Sean's Mopar Blog

Internal Frame Rust Will Meet It’s Match

seancuda — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 00:40:50 +0000

I was wondering what I was going to do about the rust inside the frame rails. Well, Eastwood had the answer. I got my can of Internal Frame Coating. It comes with a long tube with a difuser on the end to ensure the whole area inside the frame rails gets a good coat. It’s supposed to make the rust inert and then put a protective coating on it. Will let you all know how well it works in 20 years!!! I figure I’ll also put it in the rockers and in the hard to reach areas on top of the firewall and under the cowl. I’ll give it a try in the next couple days.

Sanding Away!

seancuda — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 01:49:10 +0000

Got a little time today to abate some more rust. I worked on the inside of both the driver’s & passenger’s fender walls (engine bay facing sides) and upper & lower radiator support. Next I’ll tackle the outer facing side of the passenger’s fender wall and then the firewall.

Rust Removal

seancuda — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 02:35:50 +0000

I spent a little time cleaning up the rust on the outward facing side of the drivers front inner wheel well, Cowl hinge panel and the area around the driver’s side door opening. Used a scotchbrite drill disk and some sandpaper. Then followed it up with a little epoxy primer brushed on.

Back home, but with small issue(s)

seancuda — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 02:08:05 +0000

Got the Cuda back to the house and in the garage last night. That’s the good news. Unfortunately, it stayed out in the rain over the weekend while I was in Chicago. Not problem right, it was already covered in epoxy primer. Well, come to find out, I got it a little thin in a few spots and some of the rust came back. Should be easy to clean up with a scotchbrite pad and then cover it with a little more epoxy primer. Small set back but not a tremendous one.

Primered

seancuda — Fri, 28 May 2010 03:36:18 +0000

Wow, two updates in one day! That’s record for this blog…sigh! Anyways, Jim called me as I was about to sit down for dinner to let me know he was getting ready to spray the car with the epoxy primer I had bought earlier in the day. So I woof down my BLT and head on over. He’s got the underside just about done. He finished up the underside just as his wife came up with his dinner. Great timing! He hands over the sprayer and then it’s my turn!!! I finished up what I could with the car on its passenger side and then flip it over to the driver’s side. I sprayed some more, mostly in the interior. Then we level it out and I sprayed all remaining areas.

Man, spraying the floor and other interior areas was so easy on the rotisserie!!! I couldn’t imagine painting a car without one.

That’s Jim spraying the bottom when I showed up. Hind sight being 20/20, I should have had him take a few pics of me paining…DOH!!!

Blasted!

seancuda — Thu, 27 May 2010 23:58:16 +0000

Major milestone achieved!!! This morning I got up really early and Jim came over with his trailer. We loaded the Cuda up on his trailer and hauled it over to his place. Once there, we unloaded it and put it up on the rotisserie. We didn’t have any problems getting it up and she spins just fine.

Once up, the sandblaster came over and got to work. It took him 2 ¼ hours to blast the shell, a door (didn’t get the other one broken down in time), and the rear valence. He didn’t do the roof as the media he was using was very aggressive and he didn’t want to risk warping it. He did a really good job and it cost $300.

I knew I was going to have to replace the driver side, rear passenger foot well and the driver side floor pan was questionable. It looks like driver side floor pan is salvageable. However, the sandblasting revealed some rot that I wasn’t aware of – which I was expecting but hoping I wouldn’t have. The passenger side, rear passenger foot well is going to need to be replaced and found a bunch of rot on the firewall just below the cowl.

Last of the stuff is off

seancuda — Wed, 26 May 2010 05:02:54 +0000

Today was a busy day. First thing I went to St. Louis to get more metal for the rotisserie. Picked up the piece that joins them in the middle and a few smaller pieces to fab up a special bracket for mounting the rear of my car to the rotisserie.

Then I went into the garage and finished stripping off anything that could possibly unscrew - transmission mount, fender bolts, roof seatbelt holders, door catches, fuel lines, brake lines, and a few other small things.

Then I took the metal over to Jim’s house and picked up the pieces of the rotissereie that will mount to the front frame rail. Brought it home to drill holes into. After I was done drilling the holes, I got a call from the sand blaster. We are confirmed for Thursday morning! Tomorrow we are going to take the Cuda over to Jim’s.

We have rotisserie!

seancuda — Thu, 20 May 2010 22:43:43 +0000

Today I finished the last of the prep work for the rotisserie. Drilled a couple more holes and cut out the areas for where the rotating sleeves go. Then gave my buddy Jim a call to see if he was busy. He wasn’t so I loaded up the metal and hauled it over to his house. With plans in hand, he tacked it all together. From there, he gave me a quick tutorial on how to MIG weld and I was laying beads in no time. Not pretty at first, but I caught on pretty quick. It’s defi9nately a finese kind of thing. It too about 3 hours to get it all welded up.

Tomorrow, I’m going to call a portable sandblaster guy and have him come out next week to sandblast the car. I’m going to take the car over to Jim’s and have the sandb;asting done there. That way, he can spray it with epoxy primer while the metal is fresh. Jim also has a car that he wants done - a ‘29 five window Chevy. In the meantiime, I’m going to do the rest of the prep work on the car which consists of taking a few more pieces off the care (instection covers, a fuel line and some other small bits).

More rotisserie prep work

seancuda — Fri, 14 May 2010 03:58:21 +0000

My brother Brad came down from Chicago last night and today I put him to work! We laid out and marked all the pieces, cut the 45 degree cuts on the main support braces, and drilled the holes in the steel for the rotisserie. Now everything is ready to take over to Jim’s to get welded together!!!

Sean

Heavy Metal!!!

seancuda — Wed, 12 May 2010 20:01:16 +0000

Yesterday I got the metal from the supplier for the rotisserie. the total came to $441..ouch! But that’s better than the $1000+ you can plan to spend for a pre-fabbed one.

So today, I rigged up the table saw with a sanding disc and beveled all the edges of the stock I bought. This will give a greater surface for the weld to grab onto. Plus it cleans up the edges so the posibility of getting cut on an edge lessens. Next step is to layout and mark all the pieces before I bring it over to Jim’s to weld it all together.