The original clips holding the inner fenderwells were not only a rusty eyesore, but their rust would eventually spread to other places so they had to be replaced.
New hardware from the aptly named hardware store.
The old rusty clips did not come off easy. When the bolt is removed the clips have a tab that is bent up into the bolt hole that holds the clip in place and means you can't pull the clip off without pushing that tab. This seemingly small task turned into a frustratingly time consuming one.
The dome light had a glass lens that had fallen out and the plastic cover was broken to pieces. As you can see in the picture the lens on the right has a round, metal ring that holds it in place. The ring was long gone on the left side. After polishing the chrome dome light housing I used a small amount of glue to hold the lens in place.
I found the plastic lens in the glove box, broken all to pieces. This lens is expensive and hard to find so I glued the pieces I had back together. I found out that Gorilla Glue foams as it dries, causing it to expand and run out of the seams. At least it looks a lot better than it did with no lens.
At long last I got back to sealing the rear tailgate. I've been using one of April's big stainless steel pots on one side of the tailgate to catch water when it would rain. There were only two areas at the sides of the tailgate where water would come in so the pot would catch water on the driver side and I had a piece of plastic propped up on a piece of wood that would direct the drips of water over to the spare tire well where it would drain out the bottom because I removed the drain plug. This is why I have yet to paint the exterior of the tire well black as it should be.
One reason it has taken so long to get to this project was that I had to sandblast and paint the original metal pieces that mount in the top corners of the tailgate area. Originally these metal pieces were embedded inside rubber but that rubber rotted away long, long ago. All that was left were the rusty metal support brackets. I was able to save one of mine but the other was completely rusted. Fortunately one was donated to me from another wagon enthusiast on the internet. I forgot to add them to my things to be sandblasted the last time I was at the powdercoaters so I finally called a friend that has a sandblaster and he met me at his cousin's house, where his blaster is, and let me strip the brackets. After that I cleaned and painted them. This is one of the two brackets.
This is the area where the tailgate comes up to meet the bottom of the rear side window and the rear sliding window.
This is the area with the tailgate rolled down. When the tailgate is raised the weatherstripping I added to the tailgate presses against the bottom of this mount. I needed to find a way to seal above the mount.
I began by trimming the bottom tips of the left and right rear sliding glass moldings I made a while back. I needed about 1/16th of an inch or so, just enough to let water drain down them but still run under them, all while also meeting the top of the rubber weatherstripping on the tailgate.
By trial and error I used a piece of the weatherstripping and trimmed and fit again and again until it began to take a shape that would seal when I screwed the bracket in place. I used weatherstrip adhesive to seal the rubber to the bracket.
Here are the before and after photos after I finally got the piece trimmed and glued into place. I'll touch the area up with a paintbrush later.
The many holes in the bracket were used in the old molds when the bracket used to be encased in rubber. I used the new rubber piece I made and covered up all of those old holes except for one. This will allow any water to drain from this area and down the side of the tailgate as it was originally designed to.
This is a picture of how the new rubber molding looks when the window is closed (I left the tailgate down for better access of the camera). The inside of the rubber had to be trimmed to match the angle where it would meet the glass.
When the tailgate is rolled up and the window is rolled down it compresses the side moldings between them allowing the water to drain down the back window into the tailgate weatherstripping and then drain to the either side of the tailgate.
After this process I found that the tailgate area still had a couple very small seeps so I'm going to be investigating those and sealing them after the sealant dries on the pieces I have complete thus far.
Despite the fact The Clam isn't completely finished we had the opportunity to make it to the local cruise in. Since this may be the last time this year we get to go we decided to debut The Clam. Jacob called before we left to see if he could go with us. The tailgate area worked great for Rose. We sat her car seat in the back and kept the tailgate up just enough to keep her from possibly falling out.
Another project that I finally was able to get to is cleaning and painting the fenderwells and the bottom of the frame under the rocker panels. The frame in this area had some bare areas from sandblasting which had caused some surface rusting.
I thoroughly cleaned the fenderwells and then came back over them with brake cleaner to prepare them for paint. Then I taped off the area.
I used a grinder pad on my air grinder to strip the worst areas on the bottom of the frame and then finished the rest with scotch-brite pads. Then I prepped them for paint and taped off the area. I was only able to get the driver side done today so I will have to finish the passenger side tomorrow.
The new master cylinder had some rust on it from where brake fluid had run over when Nick and I went through the terrible time we had bleeding the brakes. I used the scotch-brite pads to clean the part and then repainted it with a cast iron colored paint.
