It Always Looks Worse After You Start.

 Watching another restoration video the guy said "It always looks worse after you start". That is so true.

Today I removed the windscreen and windshield frame. The car is looking like more of a mess. But that's the way it has to be I guess. The wind screen has a little rust but isn't bad. A little patching and it'll be good to go again. And the dash area was pretty clean. All the seals were terribly rotted though.

Lower "A" Post Fits!

 I trimmed the corner of the lower "A" post flange a bit. Then with a little banging on the firewall and minor tweaks it looks like it fits. Need to do some surface prep before I can weld it in. Katherine did more work cleaning up the rocker arms and carburetor bits.

Looking at the windshield it looks like there is a fine amount of weld splatter on the inside. :-( Oh well. Maybe it'll buff out.

What To Do Next? How Does Everything Align Up Again?

 Since it was Sunday there was no work on the car. But I did lots of thinking and research. I've seen a few projects where they completely separate the front bulkhead assembly from the rear of the car. Since my GT6 is an MKII and will be replacing both floor pans and all the sills and the heel board this might make some sense.

Wondering if things are done this way how do they align it all back up? Or in other words which locations and dimensions are used? Are the floor pan outside flanges parallel to each other or on a taper? So many questions. At first the project seemed so straight forward but now I'm realizing the phrase. "you don't know what you don't know".

I'd really like my door gaps to be better than they were out of the factory at the end of all this...

A Little Electrolysis, Vinegar And Welding.

What we did today.

My wife had a bit of a headache so I tried to find some less noisy we could work on. Thought we could give electrolysis a try. I had previously removed the rusty rocker arm assembly from the engine. Figured that'd be as good as anything to start on. So I pressed it apart and gave the pieces over to Katherine to see how they'd clean up. To be clear we put the iron/steel parts in the electrolysis bath and the aluminum bits in vinegar.

While she did that I was determined to get the "A" post in position. But first, as suggested by a forum member, I remounted the drivers door to ensure the opening there was about the right size. The driver side seemed the right size. Though the door had a bit bigger gap at the top then the bottom. have to research solutions for that. but overall it seemed that the opening was the right distance front to back. So back to the passenger side. This time I put more pressure on the "A" post to straighten it and hammered on a few of the crooked bits. Now if I put light pressure using my hand to bring the inside edge to the right dimension the outside edge is in what looks to be the right place. Good deal. I left a strap lightly on it to keep it in position. I will likely fabricate a bar to hold it while installing other bits.

I then turned my attention to the lower "A" post. As I'd like to weld that in. But the new lower "A" post doesn't seem the right dimension. Front to back it seems too long. And the flange that goes along the door jam is too short vertically, too far back and too wide. It seems miss-formed. And the arc that the transition piece would mate to is too far back and doesn't match the transition piece I have (the transition piece does match the outer sill). Since it wasn't fitting I put that aside.

Katherine had something to do so I broke out the noisy tools. I went after the passenger outrigger. The bolt hole/tube had torn out when the bolt had been stuck in there. I had cut the bolt out and welded it all back in. Not the greatest welding. Am a bit out of practice. But it is strong enough to do the job. I expect to have the frame off the body someday and can touch things up then.

Katherine came back and in looking for something for her to work on decided to remove the carbs. Not something we needed done now but it was quiet and we had the stuff out for cleaning things up. Pulled them off and disassembled the front one. Giving her the pieces to clean. Kept the rear together in case I need a template to reassemble :-) All went well except the float bowl would not come off. Some internet looking found that the brass plug in the middle is attached to the carb body and not to the float bowl. In theory it would slip over the big brass fitting in the bottom but an o-ring and corrosion was keeping in tight. Looked up the coefficient of expansion of aluminum and brass and yup. Heat should help. Heated the bowl and threaded the brass bit out of the carb body. Then the bowl came off no problem.

few other odds and end but that was the bulk of today.

First Week of GT6 ownership

 3/30 Last Saturday I bought a GT6. It had been someone else's project for a 3 years. The car has had the interior, passenger floor and passenger sills removed. It came with new sills and floor panels. The passenger floor was tacked in already. Unfortunately when the parts were cut from the car they were not removed by cutting out the spot welds. So the flanges on the firewall and "A" post were cut off. And the strips of metal that were spot welded on are still need to be removed from where the sills attached.

The best part of the car is it has a clear title. So many I had looked at didn't have a title. Buying a car without a title is actually illegal in Virginia. And I wanted to drive the car. A title was definitely needed.

The car was 5 hours from my house and so Saturday was spent collecting the car and the parts. By the time we got home it was late. Unloaded the car into the garage but left all the parts in the SUV until later.

4/1 Spent time unloading the parts from my SUV. But basically just dumped them down for now. But we look over the car good. Notice a ton more things wrong that we didn't see before. But kind of expected that'd happen.

The car has the "complete drive train". Wanting to know if the engine is a boat anchor or not I try to turn it by hand. Nothing doing. I put a wrench to the water pump and it just slips in the belt. I look in the oil fill hole and see rust. Yikes. Have to look at that more later.

The car has brand new tires on it. Well brand new as in meaning it's never driven on them. The owner I got the car from had the car 3 years and he didn't put them on. So no idea how old they really are. I'm guessing they are pretty old. The right front leaks air badly. It was full when we started our drive back home and by the time we got home it was pretty much flat. Wondered if it was a crack in the rim as it doesn't make much sense that there would be a puncture as it's not driven on them :-). Anyway.

Wanting to do something to make the car better. Anything really we tackled the flat tire first. See if it could be patched easily. And it'd make rolling the car around nicer. I air up the tire again and hit it with soapy solution. The air is coming from the bead. On further inspection there is a pretty good layer of dirt between the rim and the tire. I clean it out and check again. No more leak....from the outside edge. The inside side is leaking. Need to pull the tire off to really work on that one. no problem... Or is it.

I put a wrench to the lugs. No go. They are not moving. Ok grab the air wrench. It moves them but it's working hard. I move them just a little and put some penetrating oil on. They still are coming off hard. I wonder if it is just twisting off the stud. I move each a few degrees and move to the next. It starts to get easier after they move out 1/4 inch. I use the air wrench to finish pulling one and it comes out smoking. Whoa. The aluminum has corroded and wedged the nut tight in the bore. Stud's just fine. I put aside the smoking lug nuts and move on with the tire.

Cleaned the inner side like I did the outer side (pry the tire down with some tools and wipe out the dirt and flush with soapy water (it's what I had checking for leaks). Air it up and no more leaks!! Nice. A little clean up of the corrosion in the lug nut bores on the wheel and it's ready to go back on.

Before putting the tire on I wire brush the lugs and the mating surface a little. hey isn't there supposed to be a cap covering the wheel bearings? Wonder how long that's been off. After putting on the wheel I rock it. yah those bearings were probably bad before this car stopped driving. But first improvement project is done. The tire remains pumped up now. Making the car look just a little less sad :-)

4/2 We unbox the parts we got with the car to see what we have. We can tell we are missing a bunch. Hey were'd that radius arm bracket go? I remember holding it in my hand when loading up. I don't remember where it is packed. I check my SUV 4 times to ensure it didn't get under a seat or something. No go. Not in the garage. Humm. Did I just image I had it and thought it was really something else. I check photos of the parts pile from the ad. Yup it was there. I didn't image having seen it. But it's not here. I write the seller to see if I had left it behind. Nope nothing was left behind. I'm baffled as to where it went. Did I leave it on the trailer and it bounced off? who knows but it's gone. Another thing I need to source. Ugh.

Really curious how bad the motor is. If it is we'll probably swap something more modern in. Better pull the valve cover and see what is going on. Right around the fill hole there is terrible rust. Piles of rust dust. At the far end it doesn't look to bad. weird. The fill cap has a badly cracked seal on it. Perhaps that has something to do with it.

I pull the rocker assembly off as it's a disaster and will need to be refurbished if the engine is ever going to work. We vaccume up the rust dust off the head. Some has no doubt went down the lifter passageways.

I also pull the plugs and spray some oil into the bores. try to turn the motor over again by putting a wrench on the end of the alternator. Whoo hoo. The crank turns with the belt and it turns pretty easily. I check with a long screw driver that each piston is going up and down. Maybe the engine has a chance.

Looking over the rocker assembly 3 of the rockers are completely stuck. I put penetrating oil on them and put it asside. I also pull the push rods from the engine. The few closes to the oil fill hole come up with a nice cake of rust dust and oil. Engine needs a good clean. If that stuff were to get into the oil passage ways I'd expect bearing failure for sure.

4/3 No work on the car. Went to harbor freight and bought a few things I needed. most important a punch tool for all those spot welds.

4/4 I had scheduled a day off to work on the car. Finally able to spend some decent time with it. I start by drilling out the remnants of the rocker panel from the "A" post and firewall. Then the remaining square of the lower "A" post. Starting to look a bit more like things should be. When I hold up the new lower "A" post panel it doesn't fit square at the door sill area where the transition piece also attaches. I test fit the rocker panel and it is short of the rear 1/4 panel. What gives.

I test fit a door and with it shoved to its full rear ward adjustment it still leaves a huge door to rear quarter gap. Humm. We measure the drivers side opening to the passenger side. The passenger side is about 3/8 of an inch bigger. We notice the "A" post looks a bit twisted in the door sill area. Measuring more the flange (where the door seals would go) look about right and the outer part where the bolts for the door are is where it is too open. I rig up a way to pull the outer part of the a-post rear while holding the inner inplace to square it up and get things back in shape. Pull the tacked in floor and call it a day.