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August
17, 2003 Doors and MiscellaneousI felt that I had a lot of miscellaneous jobs to do on the Century this weekend, so I tried to get as many of them done as possible--that last screw holding the dashboard on, the windshield wiper transmissions, the last of the stainless trim, stuff like that. I also decided to remove the doors since they aren't doing me any good hanging around on the body. But first, as promised, here is a look at the guts of my transmission and the pristine gas tank I removed last week:
The first thing I did today, I removed the doors, which was pretty easy. There are three large phillips-head screws holding the hinges to the door frame, and three bolts holding the hinges to the door. I removed the bolts first, and carefully removed the door, then removed the hinges. Well, all of them but the bottom right one, which is still attached by one unforgiving screw. If I can't get it to cooperate, I'll have to drill it out, which I'm not looking forward to. I'll try again tomorrow...
Looking for other things to do, I was feeling lucky and tried unscrewing that last screw holding the dashboard in the car. Without a lot of struggling, it came right out, allowing me to finally remove the dashboard. While I was up there, I removed the stainless trim around the windshield frame, as well as the rubber gasket, or at least its remains, which were pretty crusty. I also removed the trim pieces that hold the windlace to the leading edges of the doors. It was a real pain getting the windlace out of the steel pieces--it tended to crumble before I could pull it out. The steel on the left side was in pretty good shape and I'll reuse it, but the right side, being right above the area that has some rust perforation, was in poor condition. I don't know if I can fix it satisfactorily, so I'll start looking for a replacement. I also removed the sill plates and the aluminum sill guards, which are mostly decorative, but hold the carpet down and some of the trim in the rear quarter panels. Again, the stuff on the left side was in good condition, but the right was somewhat deteriorated. Under the rubber sill plates the sheetmetal on both sides was pretty good, but each had a slight rust hole that I'm sure will grow once the body is blasted. They should be easy to fix, however, since they are out of sight when the car is assembled.
With the dashboard out of the way, I was able to get at the defroster vents, which came out easily, and the windshield wiper transmissions, which were only hand-tight. I'm wondering how to rechrome them, since they have so many moving parts. There has to be a way to safely disassemble them so just the casings can be rechromed. Today I realized that I'm getting closer and closer to having to get more advanced with the restoration. The taking things apart stage is just about over. I'm not worried about that--I'm really looking forward to it. But I'm going to need a things such as a rotisserie very soon, because looking at all the nooks and crannies in this thing, it's going to need to be sandblasted everywhere. I'm going to carefully sand the flat panels myself, but for the floor, inside the dashboard area, the firewall, and under the car, it'll need some serious blasting. I have to find someone with the equipment to do that satisfactorily, or at least rent a place where I can do it myself. It'll be a mess, and I can't do it in my suburban driveway. Previous
Restoration Day E-mail me at toolman8@sbcglobal.net This page accessed Thanks, Fidget!
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