Sandblasting

Today I started to sandblast the bigger parts. Mostly the rear axle. It a hole new experience sandblasting with out a cabinet. But know on new how to use it so I had to ready up on it. Put more sand in the tank I filled it all the way to the top and put down a tarp to trap all the sand on or I would have to sweep all of the sand of of the black top

. The mask was a panning to wear you could not see anything I felt like I was on a dessert planet. And sand went everywhere like in my shoes and the sand kept going up the mask.I had to refill after a little while. It's going to take me so long to finish the whole rear axle.

Fixing the sand blaster

The sand blaster had many leaks that needed to be sealed including new foam for the door seal. To seal the leaks we used caulking and spread it to seal them, we then turned on the sand blaster and looked for any more leaks to seal. We also made a rolling stand so that we could move it around.

Finishing up the rotisserie

Getting the car up on the rotisserie has been a long process and with the amount of time we have we are trying to hurry it along. The most time consuming part is just getting the car mounted to the structure. The back was the easy part, with some welding, spacers and bolts we where able to attache the rotisserie to the back bumper attachments.

Back rotisserie piece attached to the back bumper  

Another angle

The front attachment was more of a challenge. The front of the car doesn't have the same type of bumper attachments as the volvo has on the back. Metal needed to be welded onto the car to give it the support it needs.

Here is a picture of the front attachment 

The front system is almost finished and the car is almost ready to be lifted up.

Body Work and Rotisserie

Before the break, we worked on finishing taking apart the body of the car. We took off the handbrake and the doors. Something that took a while was scraping off the rubber and foam from inside the body. It took a while because the rubbery material was all over the car and didn't come off easily.
After the break, I worked on putting together the rotisserie, lifting up the car on the electric lift and fitting the rotisserie on both ends. We had to adjust the rotisserie so that it matched the height of the car.

chassis and brakes

so over the last 2 weeks i was away at ofsaa for most of the days, so while i was gone schooley was doing most of the work. he worked on the differential mostly. he removed all the bolts holding the plate that covered it. there were 10 bolts total and they were all very easy to remove with a air tool. once that was off, Ben tilted it upwards and dumped varsole in there so it went right to the top and covered all the components of the differential. he than sand blasted the plate and then re applied it to the differential and screwed in all the bolts. 

he then removed the last bolt that was attached to the brake and we removed the axles on both sides. they just slid out with ease. we then labelled them and cleaned them off.   

last thing we did was make covers for the end so no dirt and mud got in there while in the shop or while shipping to the shop. we took some wood traced the clamp with a pencil and then cut it our using the electric saw and grinder, we then got new bolts and screwed then in. 

Heater Box Removal

I worked on the removal of the heater box. Removing this was very difficult and took a lot of time. First you have to remove all the brackets and cables attached to it and label them. Then there were four bolts that needed to be removed so that you could lift it out from the top of the car. Next I had to go inside the car and disconnect the wires attached to the box inside, with a little force I was able to pull the box through the front of the car.

Front suspension and Rotisserie

I've been working on disassembling the front suspension assembly. It is now fully taken apart and ready for cleaning and re painting.

The front assembly with nothing on it

I thought this front assembly piece was really cool. Modern cars don't have pieces like this since this piece would only be used on a unibody car (meaning no frame). I thought it was cool because there are a lot of important things attached to it. The motor is mounted on it, the steering is mounted on it, all of the suspension. Then that one big piece with all that important stuff attached to it is bolted to the car.

A picture of all the components that we removed from the front assembly

The next thing I did was get the rotisserie. My uncle has a friend that restores cars as a hobby and he already built a rotisserie for himself, so we asked him if we could borrow it and use it for our restoration. He was happy to lend it to us. So we went to his house and picked it up and brought it to the school in a trailer and re-assembled it in the garage in the school.

This is what the rotisserie looks like. Its fully adjustable for length and height.

We put rolling carts under the legs of the rotisserie so its easier to move and to give it the ability to be rolled onto a trailer.

We got some steel beams cut that slide onto the arms of the rotisserie. We are using these to mount the car to the arms of the rotisserie. We are welding two bolts onto each of the four beams which thread through the bumper mounts on the body of the car.

 

We raised the body of the car up on the lift and then rolled the rotisserie under the car. We are then going to lower the car into the rotisserie and put the bolts through the bumper mounts to hold it 

I'm part of the interior job and the electrical job. After a few weeks, we have done a lot of works as a student, for example, we got off the hand brake, grinding works, cleaning works and getting off other interior parts. 

 ↑These are some of the parts that we had getting off.

  ↑The hand brake that me and Noel had getting off.

 ↑We got off the gas tank before, so we started the cleaning work on the back.

 ↑The door that we had get off.

In the coming days, I hope we can finish more works. I am glad that everything is still going well.

Dash Removal

The dash was a huge job to take out. We started with removing the gauges and wiring followed by the entire steering column along with many many switches and relays. It was a challenging task to label and mark where each wire goes so that it can all be put back together again. It was a job that took lots of time to make sure that it was done right and that nothing was ruined in the process. We labelled each wire with either the relay code or a number and matched it to the labelling that was on the relay. The steering column needed to be removed in order to reach some of the tricky wires and in order for the entire dash panel to be pulled out. The hardest part of the whole job in removing the dash was taking out the ignition barrel. We did not have a key and the barrel was stuck in place so we had to use many different sizes of drill bits to drill it out. Once we had drilled enough the entire assembly feel apart in our hands and we could pull the ignition switch along with the attached ignition coil out of the car. Once this was out a few bolts were taken out and with a little persuasion the entire dash panel and structure was pulled out. With the body of the car now almost just an empty shell we can start to prep for media blasting!

 Rear of speedometer gauge

 Dash Relays

 Rear of dash view

 Steering column directional switches

 Steering wheel removed

 More of the wiring under the dash

Wiring harness removed from body of the car

Rear Axle

Big Ave and I have been removing the Strut arms all four of them. And take off the rear stabilizer arm.After that we took of the Limiting straps They where a challenge to get off because a socket can only fit on the under side. After heating up the bolts the bolts came loss. Then we started to work on taking out the crown cover and seeing if it was damage. Then I worked on taking of the brakes shoes but first I had to disconnect the brakes lines. I cut the lines to get it done then the shoes where only held on by 4 bolts and the where easy to get of. That part was supper easy. After that I worked on getting the rear axle shaft out and part wash the left one came out easy but the right was stuck and I needed to use a puller to get it out. I needed to clean out the differential by scrubbing it.and final I worked on getting the seal off of the crown cover.

Front Suspension Assembly Pt 2

Now that the brake calipers where off the brake rotors where next to come off, dealing with rust was a huge challenge as the dust would come off and land every place imaginable

Images of the rusted brake rotors.

This part was easy once the brake pad assemblies where off. That silver thing you see on the end needed to come off, this was fairly easy with a chisel and hammer they just pop right off to expose the bearing and a separate metal plate with everything coated in a thick grease. Once those where off,  the rotor and everything else slid right off.

The next thing to continue working on is removing the shock absorber and suspension spring, the shock absorbers where easy to remove, but our next challenge are the springs, which are under compression and dangerous to remove without a machine to compress them while me and Riley remove the bolts that keep the springs compressed. In the next update we hope to have the springs off and everything dissembled.

front cross member, steering box, and master brake cylinder removal

over the past 2 weeks me and Ben were mostly working on removing the front cross member. there were 6 bolts that had to be removed. the bolts were not very rusted and came off pretty easily with a impact gun. they were also very easy to access due to the engine being removed along with the transmission

 After we removed the six bolts, it was loose and we were able to lower it down with a jack onto the roller carts.
The one bolt in the picture to the right (very bottom, sticking out) was the only difficult one. We used the heating torch to expand the metal and an impact gun to get the bolt out.







we then worked on removing the steering box. there were 3 bolts connected to the frame of the car and 1 bolt holding the arm to the car. that was pretty simple to remove.

then we removed the master brake cylinder. there was a pin from inside the car near the brake pedal. this was insanely hard to remove because of rust and the pin being bent a lot. it was so hard to access due to the steering wheel being in the way. Mr DS had to go into the car and remove it for us because me and Ben couldn't get the pin out. after the pin was out we were able to jiggle it enough for it to come loose and remove it from the car. it was attached to the brake line and a fuel line which we also has to move around to get it to come free. after it was removed we cut the 2 lines (fuel and brake) and labelled them.



(brake cylinder)                                                                                                           (steering box)

Body Work Continuation

After we got the doors off, we were able to get inside the car to take apart the handbrake and seatbelt. It was very tough getting the handbrake out because the rod was rusted and wouldn't come out of the shaft easily. We tried using hammers and chisels, breakaway lubricant, and pliers but nothing worked.  Eventually it had to be heated and it finally came out. For the seatbelts we didn't have a big enough philips screwdriver so we had to use vice grips to unscrew the screws that held them in place. Another thing we did was unconnect and take out the horn.