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April
13, 2004 Trunk DetectiveI've been working on the same project for a few days, so I have combined about 3 days of work into this one entry. Since I turned the car around two weeks ago, I've been working on getting the trunk clean and ready to be patched. Unfortunately, the stuff used to seal the trunk was a lot heavier than the tar paper used on the interior floors, and it's been quite a chore to chisel, scrape and pick it off of the metal floors.
I started by pulling up the remains of the trunk liner and tar paper that was still stuck in there. Then I started scraping away whatever substance they used as soundproofing--it looks like burlap that was impregnated with tar and stuck to the inner panels. With most of it out of the way, I found more than a few rust holes in the trunk floor and large areas that were questionably thin. I'm thinking about cutting the whole floor out and replacing it with a single sheet, but that's an ambitious project to undertake at this point. The metal seems to be of a thinner gauge than the floors in the passenger compartment, which may be why it feels thin. Or it could just be badly rotted away, especially above the gas tank, I can't tell. I'll know more once I cut out the obviously bad areas and get the body off the frame and onto a rotisserie. I also scraped along the wheelwells and insides of the rear fenders and decided that the left rear quarter panel is not original. The box-shaped area that sits on the frame rails looks like it was wrinkled up at one point and badly hammered back into approximately the right shape. As I scraped away layers of tar-impregnated burlap, it became increasingly obvious that this wasn't factory work. It would also explain that strange string of holes somebody drilled in the trunk lip, probably searching for the spot welds that held the quarter panel to the body.
So I kept scraping and scraping to get all the stuck-on crud out of the trunk so I could have a go at it with the sandblaster. Right now, I'm considering investing in a more powerful sandblaster than the siphon-fed one that I'm using right now. However, since it's such a messy job, I'm also thinking about having the body shell professionally blasted or renting the equipment and some space from someone to do it myself. My suburban neighborhood isn't exactly the best place for making a loud, silicosis-causing, 3-day mess. If anyone knows of a sandblasting outfit in the Cleveland area, please drop me a line and let me know about them.
That's pretty much what I've been up to for the past two weeks--scraping crud out of the trunk. I think I'm finally to the point where I can start cutting out some of the worse areas of the trunk floor this weekend and assess the condition of the entire trunk floor. Hopefully I can get away with patching it instead of replacing it, but again, I kind of like challenges like that because they always teach me new skills. Plus I'd probably have to buy a bead-roller, and you know how much I love getting new tools! I'm also hoping to pull the body off the frame in the very near future and finally get the frame to the powdercoater--all I have to do is sell the Miata. Please buy it, someone! It's a really cool little car and I need the space! Oh, one more thing--No, I'm not really rodding the Century! It was an April Fool's joke, kids. Judging by some of the mail I got, some of you missed that part. While the setup I describe probably would make a killer rod, I have no interest in building such an animal, even if I could score such an unbelievable deal (not likely!). Hope you're having a good laugh now if you didn't when you first read this month's Spinning My Tires. Previous
Restoration Day E-mail me at toolman8@sbcglobal.net This page accessed Thanks, Fidget! |
