| 02-15-2012 |
Well, I spent most of the day today getting the crossmember removed. There were 4 bolts holding it to the two framerails but I found they were just sitting in the holes and had no nuts on the back of them. After getting into it I found that there were 12 big rivets holding the crossmember in. Part way through this project April called me from the grocery store. Her car wouldn't start. She tried a few things I told her over the phone and I could tell it was a bad connection so I took some tools out to meet her and of course I forgot to take a wire brush. We went in to the grocery store and bought a big $1.50 kitchen wire brush pad and in a little while got the battery screws cleaned up. They had rusted from where I had the car sitting for a while with the battery disconnected.
I had to dig out the rivets from under the gunk. They had big heads on the top and bottom.
Then I had to go at it with the air chisel
And then come after that with the hand chisel
After that I had to grind it down, which left it perfectly smooth. Then I had to hit it with a punch to get the outline of the circle to show up.
Here's my $2 grinder I got at a yardsale. It came with all this and even the pair of safety glasses.
The only problem is that the switch was broken so I just stick a screw inside it to use as my on switch
After that I use a needle punch to put a guide hole in the center of the circle to start the drill bit. It has to be as close to centered as possible to not open the hole too wide and only drill out the rivet.
I start with a smaller bit to get started and then move up to a bigger one
After you drill through, if you're lucky, the head on the bottom will fall off. If not, you have to chisel it off. Fortunately at this time most of the metal is gone and it doesn't take much.
Here's the bottom
And the finished product. Only 12 more to go.
Believe it or not, the 3rd rivet is hidden at the bottom under more 80 year old gunk
Unfortunately, this chisel gave its life in the line of duty
And here they all are, finally removed
Here's everything it took to finally get the rivets out
It gets pretty dark in the garage in the winter when I have to keep the door shut so the engine hoist makes a pretty good shop light hoist
Now I've got metal shavings all over the floor. Those won't feel too good when it's time to put everything back together.
I'm sure someone has thought of this before but here's a method I use to get rid of metal shavings. I get the strongest magnet I have available (refrigerator magnets won't work) and some old paper. It works really well on any hard surface. After I get the worst of it I just vacuum up the rest.
Wrap the paper around the end of the magnet, making sure no holes get in the paper or you'll never the shavings off your magnet
Then rub the magnet with the paper around it on the floor
Then just pull the magnet away from the paper over a trash can
No shavings on the magnet
I found out about this little hole a few days ago the hard way when I was cutting the metal for the '57 overdrive mount. I cut off a piece that was glowing red hot so as soon as it changed back from red I picked it up not knowing my thumb had a hole in it. A jagged edge of the metal was hot enough to burn into my thumb, but luckily was hot enough to cauterize it so it didn't really hurt much or bleed. Still today I had to be really careful and avoid the instinct to go ahead and pick up the rivet heads after drilling them when they were still hot.
Since I haven't yet figured out how to get the steering column out without breaking the old plastic steering wheel I moved on to getting some of the interior out.
The old defroster was controlled by reaching under the dash and flipping a switch
I think there will be plenty of room for the Vintage Air unit under there and even the PCM for the motor.
Unfortunately two of the screws holding the center trim piece for the windshield were stripped out. I haven't yet decided the best route of attack for these guys. Any amount of hitting them with a stripped screw impact would shatter the windshield all over the interior.
Check out the original cigar lighter. It mounted to the steering column. It was very shallow, unlike today's units. I thought it was pretty cool.
And finally here's the parking brake assembly completely removed. I'd like to be able to keep the original handle in the original position but I'll have to get the engine and transmission mocked up before I'll know if there will be room.
That was all for today
