Project Phoenix

[AkRev]

Needed to work on the Z today so I do not stop my momentum on it. Started off by pulling the wiper motor and arms. After I had removed the wiper motor I noticed that the plate had been modified and the nut did not seem plated like the rest of the hardware around it. Got looking and found out it was a motor for a Honda passenger car from the 90's. Found out that the previous owner started a small trend with swapping out the stock wiper motor.

http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/topic/17385-improving-the-wiper-motor/page-3

 

Afterwards I turned my attention to the front suspension. I got the passenger side cross-member, sway bar, and all other suspension parts lose and on a jack stand with no problem. Went to the drivers side, got the traction rod removed and then started loosening the first bolt on the cross-member and I get knocked in the head by a strut. 

Guess there is still a bit of bad karma left in this car.

The insulator decided to separate from the metal at the perfect moment to nail me square in the forehead.

At least I my kids did not see it happen. They would not let that one go if they did.

Anyway, I feel like I ended the day with a win.

Edited March 9, 2014 by AkRev

[RebekahsZ]

My first and second cars were 56 Fairlanes! None as nice as yours.

[AkRev]

Its rare to find someone that knows the 50's Fords. Most think of the Chevy's from the 50's and the Fairlanes get overlooked. I have to ask what engine/trim you had with yours?

 

My 56 is a Club Sedan with the 292 Y-block. I has three on the tree with the overdrive that is located on the dash (it is always odd to explain to passengers what you are doing when you shift into overdrive)  and has seats that I can sleep in. The car was pulled out from a barn in Idaho and dragged back to Texas for the restoration. I will find some pictures to show what shape it was when I started working on it. I have kept it mostly stock, only change was I have over stock is the rims/tires, battery is mounted in the trunk behind the spare, and I upgraded the intake to a modern 4-barrel carburetor. I had to many reliability issues with the Tea Pot carburetor.

 

I loved this car in high school, no seatbelts, leather seats, and a car that sways like a boat when you turn.  

Edited March 11, 2014 by AkRev

[Nismo280zEd]

Got around to pulling the steering column and pedal box.

 

Found the damage that a leaky master brake cylinder did years ago.

 

Overall nothing seems too bad. Just need to take my time and blast it and see whats left. Side note, if anyone knows what year that brake booster is from please give me a heads up. I am assuming its from a Turbo model that the previous owner changed. 

 

I know that it is not a Z, but I will show it to show what type of work I do. This is my 56 Ford Fairlane, I restored this between 2000 to 2001. I did everything at home including paint, interior, and metal work. 

 

Excuse the dust and dirty rims, have not had the time to wash it this winter.  

 

 

Pretty sure I changed the booster to an 83' ZX. Also... the steering column damage is related to the fire, not hydraulic leak. 

Cheers.

[AkRev]

Thanks Ed!

 

Got the brake master, few hard lines, and the speedometer cable removed. 

Started checking around and found a few areas where the paint did not look right. Hit the area with a wire brush to find rust had come through to the firewall through the cowl. Nothing to bad. Just makes me glad that I am doing all of this now. 

Ended up the day by scraping more paint off of the rear driver's side quarter and pulling the antenna out. Turns out the antenna works great too. 

I am sure it seems odd that I am scraping off the paint even though I have plans to blast the car. There is a few reasons to my madness. I plan on using walnut shells to blast the car. Since walnut shells remove paint slower than other blasting products, removing the excess layers of paint will allow me to strip the car faster. This should allow me to be able to get the car in primer quicker and keep it protected. Also, pre-striping the paint allows me to keep my motivation up. It is nice to see small amounts of time add up over a few days. 

Look forward to getting some time to work on it on Saturday, lets see if I get to those pesky side-skirts.

[RebekahsZ]

Inherited first 56 from my Grandpa when I was 13. It was so rusty it took me 3 years to get it road worthy. It was a factory 312-225hp-'4bbl-dual exhaust-heavy duty Fordomatic 3-spd auto. It was a 4-door post, police interceptor model my dad picked out for HIS dad when my dad was home from Germany on Army leave on 1957. Factory black paint and padded dash with seatbelts. It was a really hot car for a 16 y/o. Second one was a factory black 2-door post 292-4bbl-dual exhaust with a 3 on the tree with factory fender skirts. I sold the first one when it re-rusted after new paint. I sold the second one because the wife was always pissed that I always worked on the car. Still married after 25 years, but she still hated my cars. I hated that I could never get rain water to stop getting into the carpet. My z has same problem. I was meant to drive cars with moldy carpets! That Fordomatic was great: rubber in gears 1and 2. Tranny was so tight you could push start it.

[Nismo280zEd]

Chris,

Pay close attention to the inside of the cowl... very problematic area on Z's. I've had to address rust in there several times. 

 

Also you will find a fiberglass patch around the driver rocker panel under the side skirt. I remember helping my dad with that when I was first learning how to glass.

Looking good buddy... keep it up!

 

Cheers.

[AkRev]

Thanks Ed! 

About that fiberglass patch under the side skirt. I found that one a wile ago.... and I got a mouth full of it. When I was crawling under the car to work on the rear subframe, I spotted what appeared to be a massive spider egg-sack on the side skirt, inches from my face. I was thinking about how I did not want to touch it when I notice it started to move. Naturally, I did what most guys would do that hate spiders, I swung a 17mm wrench at spider and egg-sack. With the foresight of an ape, I managed to get dislodge this fiberglass patch and get a face full of the dust, rust, and pineneedles that had been on the rocker above my face. 

It was fun, I had junk in my eyes, and I knew I hit spider but had no idea what happen to this spider and could not look around to confirm where the spider was before I shimmied my rear end out from under a car that I wish I had lifted a few inches higher...  I really hate spiders!

 

Anyway, Still striping away on the body of the Z. Got the rear up in the air and pulled the passenger side suspension and the drivers side strut.

Spent most of Saturday cleaning up around the house and the garage. Got my sand blaster and air compress out. Looking to tackle a few rust spots and blast them first so I can start metal work. I still have yet to find my metal working tools, so I might be back on clean up and unpacking for a few days this week. 

[AkRev]

Back at things, Been doing small things every day to keep it up. For the past week I have removed the drivers' side rear suspension.

As you can tell by the amount of paint chips, most of my time was spent removing paint. 

I took a few moments to hook up my sandblaster and blast with the walnut shells. My air line has a leak from an old hose. Because of this my air compressor had a hard time keeping up with the sandblaster, and it would keep getting clogged. Instead of just wasting my time, I will come back to the blaster when I have a new hose. 

The rust is a bit worse than I thought. But it looks like it is fairly concentrated to the one spot,

Alright, now for the best part of the week.

I finally got one of those pesky side-skirts off. It was not fun. 11 rivets, tons of fiberglass resin, and some kind of glue on the corners that was really annoying.  

[AkRev]

The Good: Side skirts are off! 

The Bad: 

And The Ugly:

I was actually going to use a picture of a massive amount of spider sacks that had been hiding under the side skirts for the ugly... but the picture did not come out right.... and I got rid of them before I took a moment to look at the picture. I really hate spiders (see post 28)

Edited March 29, 2014 by AkRev

[AkRev]

Took some time this past week to set up my garage, fix the hose to the air compressor, and tested out a few spots on the car.

My attempt with walnut shells was really slow on the fire wall.

It was slow, but it was working.

I then moved to the passenger side of the car. I could not get the walnut shells to get through the POR 15. I went replaced the walnut shells with other products and went to town. The POR 15 came up and took the car down to metal like I wanted. 

There was a few areas that I took a putty knife to be able to get some kind of seam sealer that had been smeared all over the side and then painted over. (Looked like factory paint layer)

Over all this was about 30 min of work (wish I had more time). Excited to start getting the engine bay striped, patched, and primed.

Speaking of paint. It has been a long time since I painted a car, it appears that products have changed. If you have any recommendations on an automotive etching primer that works well, please PM me or drop a reply for others to read. 

[AkRev]

It has been a crazy week. My wife and I just had our 4th child (boy). Most of week was spent helping out around the house and with the newborn. I was lucky enough to get a few moments to work on the Z.

Started off by draining the gas tank and cleaning up around the garage. Then I moved back into blasting the engine bay. Only surprise was with the drivers side area. I had mentioned back when I pulled the fenders that I found rust around the pinch weld at the top. The part that I did not see was how the rust went down into the cavity below it and rusted out around the seam below. The POR-15 and undercoating on the other side hid the damage from me until I blasted.

But things are moving along very well.

[tamo3]

Congrats for your new family! I'm amazed your time management to work on Z! Like it!

[AkRev]

Thanks Tamo3,

I must admit, I was drooling over your rims the other day. Those things look amazing. 

 

Got small pockets of work done.

Pulled the gas tank.

And I also spend a few minutes every day blasting away.

The POR-15 has been challenging to get off to say the least, but it is coming off!

Tested out blasting off some of the undercoating. It did not work as well as I though it would.

Going to hit it with a putty knife and a heat gun and I will report how that goes. 

I know my progress has been going slow, but things will pick up a bit here shortly.

Edited April 24, 2014 by AkRev

[AkRev]

It has been bad weather for the past bit, so I have turned my attention to cleaning up the engine bay. 

Got a $5 spot weld remover from Harbor Freight and started removing the spot welds around the brackets in the engine bay.

Next up, working on the core support and more blasting. 

[AkRev]

This is where I you decide that have a vision, or I am just plain crazy. Possibly I am both.

Ran into a few issues this past week that I decided needed to be taken care of. 

The one that upset me the most, the car was off square. I thought about getting the framed pulled... but then found the next problem. rust was way worse than I thought by the driver's side core support area. It has a patch panel, and POR-15 holding it (along with about 20 layers of paint to cover it.)

Finally, one thing that has always bothered me is the tightness between my thick aluminum radiator and the engine, to the point that my fan shroud really was not that effective.

On to the carnage;

Drilling out the spot welds.

Passenger side removed, lots of spot welds at fun angles. 

Now for the ugly side.

If you look you can see the patch I was talking about in the last picture. Almost time to break out the welder. 

My stopping point for the weekend. 

Edited May 10, 2014 by AkRev

[RebekahsZ]

I don't think any of us would judge you if you went looking for another chassis at this point.

Edited May 11, 2014 by RebekahsZ

[AkRev]

I would be lying if I said that I did not entertain that thought a little on Friday when I pulled the measurements. It was a 1/2" inch off square. I pulled out my 8 foot level to confirm, for some reason the passenger side was high by about an inch.  

To be honest though, I have yet to hit a problem on the car that I feel like I can not handle. Plus, the car does have a lot of sentimental value.

 

I do have some good news. I got the car to square back up. After I pulled the upper half of the core support, the car "relaxed" and started pulling different measurements, it was only a 1/4" off at that point. With a few bricks, ratchets, two 2x4s, and a jack, l was able to get the car within an 1/16" in measurements.(high firewall drivers side to low cross-member passenger side and the opposite pull starting high firewall on the passenger side.) This method is something I am not proud of, but it worked... somehow.

 

For those that are wondering, I pulled off the most back woods frame pull. I supported all parts of the car by getting the car off of jack stands and placing it on bricks on the ground, shimmed to keep the car from rocking and strapped down the car. Then put a scissor jack on the passenger side frame rail (this was the "high" side.) On top of the jack I had two 2x4s in a T shape, a few indentations in the ceiling drywall and a few adjustments of bricks and shims, my car started pulling good measurements.

I do not recommend doing this over a real professional with a frame puller. I did this so I can at least move on, it is still not perfect, and after I patch everything, I will still take it to a professional friend that has a frame puller. 

 

Now its time for me to make my wife Mother's day breakfast. 

[Nismo280zEd]

I'm curious where you pulled your measurement points to determine the "squareness" of the chassis. 

Don't give up man, it'll be worth it in the long run. If nothing else... think about the valuable experience the Z is giving you...

-Cheers

[AkRev]

Forgot to answer Ed's question on here for those that are wondering. 

I pulled from multiple areas, the most telling was comparing high firewall drivers side to the frame rail on the passenger side at the core support. Then comparing that to the complementary measurement from the passenger side fire wall. To confirm (and since my front windshield was out) I also measured from upper drivers side of the windshield area to the strut tower on the passenger side and so on.  

 

Over all, I took tons of measurements to confirm. All of the measurements showed that going high on the drivers side to low passenger side would give me a shorter measurements. The most telling measurement was from the upper windshield to the strut towers. I would get about 5/8" difference. 

At the moment, the windshield to struts are giving dead even measurements. There is about an 1/8" to 1/16" when I pull from the firewall to the frame rail at the cross member.  

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but my main focus is to get the suspension in line. I figure that the body panels can absorb any slight differences as long as the differences are only vertical due to the size of the mounting holes. Horizontal measurements are consistent and do appear that when I reassemble the hood and fenders that I will be able to keep a constant even panel gap around the hood.