Teardown
Behind each front fender there were two
corners on the pillar where the hinges attach to. These
areas are exposed to water and grime. To make things
worse, a sealer of some sort was used to seal off the corners.
This stuff just trapped moisture and required a patch panel.
The rest of the body was in decent shape.
The tub was taken to a media blaster and this revealed where
other patch panels needed to be made. The majority were
small, mainly to the floorboards.
The frame turned out to be a different story.
Overall, it was in decent shape. However after some very
close inspection problems were found. This is covered in
detail in the next section devoted to the frame.
The dash was completely delaminated, so it would
require a new one made. As the dash came apart, the
spaghetti bowl of wiring was revealed. What a mess.
While the wires 'looked' OK, they are far from perfect.
Many connectors were rusty and the great majority were brittle.
So, the harness was taken out and replaced with one of my own
design.
The fuel tank was a mess. Unfortunately the
tank was not drained when the car was parked. After time
passes, fuel turns to a messy tar like substance. So the
tank had a big gob of this stuff, plus whatever moisture was in
the tank caused it to pit and scale severely. The tank was
a total loss. And so the rebuild process
started... |
