It was finally time to re-install the oil pan, which was done with little fanfare, but high drama.  The gasket is necessarily thick and it took some patience to get the bolts all through the holes in the gasket. I used a touch of Permatex on the block to keep the gasket from shifting too much and I had the advantage of rolling the block over with the pan face-up.  It was a nice milestone to make.... but WHAT?!?!?  A shiver ran up my spine!

Did I remember to re-tighten that hold-down bolt on the oil pump?  I recalled having to keep it semi-loose when I tightened up the pick-up tube at both ends (for proper alignment).  But did I go back and tighten that silly bolt???  Shiza.  After a bit of contemplation I had no choice but to remove that pan and check.  It went much better than I anticipated because the sealer held the gasket in place, and yes, the bolt was tight.

Now, to reassemble the intake.  First I wanted to make some improvements:  One, the hold down bolts were changed to cad plated styles to match the OEM look.  Of course, one of the holes was stripped and I needed to install a Heli-Coil!  (I had an 8mm kit).  I cleaned up the carburetor and made a new cover for the  port on the side of the manifold which had previously been covered by a scraper blade with holes drilled in it!  Seriously, a scraper blade!  See the before and after.

Before

After 

Next up, the body tub.  First I had to build a rack on my utility trailer, which was a quick 45 minutes and a few 2x4's.  Then assemble the crew (timed for Sunday when everyone's around!)  Out the tub came, then over and up she went on my new rack.  Now I can move it around and paint between the rail drops.  Actually, this tub is as nice as it gets for a 33 year old Japanese vehicle, but I still wanted to seal all the seams and hit it with an undercoater.  Here are a few pics of the process which I've just begun by seam sealing with POR-15.

Finally wrapping up the day, I buffed up the valve cover.  Sounds trivial?  3 hours of the messiest work you'll ever do!  But the results are worth it.