The last few days were pretty full and I made sure to finish early so I could watch the Masters!

Before I did anything else I put the O-rings I got at the dealership in the fuel injection pump. Attached is the picture and the invoice. $7 a piece but they fixed the leaks!

After that I tackled the aluminum trim that's all over the car. The car had been painted at least once or twice before, so some of it was held on with plastic plugs, while there were still some original clips in place with their tiny nuts (7mm!). Don't sell this job short. It took me a long time to get this all of this stuff off and not ruin it. My plan is to do a TOTAL trim delete, but there's no sense in ruining these pieces...it's expensive to replace. I actually think I could reuse the gutter trim, even though it came off in a bit of a spiral. Hmm...

Pulling those plugs out of the body was difficult. You gotta be sure not to damage any sheet metal in the process, and those suckers are IN there! But I got them all.

Next were the door cards. My books advised me to be extra careful not to ruin the aluminum trim on top of the doors as it's impossible to source new, so I took my time. Gently prying up the edge after popping all the fasteners, I used a long screwdriver to wedge it up little by little. They finally came up and off, to reveal the original factory plastic. Yes, it had been re-taped by the painters, and I had to remove it to get a good look at the door insides. They looked pretty good! With the rears, you have to remove some trim pieces first....no sweat. These popped up pretty easily, way easier than the doors. Oh and look what's in there? The sunroof drains. What were they thinking?

The following day I bought 40 pounds of dry ice from the local Welding Supply shop, and started in on removing the sound deadening asphalt base insulation. I followed the directions on the thread Dry Ice Ice Baby, with some modifications. Suffice it to say it wasn't a difficult job, but took some time and much less ice than I anticipated. 20 pounds would do it no problem, and it freezes up pretty quickly. The tunnel is the worst part. I didn't do the rear seat back, as it was in perfect shape and theres no rust happening there. The removed insulation weighed 19.2 lbs.

Not so underneath the floor however. While I was expecting rust in the drivers side, the passenger side turned out to be bad as well, and it looks as if the drivers rear might need replacing also. These panels aren't all that expensive from RD, but I hope there's enough good material to effect a good weld on the sides. Guess we'll have to get grinding to find that out.

Speaking of which I got out the grinder and a wire brush and did some exploring underneath the car. Goggles, mask and lots of dirt, dust and undercoating but it was fairly easy going, just filthy....yeck.  

I got the car on stands and did a little cleaning of all four wheel wells with simple green to at least get an idea of where we are. Looks pretty good rust wise, although the monkeys who painted this car black must've had blindfolds on. Black overspray is everywhere.

All in all a lot done but much, much more to do.