Jump to content
  • entries
    20
  • comments
    7
  • views
    4,580

Entries in this blog

WN order and patchwork quilt

I finally amassed a few bucks in my car account a few weeks back so I logged in at WN. Within about a week a box showed up with a pair of front fenders, 2 rear outer wheelhouse arches, 2 lower quarter panel patches, and a “tow sheet”.    Over the last few months I’ve been cutting pieces from the shell of the ‘69. Some areas I was able to drill out the spot welds. In other areas it was easier to slice through a sacrificial panel with a body saw or an angle grinder with a cut-off wheel.

VWJake

VWJake

Things are starting to fall into place

I’ve been working on both the ‘68 and the ‘73 simultaneously. I’ve cut apart/straightened/welded/glass bead blasted enough pieces to make two whole right outer wheel housings. The housing intended for the ‘73 doesn’t have a lip as that car is slated to get the “Turbo” treatment.        I cut the original ‘68 quarter in half to make it more manageable. I stripped an 1/8”-3/16” of bondo from the rear half. I really just need the lower 4” or so so it’s not a big deal

VWJake

VWJake

Red Onion

I have very little car time as I am a stay-at-home Dad for our 14mo old son 3-4 days/wk 13hrs/day when my wife works (Cardiac nurse) and I run two small businesses of my own (auto repair and home renovations/handyman). That being said I have even less money than time to commit to these projects. The '69 has been chosen as the donor to revive the '68 and hopefully the '73 (down the road). My current goal is to make the '68 true to the body measurements in the blue book and mobile by Summer 2018.

VWJake

VWJake

Pressing matters

I picked up a 10 ton porta power kit and an additional selection of rams (push and pull) from Harbor Freight the other day. A few nights ago my wife and newborn were asleep and I (amazingly enough) still had some energy so I wandered out to the garage. I unpacked my new toys and made a handful of light to moderate pushes from between the reinforcement ribs on the rear wheel well seams. Those presses produced some remarkable movement in the RR wheel housing of approx 1" or more. I then set up and

VWJake

VWJake

Piddling around

poking around the 2 cars revealed a few things. The white car is a first series 2002- chassis# 1661550. The vin plate is stamped 1968 and running the chassis number through a decoder shows it was built in '68 and was indeed polaris silver. The car has the long neck diff, left side half shaft with a U-joint, single line 2 piston front brakes, and an old master cylinder with the res. mounted directly to the top of it. The engine is rebuilt. The head is an '84 121 casting. The car has a 002 dist. a

VWJake

VWJake

Onions

I've grown tired of staring at the '68 all wadded up. With the quarter panel removed I pried on the outer wheelhouse for a bit and removed the wheelhouse to C pillar braces.   I used a piece of scotch brite to reveal the spot welds on the rocker panel and outer wheelhouse. After I removed a 28" section of the outer rocker I got busy on the outer wheelhouse. The damage is deeper than the outer wheelhouse as is evident by the wrinkles in the inner wheel well and inner rocker. 

VWJake

VWJake

No pictures please

For the past few months the '68 and '73 have been sitting side by side in the garage motionless with the exception of moving the '68 out to the driveway or street to pull  another vehicle in for repairs. I decided that with my limited time that I should sort out the brakes and clutch in the '73. Since the engine runs why not make it stop and go. I started out by freeing all of the bleeders. When little to nothing came out I knew the hoses were swollen shut- No biggie. I ordered a complete set of

VWJake

VWJake

No keys? No problem!

As I mentioned previously the '73 did not come with a key but oddly enough the steering wheel was not locked. After getting the steering column surround removed I could see that someone had replaced the lock cylinder at some point. It was deceptively easy to remove the cylinder. Once the cylinder was out I found an old set of keys and proceeded to re-code the new lock to the old keys. This was accomplished by just scrambling the wafers around and a minor adjustment to one wafer with a file. Afte

VWJake

VWJake

Mostly just parts acquisitions

A few months back I had decided that the outer wheelhouse that I scabbed together for the R/R just wasn’t good enough. A WN order netted me a new housing along with more bits n bobs. I had originally planned to swap this car to a shortneck diff as the old subframe was bent. Well, I lucked into a nice longneck subframe and control arms a bit ago so gears changed and I’m now committed to a longneck install. I’m currently struggling with the control arm bushings for this setup. The new OEM bushings

VWJake

VWJake

More outer wheelhouse progress

The original ‘68 panel keeps getting smaller and smaller.      The panel destined to be installed on the ‘68 got a new “dust pan” made out of a piece of the ‘68 panel. I’ll smooth out all of the welds/check for gaps and carry on with the repairs. I left the metal outside of the bead long so that I could fold it over to address some corrosion in the well. The fender lip/body line should be challenging to recreate, but I’m looking forward to it.   

VWJake

VWJake

Minor update

I’ve managed to fit a a new outer wheel tub, a new outer rocker panel, and a harvested trunk divider. I also have the quarter panel from the ‘69 for this car once it’s time. Rebuilt and powered coat trailing arms and long neck subframe were installed under the car to make it a roller again.    I also removed the engine/trans so I could get a better idea of how bent the front of the car is. It didnt look good from what I can recall.  I won’t like

VWJake

VWJake

Intro

When I was knee high to a grasshopper my Dad- Ralph Potter was "The" BMW mechanic in central IL. In fact, you had anything odd my Dad was the guy to go see. Ferraris, Alfas, BMWs, and assorted other vehicles were expertly cared for by my father. In the sleepy little town of Broadlands, IL my father had managed to acquire 12 BMWs behind the garage. 1600s, 1800s, and '02s were in his collection. As the story went all of these cars ran. Fit for the road... only some but they all ran. This was in th

VWJake

VWJake

I knew this thing was solid

Hair up my arse started at about 3:30 this morning. Couldn't sleep so I wandered out to the garage and pulled the rear glass and the pass rear window. Knocked off about 6:30 when my wife and son woke up. Didn't get back to the garage til about 3pm. That's when I decided it was time to rip off the quarter panel and start getting down to business. I was pleased to confirm what I had always suspected about this car. It's solid. It may have a ton of bondo in it, but there is very little rot. Looking

VWJake

VWJake

Hoping to get back to the '68 soon

Since my Daily Driver took a nose dive after swapping the induction system from a carb to FI in Dec. I have had to push the '68 aside and focus on getting the IH back to fighting shape. Not too long before that happened I managed to secure a 3.90 LSD, complete half shafts, and 5spd trans from an E21. No sure which car will get them, but I have them on hand now. I was preparing to drop the engine/trans from the '68 before the truck died. I've created some stub axles on the lathe for a pair of gar

VWJake

VWJake

Going mobile

The white car has been sitting in the garage up on stands for a little while now. Previously I installed a rad and fuel bottle to check out the engine. I spent some time bleeding the clutch hydraulic system as well. A few days ago I went a bit nuts with some C clamps and a porta power. The inner leg of the right trailing arm had a massive kink in it. It was directly across the pass-through for the brake line. After disconnecting and plugging the lines I was able to roughly straighten the trailin

VWJake

VWJake

Garbage? Maybe... but I see potential

The white car was originally Polaris. It has taken a good shot in the nose some time ago. The right apron is wrinkled and all of the front sheet metal had been replaced before painting it white. A year before it was T-Boned the white car received a completely re-manufactured engine. new upholstery, and some maintenance items. The car traveled 3k miles before the accident in '92. It was towed to the owner's house where it has sat until this past weekend. The red car is an original Granada Red car

VWJake

VWJake

Drug home another one...

Stumbled onto a '73 sunroof shell with a complete drivetrain on CL at the end of June. Pics were pretty poor but the price was right. After lots of poking around and haggling I loaded the remains onto the trailer and headed for home.    The story goes that the orginial owner (from new) starterd a restoration about 15yrs ago. He lost interest and the car was rolled outside where it sat until the interim owner bought it for parts about 6mo ago. The years outside, likely mostly uncovered,

VWJake

VWJake

Down to 2 cars and a pile of pieces

Weather has been semi decent and there was a lull in paying work so I drug an air hose, a body saw, and a sawsall to the backyard. The '69 is doneski. I pulled the cracked windshield, removed the wiring harness, slipped off the firewall insulation and pulled the 3 piece dash. Once those items were safely stowed away I drilled the spot welds and removed the rain tray. I cut off both aprons, the drivers side frame rail, the lower windshield drip rail, and some rusty pant and shirt snagging bits n

VWJake

VWJake

Banana anyone?

Well the prognosis isn't good. The '69 is banana shaped. While the numbers are balanced on both sides the front to rear subframe measurements are about 6mm long. Considering that there are basically no outer rockers and the inners are no longer connected to the floor pans I guess it's no surprise that the car has sagged. I put a bottle jack and some scraps under the driveshaft center support and lost a few mm in my measurements pretty quickly. Hmmmm what to do...

VWJake

VWJake

'73 metal work and more boxes showing up

I welded the repaired right outer wheel housing back on the '73 a week or so ago. I was using weld through primer and had a horrible experience with the stuff. When coating both parts and trying to plug weld the welds popped and splattered as if I was welding a pile of rust in a puddle of oil. I tried letting it dry more thoroughly, and finally settled on using a flat faced drill bit to scrape away the primer within the weld hole. The welds were tolerable, but not what I wanted to see. Going for

VWJake

VWJake

  • Blog Statistics

    • Total Blogs
      448
    • Total Entries
      2,348
×
×
  • Create New...