Breathing Life Into a Neglected '75

Couldn't leave a freshly refinished oil cap just sit on a beat-up cam cover. I have to wait for the better half to leave the house for awhile to fire up the oven and bake this thing at 200 degrees for 30 minutes. I've found if you let the paint cure for a week or longer, the solvents fully evaporate and there is no smell when baking, but if she even sees it in the oven there will be hell to pay :oops:. Doesn't make the engine faster, better, or last any longer, but it does fool you into thinking you're making progress.

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Getting those wrinkles out requires some steam. I did mine in Uni Suede. No stretch in the fabric.

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jimmyx said:
Got a call from my buddy that said my seats were back from upholstery yesterday and he would drop them off. Was excited until I got to see them in person. Upholstery by Stevie Wonder strikes again! Forgetting the little wrinkles (which is amateur hour in itself), how hard is it to color match the rest of the interior when given seats with large sections of the original vinyl intact? First rule of auto upholstery; if the match is not exact err on the side of a shade darker, never lighter. I think this car is jinxed. PO was colorblind and now the upholsterer is too. Disappointing to put all the effort into the rest of the interior and have these seats come out the way they did. Luckily the cost was minor so I'll beat them up for awhile and eventually get them redone. On the upside, I finally got to test the 3-point belts and they came out absolutely perfect, and with the Luisi wheel the leg clearance is stellar. If the seats would have been done correctly all would have been good. I guess they are better than the torn up upholstery that was there before, but not by much.

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jimmyx said:
Got a call from my buddy that said my seats were back from upholstery yesterday and he would drop them off. Was excited until I got to see them in person. Upholstery by Stevie Wonder strikes again! Forgetting the little wrinkles (which is amateur hour in itself), how hard is it to color match the rest of the interior when given seats with large sections of the original vinyl intact? First rule of auto upholstery; if the match is not exact err on the side of a shade darker, never lighter. I think this car is jinxed. PO was colorblind and now the upholsterer is too. Disappointing to put all the effort into the rest of the interior and have these seats come out the way they did. Luckily the cost was minor so I'll beat them up for awhile and eventually get them redone. On the upside, I finally got to test the 3-point belts and they came out absolutely perfect, and with the Luisi wheel the leg clearance is stellar. If the seats would have been done correctly all would have been good. I guess they are better than the torn up upholstery that was there before, but not by much.

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I did
jimmyx said:
Got a call from my buddy that said my seats were back from upholstery yesterday and he would drop them off. Was excited until I got to see them in person. Upholstery by Stevie Wonder strikes again! Forgetting the little wrinkles (which is amateur hour in itself), how hard is it to color match the rest of the interior when given seats with large sections of the original vinyl intact? First rule of auto upholstery; if the match is not exact err on the side of a shade darker, never lighter. I think this car is jinxed. PO was colorblind and now the upholsterer is too. Disappointing to put all the effort into the rest of the interior and have these seats come out the way they did. Luckily the cost was minor so I'll beat them up for awhile and eventually get them redone. On the upside, I finally got to test the 3-point belts and they came out absolutely perfect, and with the Luisi wheel the leg clearance is stellar. If the seats would have been done correctly all would have been good. I guess they are better than the torn up upholstery that was there before, but not by much.

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Ron Avery said:
I see what you are talking about. The color is 2 or 3 shades lighter. Has for the wrinkles. They are less than my seats, with Factory covers and foam. I think your 1977 interior looks really good.
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The '77 was far less noticeable than these '75 seats. They were only off about 1 shade while these are off 3-4 shades. The wrinkles are minor and once the car sits in the sun for a few days they will most likely go away - if not the heat gun will make short work of them. I'm not really motivated to address the wrinkles, not much to gain when all one can see is the color mismatch. I would be glad to have double the wrinkles if the color was right; at least they are easier to correct.
 
Mark said:
Getting those wrinkles out requires some steam. I did mine in Uni Suede. No stretch in the fabric.

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I did
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I use steam quite a bit. It works wonders on breathable material (fabric, carpet, etc.), but a heat gun is the tool of choice for vinyl. Vinyl needs the heat applied to the surface, and while a steamer applies heat, the steam component is not providing any benefit on a nonporous material. It's also harder to control the amount of heat because it operates at a fixed temperature and a relatively fixed distance from the face of the material.
 
Most advise to get the engine running on a project to see what you've got, but looking at the work the PO's "shop" performed I decided to not pass go and collect 200 bucks. Engine has at least 86,000 miles if the odo hasn't spun over once already, so it's better to start fresh anyway. As expected, the head welded itself to the studs. I wasn't going to spend hours machining up a plate to remove the head, and the rope trick while novel, just wouldn't be effective with this level of stuck. To get the head broken free will take either the tool plate or some very high level of "shock" from above. In any case, the studs need to be consistently soaked with Kroil, PB Blaster or whatever your weapon of choice is for a few days before starting. Tapping around with a dead blow hammer is a waste of time and will get you nothing except maybe a damaged head. I decided to make a bracket out of 2 pieces of angle iron welded together in a "Z" configuration. Drilled 2 holes to fit the bracket onto the cambox mounting area of the head, and 1 large hole at the top of the bracket to fit a slide hammer. Bracket fits either right or left of center - only those 2 locations on the stud side. Mounted to left of center first, and gave it 3 stout blows and nothing. I was using a dent puller hammer which doesn't have enough slide weight to get it done. Changed out the slide with the full sized axle puller slide and gave it another 3 whacks. Now the left side of the head had some daylight between it and the block. Moved the bracket to right of center, repeat and all done. If you want to give this method a try, make sure you select a bolt length that provides full thread depth in the cambox mounting holes and the bracket mounting surface is flat and fully tightened down to the head. This is not like removing the front pump from an auto trans. It requires a few VERY hard hits to break the head loose - hard like pulling a junkyard axle that's been half submerged in water for the past 20 years. All in all the head can be removed fairly painlessly and quickly. The only downside is having to put the job on hold while the penetrating fluid does it's job. The upside is the bracket takes about 15 minutes to fabricate and can be thrown together with scrap probably laying around the garage somewhere.

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jimmyx said:
Most advise to get the engine running on a project to see what you've got, but looking at the work the PO's "shop" performed I decided to not pass go and collect 200 bucks. Engine has at least 86,000 miles if the odo hasn't spun over once already, so it's better to start fresh anyway. As expected, the head welded itself to the studs. I wasn't going to spend hours machining up a plate to remove the head, and the rope trick while novel, just wouldn't be effective with this level of stuck. To get the head broken free will take either the tool plate or some very high level of "shock" from above. In any case, the studs need to be consistently soaked with Kroil, PB Blaster or whatever your weapon of choice is for a few days before starting. Tapping around with a dead blow hammer is a waste of time and will get you nothing except maybe a damaged head. I decided to make a bracket out of 2 pieces of angle iron welded together in a "Z" configuration. Drilled 2 holes to fit the bracket onto the cambox mounting area of the head, and 1 large hole at the top of the bracket to fit a slide hammer. Bracket fits either right or left of center - only those 2 locations on the stud side. Mounted to left of center first, and gave it 3 stout blows and nothing. I was using a dent puller hammer which doesn't have enough slide weight to get it done. Changed out the slide with the full sized axle puller slide and gave it another 3 whacks. Now the left side of the head had some daylight between it and the block. Moved the bracket to right of center, repeat and all done. If you want to give this method a try, make sure you select a bolt length that provides full thread depth in the cambox mounting holes and the bracket mounting surface is flat and fully tightened down to the head. This is not like removing the front pump from an auto trans. It requires a few VERY hard hits to break the head loose - hard like pulling a junkyard axle that's been half submerged in water for the past 20 years. All in all the head can be removed fairly painlessly and quickly. The only downside is having to put the job on hold while the penetrating fluid does it's job. The upside is the bracket takes about 15 minutes to fabricate and can be thrown together with scrap probably laying around the garage somewhere.

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That’s a good bit brutal.

Worked though :)
 
For what was causing my studs to stick, I found carb cleaner to be much more effective than PB Blaster. I discovered that by getting one stud out by double nutting it and backing it out after a PB Blaster soak. I was surprised to find no corrosive issues but instead this dark, gooey like stuff on the studs. The carb cleaner did a good job of dissolving the stuff and made it easy to back out the rest of the studs.
 
dllubin said:
For what was causing my studs to stick, I found carb cleaner to be much more effective than PB Blaster. I discovered that by getting one stud out by double nutting it and backing it out after a PB Blaster soak. I was surprised to find no corrosive issues but instead this dark, gooey like stuff on the studs. The carb cleaner did a good job of dissolving the stuff and made it easy to back out the rest of the studs.
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That can work sometimes. Not on this one. This one has corrosion issues. Tried the double nut first, but when it wouldn't budge with a 24" breaker bar I wasn't up for potentially breaking a stud. This head has never been off during it's 46 years, 21 of which it sat dormant, and several of those years were out in the elements.
 
Stupid question time: I’ve noticed the term ‘studs’ used quite often on this forum, so I searched in the service manual, but there were so many different ‘studs’ listed, which ones are you talking about regarding the engine problem?
 
tvmaster said:
Stupid question time: I’ve noticed the term ‘studs’ used quite often on this forum, so I searched in the service manual, but there were so many different ‘studs’ listed, which ones are you talking about regarding the engine problem?
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One side of the head is retained with traditional head bolts, the other side has studs screwed into the block and the head on that side is retained by nuts.
 
jimmyx said:
As shown earlier in the thread, both front floors needed some work due to water issues. The point of entry is the rubber ducts that feed the outer fresh air vents pulling away from the hole in the plenum. I wasn't going to remove a crack free dash to repair these for fear of stressing it and ending up with a crack. I decided to give something a try before cleaning up the right side of the dash after the BWM and buttoning up the Bertone grill. If worse came to worse, I would have sealed them off inside the plenum and go without the vents.

I "played" a heat gun on the lowest setting over the rubber connector through the dash opening for about 2 minutes. When I first started the connector was hard as a rock. After heating and letting it cool for a few minutes it gained quite a bit of flexibility. From there it takes a good amount of gentle prodding with some wooden utensils on the inside, and pulling it forward from outside the car through the opening. Not fun, but done! The downside is now I have to do the left side which means pulling the wiper motor out, but hey, it's all good as long as the dash stays undisturbed. Have to pick up some strip caulk to run around the edge (cheap insurance) before final assembly too.

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Almost had enough, but not quite enough to finish........

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Sorry for a reply to an old post, but where is the 10g wire coming from that powers the bussbar, somewhere on the fuse block, i.e. you’re splitting an existing RED wire from the fuse block?
 
jimmyx said:
I don't use POR15 just for those reasons. I use Eastwood Rust Encapsulator. It can be brushed on for things like floors, but it can be thinned by 20% with lacquer thinner for spraying. It lays down, and has flexibility just like normal primer. I'm not a big fan of brushing it on, but for floor panels it would be a massive undertaking to spray it with the interior in place. On a bare shell I would definitely spray rather than brush it on. On outer panels, I spray any area with even a hint of rust residue followed by 2k primer. Any filler goes over the 2K so the the filler has a barrier between it and the base metal. Unfortunately, unless a panel is media blasted it is impossible to remove all traces of rust with a wire wheel or sanding. I have a friend that does very high line paint and body restoration that has used this method for many years and has not experienced any issues to any treated area yet.
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Does Eastwood RE flex better? On a trunk/frunk floor, would it be preferred over POR15? POR is easily attainable at nearby paint shops - Eastwood products, not so much - seems to be a shipping only situation
 
tvmaster said:
Does Eastwood RE flex better? On a trunk/frunk floor, would it be preferred over POR15? POR is easily attainable at nearby paint shops - Eastwood products, not so much - seems to be a shipping only situation
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I don't use POR 15. Eastwood rust encapsulator has the same properties as any automotive primer. It is easily thinned with lacquer thinner to spray too.
 
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