First Car -- 1968 Barracuda Notchback
So, I know it's skipping far forward (or rather present) in time, but the first real bit of work I did on this car in a long time was in March of this year (2020). I came home for spring break right as the COVID-19 crisis was ramping up hardcore, I made it home three or four days before Alaska mandated a 14-day quarantine for travelers. At the time, I was under the delusion that I was going to be able to get the car ready in two weeks to ship down to Seattle and then road trip across the US back to Indy. And boy howdy, was I wrong. The list I had was as follows:
- Rear main seal
- Oil pan gasket
- Drop transmission and fix all the seals at the front
- Rebalance tires
- U-joints
- Oil Change
- Rear axle seals and fluid change
- Install headlight relays from Crackedback
- Install USB port
- Remove dash cluster and repair wiring behind it
... and a few other odds and ends. I thought I was going to be able to do this in two weeks, and plans changed very quickly. The downward spiral started when I began taking the instrument cluster out. I decided that it would be really, really easy to get up underneath it if I took the driver's seat out, so I did:
The combination of seat foam and crap left behind from me was pretty gross, not to mention the decomposing carpet. I even dug up some of my exes makeup from there! I cleaned up the mess and then decided that gee, it wouldn't be TOO hard to pull the carpet out... I mean, I DID have a box of correct color OER carpet sitting in the storage unit...
Alllllllll the way down to the original floorpans. Look how nice they are!! At least for AK, anyway. Only a little bit of surface rust by the driver's feet, and the only hole in the floor was where the original seam sealer was starting to come out at the firewall/floorpan seam on the driver's side.
I didn't have time or the materials to treat the rust properly, so I just scraped the scale off and vaccumed it up with a shop-vac. I wasn't too concerned because the carpet is coming out again very soon when I weld in the hump for the 4-speed, so I will treat the rust properly then.
I wanted some more sound insulation but I didn't have the money for the good stuff, plus I know the floors aren't prepped properly for the adhesive-backed sound insulation. So I instead went with the $20 moving blanket from Home Depot. I know it won't help much but it was cheap and the carpet was already out so I just went for it.
All the screwdrivers in the floor were to keep the seat bolt holes lined up while I crawled around and trimmed things. The OER carpet was amazing stuff, it was preformed and all I had to do was cut it to size at the rockers!
And here's an action shot Mom took while I was reinstalling the rear seatbelts :D
I've hit the image limit for this post, but I'll continue this section tonight!
So, I know it's skipping far forward (or rather present) in time, but the first real bit of work I did on this car in a long time was in March of this year (2020). I came home for spring break right as the COVID-19 crisis was ramping up hardcore, I made it home three or four days before Alaska mandated a 14-day quarantine for travelers. At the time, I was under the delusion that I was going to be able to get the car ready in two weeks to ship down to Seattle and then road trip across the US back to Indy. And boy howdy, was I wrong. The list I had was as follows:
- Rear main seal
- Oil pan gasket
- Drop transmission and fix all the seals at the front
- Rebalance tires
- U-joints
- Oil Change
- Rear axle seals and fluid change
- Install headlight relays from Crackedback
- Install USB port
- Remove dash cluster and repair wiring behind it
... and a few other odds and ends. I thought I was going to be able to do this in two weeks, and plans changed very quickly. The downward spiral started when I began taking the instrument cluster out. I decided that it would be really, really easy to get up underneath it if I took the driver's seat out, so I did:
The combination of seat foam and crap left behind from me was pretty gross, not to mention the decomposing carpet. I even dug up some of my exes makeup from there! I cleaned up the mess and then decided that gee, it wouldn't be TOO hard to pull the carpet out... I mean, I DID have a box of correct color OER carpet sitting in the storage unit...
Alllllllll the way down to the original floorpans. Look how nice they are!! At least for AK, anyway. Only a little bit of surface rust by the driver's feet, and the only hole in the floor was where the original seam sealer was starting to come out at the firewall/floorpan seam on the driver's side.
I didn't have time or the materials to treat the rust properly, so I just scraped the scale off and vaccumed it up with a shop-vac. I wasn't too concerned because the carpet is coming out again very soon when I weld in the hump for the 4-speed, so I will treat the rust properly then.
I wanted some more sound insulation but I didn't have the money for the good stuff, plus I know the floors aren't prepped properly for the adhesive-backed sound insulation. So I instead went with the $20 moving blanket from Home Depot. I know it won't help much but it was cheap and the carpet was already out so I just went for it.
All the screwdrivers in the floor were to keep the seat bolt holes lined up while I crawled around and trimmed things. The OER carpet was amazing stuff, it was preformed and all I had to do was cut it to size at the rockers!
And here's an action shot Mom took while I was reinstalling the rear seatbelts :D
I've hit the image limit for this post, but I'll continue this section tonight!
