Rusty Wagon Rebuild (1 Viewer)

[klinetime574]

I bet you made that welding cart. Quit being so cool!

I like that you are sticking with the VIN matching color. I'll never repaint my 60 anything but the original color. The door jambs and stuff HAVE to match

I'm a little psycho too. I think we all are......

 

[cruizakid]

I bet you made that welding cart. Quit being so cool!

I like that you are sticking with the VIN matching color. I'll never repaint my 60 anything but the original color. The door jambs and stuff HAVE to match

I'm a little psycho too. I think we all are......

I repainted mine way out of the ordinary and I did all the door jambs and everything on mine.

 

[kevinmrowland]

I bet you made that welding cart. Quit being so cool!

I like that you are sticking with the VIN matching color. I'll never repaint my 60 anything but the original color. The door jambs and stuff HAVE to match

It's just an angle iron box on wheels, if you've got a welder, you've got to weld the cart.
I actually did something with the cart that I've never seen before though, I ran one large gauge 4 wire cable to the cart and basically wired a sub-panel right in the cart. That way there is only one power cord that comes from the cart for the welder, water cooler, plasma, etc. I use the circuit breakers to turn on what I need and only have to worry about the one plug. All the units are grounded to the cart and there is just one ground cable for everything, and I have 110v on the panel as well for any handheld tools I'm using at the same time. I also hard-mounted a water separator for the air line on there so if I want to use the plasma I just have to connect the line to the nice sturdy mounted air nozzle, no fumbling around with connections.
I've been really happy with how it all works. And I found those wheels at the scrap yard, they roll real smooth and the price was great.

I repainted mine way out of the ordinary and I did all the door jambs and everything on mine.

Last time I repainted a totally different color, it's not just the door jambs, but the inside of the door (including under the trim panels) the rear cargo area, inside the tailgate and liftgate, the firewall, inside face of the fenders, bottom of the hood, everything. It adds a lot of work, this time,..... I like the tan just fine.

 

[1988fj62]

DUDE! i love your motivation to do all of this. just makes me want to do everything possible with my 62.keep it up man its looking awesome

 

[klinetime574]

It's just an angle iron box on wheels, if you've got a welder, you've got to weld the cart.
I actually did something with the cart that I've never seen before though, I ran one large gauge 4 wire cable to the cart and basically wired a sub-panel right in the cart. That way there is only one power cord that comes from the cart for the welder, water cooler, plasma, etc. I use the circuit breakers to turn on what I need and only have to worry about the one plug. All the units are grounded to the cart and there is just one ground cable for everything, and I have 110v on the panel as well for any handheld tools I'm using at the same time. I also hard-mounted a water separator for the air line on there so if I want to use the plasma I just have to connect the line to the nice sturdy mounted air nozzle, no fumbling around with connections.
I've been really happy with how it all works. And I found those wheels at the scrap yard, they roll real smooth and the price was great.

You're either the coolest guy I know or the nerdiest guy I know.






I think it's a little of both

Sorry for the chat :whoops:

Here's some tech:

Are you painting it yourself?

 

[kevinmrowland]

You're either the coolest guy I know or the nerdiest guy I know.
Here's some tech:

Are you painting it yourself?

I'm going to go with nerdy.

And I'll be painting it myself, I hate painting, and I hate bodywork, looking forward to getting that part over with.


Not much to report, spent almost the whole day yesterday staring at the wire harness spread all over the floor, took out, changed and moved a bunch of things. Erik (slcfj62) got me set up with a headlight relay box and aux box and I will be using those to run all the non-OE stuff from now on, should work out really nicely but it took all day to get my head wrapped around what I needed to do.
Electrical work is always a sinkhole of time for me.

Also made a blank-off plate for the vent tubes in the rear quarter, the deisel only needs the main vent and not the vapor recovery stuff. (yeah, I said there wasnt much to report. )

.

 

[Bull Moose]

Kevin is joining the elite Brown Cruiser Club. I expect to see "Brown is Down" airbrushed somewhere on the truck.

 

[NorCalBorn]

Ya forgot to mention how well the ATF cures down the road after sitting for a year or so. Been my "Secret Ingredient" in a specific chain and machine lube for years, just blended it in at a certain percentage.

I wonder what Skinner's up to right now and if he's keeping tabs and smiling all the way from Japan?

 

[kevinmrowland]

Been chipping away at it, mostly prep work for the paint, but worked a few fun things in there as well.

Since the motor is sitting for a bit I took the opportunity to pull the injectors and get them rebuilt.
The fuel lines were fun to snake out of there, but it's really remarkable that I didn't have to pull any thing else of the motor to do this job.

Had a nice little box that fit the injectors perfectly for the trip to the injection shop.

 

[kevinmrowland]

I also got the frame and all the hardware back from the acid dipper.
Unfortunately the frame did not come out clean enough, I have to have it lightly sandblasted now.
But the hardware came out nice.

This was my evenings entertainment, reminded me of playing with legos sitting there sorting all these out by size.
Why you ask? So I could go through and visually check the threads on each one and run them through re-threading dies if they had any crap in them.
Yeah, I really did that.
It was really painful to dump them all back together in a bucket so I could take them to the platers in the morning.

All the other little parts and brackets as well:

 

[kevinmrowland]

Got the back all buttoned up, the pic doesn't show much but I had a piece of 11ga press broke to match the cutout, welded that in so there is a solid sill back there now that I can bolt tie-downs to. After that I welded the gasket lip on.

And since the acid dipping on the frame got delayed and it has to get blasted now it would have just sat over the weekend so I brought it back here and did some more work to it.
Ended up boxing in the rear channels with some custom bent 3/16 plate.
I welded on the rear shackle hangers as well, moved them forward for a bit better shackle angle with the OME springs.

I'll take this and a few last parts to the sandblaster in the morning, then the powder coater will pick them up there and they should come back all shinny.
Will drop the hardware off to be plated then as well, it's really scary to hand over all the bits and pieces that hold your truck together to someone else. As small as the hardware is, it adds up to much more than the sum of it's parts, it is definitely the least "replaceable" of all the build components and I don't like letting it out of my sight. I will be much happier when I have them all back here safe and sound.

Have a bunch of WagonGear welding that I need to do in the morning and then it's back to body work, I need to get it painted early this week. Fingers crossed......

 

[IndianDoc]

Yup, Dynasty 200DX, it's kinda hidden in that pic sitting behind the plasma cutter, it sits on top of the water cooler for the torch, that is the biggest improvement, so much nicer to use and actually saves me money in the long run since I'm not blowing through torches and gas lenses from all the expansion and contraction. It's a great welder setup and does a good job on things up to 0.25 (even though its "rated for .5" ). I would love to add a MIG to the top of that cart, the 211 range, but the TIG does everything so I can't justify the addition.

We would like to stay in Oregon as long as possible, we love it here. No matter what, we are not moving back into the state that is NY, I plan to never even drive this truck in that state during the wintertime as well.


Original color, will match the VIN code that way. Going to stick with the tan, I like the color (classic 80s) and it's easier than changing it completely (you know me, I would have to paint every bit inside and out trying to save myself the aggravation)





Yeah, the cash hurts..... a lot.
But it's still way cheaper than a new car, or even a good used car. At this point we have over the years collected almost everything we want/need as far as goodies are concerned. This build, while fairly extensive is mostly working with what I already have.
I'll keep track of all the expenses and post that up for a reality check once it's all set, but the pretty drivetrain parts have set us back $800 with the powder coat and sand blasting, that is a ton of money, but there are a ton of parts there, and they are not throw-away parts either, these are cable locking diffs, full floating rear axles and shafts, all the control mechanisms, so in my mind preserving them is worth it.
I just have to keep telling myself that the money is much less than a new car, and the time is for the benefit of my sanity.



Your friendly local orthodontist, works great.



KR

I might add that farm stores in the parts of the country with large animal herds(cattle and horses, pig's ) all carry syring from 3 cc up to 3 ounces, and needles for injection they are cheep use and toss. The larger sizes are great when mixing resins and paints

 

[cruiserpilot]

Hi, maybe I missed something here, but what kind of plating are you putting on the fasteners? Is it zinc or what? You're doing rear gate hinges? All the nuts and bolts?
Could you also let me know what kind of tool your thread chaser is? Pic?
Thanks, fascinating to watch this..

 

[NorCalBorn]

Cadmium FTW??

 

[Wheelingnoob]

Sure would have been nice to get the frame acid dipped too, sand blasting can only get to so many places.

 

[disassociative]

Subscribed

 

[kevinmrowland]

I might add that farm stores in the parts of the country with large animal herds(cattle and horses, pig's ) all carry syring from 3 cc up to 3 ounces, and needles for injection they are cheep use and toss. The larger sizes are great when mixing resins and paints

Good call, those would work well.
One thing to note is that a larger size is not an issue with the ATF, a tiny bit goes a LONG way.

Hi, maybe I missed something here, but what kind of plating are you putting on the fasteners? Is it zinc or what? You're doing rear gate hinges? All the nuts and bolts?
Could you also let me know what kind of tool your thread chaser is? Pic?
Thanks, fascinating to watch this..

I am just having them yellow zinc plated, same as the factory finish. All the nuts and bolts and small brackets, things that would have been yellow originally are going back to that. The hinges for all the doors are painted not plated, also on the passenger doors the hinges actually have plastic bushings in them that would not work with the acid/plating process.

Cadmium FTW??

That would be nice, but not in my budget.

Sure would have been nice to get the frame acid dipped too, sand blasting can only get to so many places.

I did.
It had a hot bath and then sat in the acid for 3 days, then a pressure wash, then a zinc wash.
There are places where there was old overspray from some rust proofing that the acid did not eat off so I had to have it lightly blasted to take it the rest of the way for powder coating.
Once the truck is together and before it gets dirty again I'll epoxy seal the inside of the frame rails with a wand sprayer.


KR

 

[kevinmrowland]

Ok, so I am just not doing very well at keeping this thing updated, stretched a bit thin....

Anyway, I did some stuff.

Made plates for the bottom of the cut quarters:
This one is for the drivers side and you can see where I heat it a bit and hammer a flange on there to leave plenty of room for the gas fill neck and the OE gasket.

Two plates, ready for epoxy sealer and glue.

And it's really low tech, but Panel-bond and gaffers tape, shove the things up in there, tape to hold it in place and wait for the glue to set. It's got a nice slow cure so I keep checking on them for awhile to make sure they don't need any adjusting.

And jumping ahead a bit: I just file the glue down and paint over them, you could make them pretty really easy but they do not show and it's not worth sanding upside down. The gofers have yet to complain.

This is from a bit below standing height, the part that shows looks just fine:

...

 

[kevinmrowland]

So obviously it's been sanding/painting fun-time.


Once I had done all the main prep work I cleaned the garage and hung plastic, set everything out for primer/surfacer.

I sprayed everything with grey primer,........... and then sanded it all again.
Got things re-setup in the garage for the color.
Here I am practicing on the back side of everything, I dropped the body to the floor so I could walk back and forth to spray the roof.

...

 

[kevinmrowland]

The paint was a real pain in the butt.
Luckily I had a bunch of help and advice from a local cruiser-head who has an auto body paint shop, he set me up with materials and a couple loaner guns to use. I also spent the last few years working in a shop where we had a couple of auto body guys that I could watch and learn from. The problem, with that is we were doing really high-end work so they had to do things in a rather particular manner, I never got to learn the easy way to do stuff so I sanded all this crap by hand with a paint stick, all the while grumbling that I was just going to go drag it though the bushes when I'm done.....


Oh well, for the most part it came out pretty good, once it's cured a light sand and buff and I think it will look fairly factory.

At least the parts that were horizontal came out nice...... Then there is this:
(this is the part that I learned from the auto body guys I used to work with )

Ooopps.
Not to worry though, I sanded them out this morning and re-sprayed it.

So that's that, I have a painted truck.
Now I get to put it back together!
(As long as I get my nuts and bolts back from the plater anyway.....)

KR