There came a point during the loading process where I 1) wondered if I would get all the parts into the car and 2) if I did, would the weight damage the car? The answer was yes and no … yes all the parts went into the car and no the car wasn’t hurt. That is not to say the car didn’t have a good cause of the squats from the weight though. The normal stance of the Civic is to have about 2 inches of clearance above the tire to the lip of the fender well. After loading in all the brake and suspension pieces, all of which were heavy, the rear tire was tucked just up inside the wheel well. On the drive to Murphy Rod & Custom you could tell the car was loaded. The suspension never bottomed out, but you could feel the car wallow around when going over bumps and around corners.

After I arrived at Murphy Rod & Custom it didn’t take long tell a great deal of progress had been made. The floor pans were fully installed, save one. That one … it’s on backorder.

Before I started restoring cars myself I used to wonder why it would take someone five years to restore a car. Some of it is the money of course, but I think a lot of it is you spend so much time waiting on parts. If it takes 5 years to restore a car, 3½ of that will be spent waiting on parts. And it always seems to be the one part you need to complete a project. “Yes sir, here are three of the floor pans you need. The last one is on backorder and should be here in June.” It’s maddening.

Other than the missing floor pan, work is proceeding apace. All the rot on the right quarter panel has been excised and replaced with new metal. Because the rust was relatively insignificant I could get away with patching panel rather than replacing the entire quarter panel. The problem is, some of the patch panels I would need are not commercially available. No matter, Murphy Rod & Custom just whipped them up in their fabrication shop.

If I needed extensive rust repair in an area it is usually cheaper to buy a replacement panel, such as the inner and outer skins and floor pans you see in these shots. But when it is a small area, like the two finger size area inside the fender well, it is normally cheaper to have Kelly or Josh make the piece rather than buy a large section just to obtain the small piece I need.

As of last weekend the bulk of the heavy rust repair has been completed. There is still a some rust to repair around the rear window and a bit along the leading edge of the dash. And the bed floor needs to be replaced. I know the bed floor sounds like a big job but Kelly thinks that it probably won’t be as hard as it seems because the floor comes as a unit, with all the bracing already in place, and that makes it much quicker and easier to install. So hopefully in another two or three weeks the car will completely rust free and ready to go back on the frame. Well, if the backordered floor pan shows up that is.

On a related, but different matter, you may recall that when we tried to load the car on the trailer to bring it home the rear end locked up. It made loading the car a real pain in the, well, rear end. Since I saw the car last Kelly had opened up the pumpkin to see what was going on in there. It’s a good thing I was planning on replacing the rear end anyway because the one that came with the car was wrecked.

Even if the rear end wasn’t destroyed and the car was rolling  freely,  we still would have had to open the rear end up to see what gear set was installed. Everyone assumed the the car had a 3.08 rear end since that was a very common gear set back then, but we had to open it to be sure. The car did in fact have a 3.08 gear set, but that gear set is way to tall for powertrain going into the car. And that means the gear set would have to be replace even if it hadn’t been wrecked. Running the 3.08 rear end with the double overdrive transmission going into the car would have meant the motor would have been ticking over just above idle at highway speeds. It would have also meant that every time you came to the slightest hill you would have had to downshift out of sixth.

The donor car, a 1997 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 had a 3.42 rear end, and that was the gearing I was going to put into the El Camino. Unfortunately the 3.42 gear set was not available for the particular rear end I have. I could choose from a 3.37 and a 3.55 as the nearest replacement sets. I decided to go for the 3.55 for a bit better off the line performance at the expense of mileage. It’s not like I’m going to be driving the car a lot so if I lose 1 or 2 mpg, it probably isn’t going to matter in the long run.

I ordered the new gear set, along with a locker so the car can put power down with both back tires instead of just one, Friday and it was delivered yesterday. I will take it to Kelly’s on Friday so it can be installed, along with the rest of the brakes and suspension pieces that I delivered last week. I am hoping that the next time I see the car, on Friday, the suspension, and brakes are, if not installed, at least partially installed.

There is still a lot of work left to be done on the car … but not as much as there was back in August of 2011 when I hauled that poor bedraggled thing home.

Photographs taken February 14, 16 & 17 2012

It was quite cold in the building which caused  the kart’s tires to be cold, hard and have no grip, but Cason made the best of what he had to work with. At least he didn’t spend the entire time complaining about the kart’s handling. It is an old joke that when a race car driver loses … it is never the drivers fault. Cason is like that sometimes.

Once again Cason was by far the fastest kid there. When he would start in the first kart he would simply drive away from the other kids, sometimes being so far ahead that he would begin to lap the slower drivers. That’s a big speed difference to be able to come all the way around the track and begin lapping drivers in less than 8 minutes. If he started in the back he would work his way through traffic until he was leading the race. Even Tim was impress with how fast he was.

It was a fun day, watching Cason rip around the track, and I think I enjoy watching Cason drive nearly as much has Cason does getting to drive. So that’s a win/win for everyone.

Photograph taken February 20, 2012

I was working in the yard when the presents were opened, but Cason received some new accessories for his Flick Trix bicycles. I don’t see what he sees in these toy bicycles them myself, but if he likes playing with them at least I don’t have to worry about him breaking any bones doing tricks on his regular bicycle.

After the presents were opened, and I finished my chores in the yard, we left for Olive Garden. It was Cason’s choice and Olive Garden was what he picked. It was the typical Olive Garden meal and we stuffed ourselves on salad, pasta and bread sticks. We then returned home for a bit of birthday cake.

It was the typical store bought cake. The cake itself wasn’t too bad but the frosting was the super sweet frosting that most commercial cakes have. The cake was chocolate, which the kids like, and while they clamored for the edges and corners for maximum frosting, I had my normal piece, cut from the center, so it had minimal frosting.

Our birthdays are usually low-key affairs and this one was no exception. A few presents, a good meal, a bit of cake, and family close around. Not a bad way to end a day.

Photographs taken February 18, 2012

Because the project fell apart, we had to move this truck out of the way as part of a car ballet … moving cars around to prepare Jonathan’s shop for Monday. The truck is a 1962 Chevrolet pickup that looks like warmed over hell. But that’s the point. It is a rat rod, and the worse it looks, the better it is.

The truck belongs to a customer that has delivered the truck to Jonathan so Jonathan make it look worse. It seems the paint work is still in to good of shape for the customer’s idea of what a rat rod is should  look like. I’m not entirely sure what Jonathan is going to do to it, but I can’t wait to see the result.

While the truck looks awful, it goes like stink. You can tell the moment the truck is kicked to life that there isn’t a tired ol’ six cylinder under the hood. With a freshly rebuild Chevrolet 383 small block and a beefed up transmission and rear end, Jonathan said will boil the rear tires when you hold down the loud pedal. This truck has all the things Cason admires in a car … a big rumbly V8, loud exhaust and a race car like loping idle. While Jonathan was backing the truck out to make room to move another car, Cason hopped in for the short ride and his grin threatened to split his face.

Yes, Saturday didn’t go as planned. But Cason had a pretty good day anyway. He help Jonathan bleed the brakes on a Mustang by pumping the brake pedal and later he steered the same Mustang while Jonathan, Jordan and I pushed it out of one bay and into another. And of course there was the ride in the rat rod truck. Oh, and darts. He played darts on a dart board that Jonathan has setup in his shop.

Not a bad way to spend a Saturday morning.

Photographs taken February 18, 2012

We have had no  winter this year. A normal winter means we have one or two freezy precipitation events, be it freezing rain, sleet or snow. We also have, a few times a year, some days where the temperatures don’t  rise above freezing. But this winter … nada.

The daytime highs have consistently been in the 50′s or higher and the lows rarely dip below freezing. It’s been nice actually. But last night it started snowing, and it snowed like gangbusters for a few hours. Had it been colder, longer, we might have had come real accumulation, but with the high the day before in the mid 60′s, I’m surprised we had any accumulation at all.

Today the high is supposed to reach the low 50′s and by the end of the week the forecast high is supposed to be near 70. I don’t think the snow, what little there is, is going to be around long.

So hello winter … and goodbye. I hardly had a chance to know ya.

Photographs taken February 19 and 20, 2012

This pie, made from my grandmothers recipe, is my favorite pie of all time, and perhaps my favorite dessert. I always suspected Cason and Devon would like it, but I have never been able to get them to try it.

Tonight Cason decided to give it a try. After just one bite from my serving he declared it “The best dessert in history!” and had to have a piece of his own.

Now, if I could just get Devon to try it.

Photograph taken February 19, 2012

Tuesday morning he woke up a little stuffy and groggy, but he went back to school anyway. As the day progress his cold improved until by the time I got home yesterday evening he sounded, and acted, nearly normal.

I guess he will be feeling perky for his birthday after all.

I don’t if it was the cold snap we had this week or it was just coincidence, but nevertheless, he started barking over the weekend and by Monday he was suffering from a fever.

Misty stayed home with him yesterday … today would have been my day … but he is improved enough to go back to school. I hope he gets over it quickly. This weekend is his birthday, and who wants to be sick on their birthday?

Filed under: Family & Friends ]]> http://theconders.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/he-was-due/feed/ 0 theconders I'm surprised it took as long as it did http://theconders.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/finally-some-paint-2/ http://theconders.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/finally-some-paint-2/#comments Sat, 11 Feb 2012 02:28:52 +0000 Terry http://theconders.wordpress.com/?p=7790 ]]> I spent the day at Jonathan’s shop today while he painted the frame of the El Camino. My sole contribution to the project was to help lift and move the frame around. Oh, and I did a little sand blasting while the rest of the shop did something else. Sand blasting isn’t hard, but I did find that sand blasting works better when you are actually using sand in the air stream.

There were a couple of small places on the suspension that didn’t get blasted very well when the frame was stripped. Jonathan handed them to me and asked me to strip them in his sand blaster cabinet. The first piece went pretty well until I was about half done, then the stuff got really hard to get off. Except the problem wasn’t that the stuff was hard to get off, but rather the sucky thing that picks up the sand was no longer buried in the sand. Because the glass gets so dusty in the booth it is hard to see, for me anyway, what was actually happening in the booth. And I certainly couldn’t see the sand coming out of the nozzle even when it was working properly. After a few minutes trying to get the part clean and not succeeding, I began to wonder what I was going to do to get the piece clean. Then I figured out the problem and stuck the sand pickup back in the sand. After that it started working like it did before.

I had to do that several more times before I finished, and I never could tell when the sand would stop flowing except for the fact that the part would stop coming clean. But no matter … even with the sand blasting booth being a bit of problem, it still beats a wire brush all up and down.

Anyway after everything was ready, Jonathan put a couple of coats of paint on the frame. Except it isn’t really paint, it’s something called POR Chassis Saver. The POR stands for Paint Over Rust, and it is a kind of super adhesive paint that encapsulates any light rust and prevents it from spreading. It also binds with incredible strength to  metal, making it extremely durable.

It sounds like a wonder product doesn’t it? Well, it is, for what it does. But it doesn’t look as nice as paint would so you couldn’t use it on your entire car. But for the frame, where you can’t really see it anyway? POR it on … so to speak.

It took about 1½ quarts of the product to do the frame and suspension pieces. The unused portion of the second quart was thrown out. Which is too bad because the rear axle is going to need the same treatment in a few weeks … and that left over ½ quart would be just about the right amount. Jonathan explained to me that once the can was opened the remainder couldn’t be saved. When you seal the can, any Chassis Saver that got on the lid would bind to the can and seal it. Tight. You would destroy the can trying to open it later.

I like the way that sounds. Anything that binds and seals that well must be some pretty tough stuff indeed.

After the frame was painted I was amazed at the difference just a little bit of paint makes. I can’t put my finger on what it is exactly that makes the difference either. The color is a little more uniform, certainly. But it is more than that.

I might not know what it is about  the frame being painted that I like, but I do know that I like it.

Photographs taken February 10, 2012

The front floor pans are installed and tack welded into place. Josh was hard at work on the back set while I was there. Once the two back pans are in place, then the final welding and grinding will finish up the pan installation.

It is interesting how much difference just having the two front pans in place makes. It is likely that the next time I see the car, all the pans will be in, if not fully welded up, then it will really start to look like something. A car maybe.

There was a bit of rot in the frame that was undiscovered until after I bought the car. When I first heard that the frame had a place rusted out I got that rush of impending doom. I have always heard that if a car’s fame has rust holes you have big problems. On this car the spot was small and, I was told, easily repaired. Today I saw the repaired frame section. Except for the fact that the metal was shiny after being ground on, you would never know the repair had been made.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. If you look very closely, you can sort of see the line where the new metal was welded in … but after the frame is painted, you won’t be able to tell a repair had been made.

There is still a lot of work to be done on the car before it goes to paint, but all the major replacement parts have been purchased. Now it just a matter of getting them all installed.

Photographs taken February 3, 2012