This weekend I was less like the windshield, more like the bug, but I managed a couple of things:

I mounted the rad fan, but I have to shroud it a little. I would really like for there to be a full shroud but the fan is a little too small for my taste to be the only opening, so I'll just duct the fan to the radiator and call it good. The fan isn't terribly large but isn't much smaller than I can get away with, and as Craig pointed out: with that rad, you don't need a lot of fan":



I made my battery hold down a little more socially acceptable, and yet sympathetic to the soft-ass case of this little battery:



And I got my firewall and under-dash area Dynamatted (not in name, but in spirit: It's the Eastwood noise & heat barrier) and padded with some 1" closed cell foam covered with a perforated vinyl. I'm going to redo the battery box area, I thought of the right way to do it after I'd done it this way. After the under-dash was finished, I was able to tidy up the wiring, reinstall the ignition switch, and basically clean that area up. There's a gap in the foam, but it's behind the heater box so nobody will see it.



I also drilled out those cheezy "patch panels" that were riveted into the kick panels, and while the kick panels themselves are in fair shape (aside from those holes) I found that the bottom of the driver side A-pillar is swiss cheese. Repairs and photos to come. Also done was getting the rear sway bar hung on the axle and I've plotted out what I'm going to do about picking up the end links (none of that "drilling holes through the floorpan" garbage for me). So a few little things, but nothing really substantial got done.

Where did you buy the Eastwood matting and how much? I'd like to so something similar in mine. The noise was pretty bad with only carpet.

I got it locally, at KMS Tools. I got the "big box" which is I think 35 or 39 square feet, for $200. I believe it should be able to do my whole firewall, kick panels and floor, rear seatback support, rear deck, and rear fenders. So far I've used two sheets out of the 12 or 13 that were in the box. I have no idea what it'll do for road noise, there are various views on butyl adhesive panel dampening materials and how effective it is. I figure it can't hurt, but I'm also going to add underlay and carpet and the firewall padding and fix the exhaust and replace window seals and a few other things, so I won't be able to comment on what any one component does.

It was more like a windshield weekend this time: I got a few of the fussier projects finished. The rad fan switch and wiring are done and dusted. The switch and pigtail came from an '87 Buick Regal Turbo, which just happened to be what I picked out of a catalogue for the temperature switch point, the fact that it's a single wire grounding through the body, and is probably relatively common. The Standard part numbers are TS-136 and S-550, for my own future reference. I also got a pigtail for the alternator from the same car. The passenger side harness was finished up, as was the relay bar on that side (I'd made a bar before, but only for two relays as I wasn't planning on an electric fan). Some of the wiring under the dash was finished up too, and I got my new overdrive switch & light and my driving light switch wired up.

The exhaust manifold donated to the project was one of the one-piece intake/exhaust manifold combinations, but the donor had kindly removed the intake manifold for me. I spent some time cleaning it up but I didn't go to the same kind of effort that others might, due to the fact that this piece was a little hacked up and rusty. I got it looking somewhat respectable and then coated it in VHT flat black for the stealth look. The flange faces got flattened and new studs were installed in the downpipe flange.

When I installed the exhaust the first time I hung it as best I could to mate with the header, but the exhaust didn't really play nicely with the E-brake cables or the speedo cable. I re-hung it to where it wanted to be, and threw an S-bend into the downpipe to get over to it. I added a V-band clamp to try and reduce the leaks I got with the band strap clamp. Hopefully it's a little happier and quieter now. The downpipe still needs to be cleaned and coated, but otherwise the exhaust is finished.

The rockers: When I assembled the engine I smoothed the rocker tips with some roloc discs but didn't reprofile them as I since learned how to do. I will do a partial write-up on that later, but after much measuring and cleaning I picked out 8 of the best matched and best looking rockers and made them right. I also picked out my best rocker shaft, so hopefully NOW my valve train is a little quieter. The valves were definitely much easier to set.

This winter I've had just the worst habit of powering through a job without photos, and I've got nothing to show this morning but I'll snap a few pix the next time I'm out there and will add a bit more colour to the thread.

It's been a bit since an update, so here goes.

Overdrive light installed, a nice wide angle green LED with enough intensity to see in the daylight but not so much as to be blinding at night. Switch is a toggle under the dash, instead of the cheezy button I had. I'll probably do something fancier later.



Wiring completed on the passenger side:



Manifold, downpipe, and exhaust done. Exhaust got a V-band clamp for better sealing than the butt-joint flat band clamp.





Rear sway bar got mounted to the body via these brackets:





I took care of some rust at the base of the Driver side A pillar:







And then this weekend I dealt with some bodywork. I started by stripping the hood. Everyone says you should use the most gentle method that'll get the job done.



After some 100 grit:



I tore it right down because I found some stone chips that had bubbled. With the paint gone, I found more. I metal prepped them thoroughly, and primed over them. Hopefully that's the last of it.



The hood got primed on top and painted underneath, and is mounted back on the car to get it out of the way. Next up is the nose cone. The car had a perfect nose cone that I wanted to keep for later, I had a clean one that had some typical damage. Using the perfect cone I made a template to give me the right profile, and this shows how bad the new nose is:



After judicious beating:





The rest should come out with some high build primer and block sanding, it might take a skiff of filler though. I'm pretty happy with this result - the shape is slightly "low" in spots but the distance between the top and bottom features has been restored, and the overall shape is pretty good.

Once the nose is sanded out and a couple coats of primer added, it'll get sprayed the appropriate colours and mounted back on the car, and I can chaulk up two body panels finished. Something like 10 to go!

Nice work Matt!

Wow, serious panel forming. I was reviewing your sound deadening work above, and chance you can grab a box of that sheet stuff for me and we can exchange at seat swap time??

No problem. 33.75 square feet is about $200, there's a smaller box too, depending on what they stock. How much do you want?

Might as well do the bigger box, thanks Matt!!

And Coburn says you can't fix the nose... What does he know?

I believe I said that you couldn't fix the one you had as it was pulled down really hard! Mine was worse than Matt's and it is going to be fine. It's funny how metal wants to go back into shape so long as it doesn't crease.

In the immortal words of the guy from the Hydaulic Press Channel: Vat da FAAK?

Yes, something happened in the garage this weekend. Apparently I forgot how to use a camera too.

The "good side" of the car had a few holes in the inner fender, and the buttcheek needed to be replaced. As a reminder, here's what it looked like:







In the last picture you can see some bondo at the bottom corner of the fender arch just above the buttcheek, and more bondo in the buttcheek below that. After removing the rusty bits of the inner fender I discovered that the bondo was covering some sin, and that part of the fender needed to be replaced. Here it is tacked up:



And finished, for now anyway ( I did see those pinholes later, after I took this picture, and I touched up those welds):



Not Coburn-perfect on the backside, but acceptable by my standards. A little weak on the penetration up front, pretty good otherwise:



And the rusty chunks removed from inside the trunk:



First step, replace small corner of trunk floor:



Then the inner-inner fender:





Then out of a few chunks of sheetmetal, inexpertly hammered and welded into shape, a rather complicated piece to fix the inner lip:



In place:





Everything is left a little rough at this point. My seam sealer went rock hard and got thrown out, and I don't want to epoxy prime anything until all the welding is done. Most likely I won't spend any more time on grinding down the welds, the inner fender will get covered in bedliner or gravel guard or something anyway so any lumps & bumps will be invisible. Inside the trunk will be tidied up a bit more carefully. The buttcheek is staying off for now for access to the backside of the panel, as well as to give more room for other repairs. The fender panel isn't dead flat but is close, and I can probably get it closer with some work. It'll need a skim coat of Bondo regardless.

At this point I need to move on to another rusty area but that means drilling out about 40 spot welds and before that I must release the shmoo:





Now it's clean enough to work inside.

More later.

Jesus, these photos don't hide how rough my work is...

That looks fan-fricken-tastic. Try the tack and weld method next time you're welding sheet metal. Penetration is better and the weld much easier to grind as there is a lot less of it.

Shall I bring the spot weld drill next week?

Thanks, Craig.

I'll get you to show me your method when you're up. I've got an idea of how it goes but to know it is to see it. There may be a limitation in my MIG though - you've got infinitely variable current on yours, while with mine "1" is too weak for a solid tack but "2" is too strong for anything but short bursts on 20 gauge. Your experience will be useful here.

These welds were all built up with tacks on "2". With the grinds I took my time and tried to limit heat build up. The warping isn't too bad, but there are spots that'll be hard to get flat again.

I'm not sure where we'll be able to use your tool, unless we're separating the inner & outer fender lips before replacing one or the other. If we're slicing them both off with impunity, your weld cutter may be wasted.

Crap, DON'T LET ME LINE THE FENDERS BEFORE WELDING IN SEATBELT MOUNTS!