it's home, it's a 67, and my god there's a lot of spare parts with it!

pulling the interior out right now and stripping off tar/stuff to do some floor repairs.

more tomorrow

for the rear end, it looks like there's about 61" between inner fender lip and inner fender lip on the back...

this means i need a minimum of 35mm offset on 7" wide wheels to clear a shortened ford 8.8.... or 23ishmm on 6" wheels. Should be doable. especially since a half inch can be gained by rolling the inner lip. Now, as far as what the widened track would do to handling, is yet to be seen.

much harder welding on steel of varying thickness and in the wind, but it's coming along.

may cut out and replace all the drivers side floor pans sometime in the future. but this'll do for now.

done for today, gonna try and get a bit more done before i pull out of town tomorrow. hope to get the welds finished/ground down and the floors wire wheeled and primed by tomorrow mid-day.

Keep at 'er there buddy!

I got the clips I needed from Chris, but thanks for offering to bail me out.

ta-da! not the cleanest job ever, but it'll do for now, coated in rust-converter primer for the little bit of surface stuff that didn't wire brush off, then some seam sealer around the parts that were a PITA, and then a nice sized coat of tremclad (i mean, it's a floor afterall)

Seam seal all the welds all the way around...not just where it looks bad. Looking good.

hmm, would i be safe seam-sealing it all up from underneath then before re-undercoating the area?

I probably should have knocked down my bead a bit more with a flap disc, but i think it'll do for now.

Had a good inspection of all the front/rear suspension, the rear diff has some nasty leak so i cleaned it up with brake cleaner and am hoping to see where it comes from. I would also like to fit the t5 i've got laying around into it at some point and figured this would be an ideal opportunity to widen the tunnel. Anyone know any cars with tunnels at will fit? It looks like something around 12" wide at the front and a hole around 25" back from that would fit nicely. Has anyone seen anything that foots the bill?

The other idea i had was using 18ga angle/bends, and making a frame with 4 or 5 panels on it that are held on with panel clips and just using aluminum sheet on there, But i think i'd prefer something steel and welded just for longevity issues.

Looks like i'm committed to driving this car up to jasper in august with a couple of lovely lady friends, so expect a lot more updates!

Don't mention the r-u-s-t word around some of us - totally anal!! (that is me removing rust).

I used to like that rust converter in a can stuff, for places where I just couldn't get the rust off. If it starts peeling-off, I won't anymore. Craig put me on to Metal-Ready (which is a POR-15 product-another story) which will bond to pure iron, AND convert rust. I don't think Rust Converter (or One-Step - another similar product you can spray or brush on) is recommended for pure iron surfaces - so might peel in a-lot-less-time-than-you-think on the previously GOOD areas! Ironic (no pun intended - honest). Not all bodyshop supply places have it, but then you have found a good one (IMHO).

Coke also has phosphoric acid in it - I understand the chemistry of M-R and H2PO4, and cautiously think it might work. It does remove rust. If you put it on pure iron for 10 or 20 minutes (not too long, it eats nails), and have a yellow-brown deposit left when you are done, then that is iron-phospate, which is insoluble, and will take paint very-well. Just so you know, most of those bubbles will be CO2, but there is a little hydrogen produced too... ...bah, nothing to worry-about.

Somebody-else want to chime-in on POR-15?

Have at 'er buddy - I feel for you, having just done it all myself.

If you're not ready in August, you can borrow my car and wow your friends - so-long as you return the favour with the 544.

Nope, do both sides...that way the moisture from the inside can't sneak around your welds in there either.



It looks fine.



Check the diff vent (drivers side) it gets clogged then spews everywhere. This is what happened to me and I had to literally cut the encrusted gunk off the centre section and out board by the dust shields. Once cleared - it stopped "leaking".

Check a 240 tunnel - no reason that wouldn't work.



I'd prefer steel as it is a structural member of the car!




Oh boy - don't give us ammunition...and more than one lady friend (lovely or not) is as much trouble as a single guy can ask for.

Thanks for the tips!

As far as the ladyfriends, yeah, one is cool and i'm trying to get with, the other is my student and her roommate (Why the heck would they give me my own student, being a student myself, i don't know, especially when she's older than me) But she's a miner and one of the guys, so i don't have toooooo much to worry about, though in classic Erik-fashion, i will probably end up eating my words. So get ready for the most creative i-told-you-so's ever!

well, lining things up for next weekend.

looks like a shortened 8.8" is the way to go using honda/nissan rims (+40 to +65 offset) and should give me 3/4" of clearance or so.

Craig/Dale, i remember reading about a mod to reinforce the crossmember/ move a set of bolt holes to gain some more camber. I can't seem to find the thread now, any hints on where to look/what to search?

Not so much reinforce but relocate mounting points for the upper control arms...

And it's Matt that gets the credit for this one, not Craig...

Awesome, so did anyone run how it changes the camber curves? How far did the mount move? How's it feel on the road?

I'm strongly considering autoXing this wagon. Any thoughts? It falls into F class and seems like it could be mighty competitive.

Hmmm...a couple of things worth mentioning...

I believe the lower mounts are 2" lower. That's center of bolt hole to center of bolt hole.

I was using lowering springs that really had no...ummm...spring... I was running on the rubber bump stops most of the time. Because of this the car had massive amounts of negative camber. It was a bit of a handful on rutted pavement but seemed to drive fairly nicely on flat pavement. I did drive it to 2 different BC meets so likely put 4000km on it that way so it wasn't as bad as one would think. With proper springs the negative camber shouldn't be so bad and it should drive a little better. This time around I'll likely be running shortened 123GT springs.

The handling characteristics were like night and day. I had it to the autocross twice. Once with the original suspension configuration. The other in the modified position. In the original position the car wouldn't turn. I'd go into a corner and turn the wheel and nothing...just plowed. On and off the gas. On and off the brake. Tried everything. Nothing worked until I got it slowed up enough and then it would finally turn. Really frustrating. The other time I was out running all the negative camber, you almost had to hang onto the wheel to keep it from turning sharper when you dipped into a turn. It would grab and pretty much yank you around the corner. No understeer whatsoever. Likely would've had issues with oversteer if the car had more power. As it was it would drift nicely out of corners with only a very slight wiggle of the rear end. It's going to be interesting this time around with twice as much power...