67/68/69 cuda dilemma

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Back after it again. We are knocking off what's left of the paint, and will remove the excess surface rust with white vinegar and plastic sheeting. Will neutralize this with TSP and water rinse. Then flip over and start cutting on the inside.

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Starting fab on the inner trunk lip section. Theres more perforation on the outer skin lip once we opened it up. I think I am going to naval jelly this area and see how bad it is. May be worthy of just tack welding the holes up and applying a generous amount of epoxy primer over the clean pitted metal and leaving it alone.

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I think we nailed it. Now I have to remove and or neutralize the corrosion on what's left before stitching this in, and making panels up for the outside.

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Neil Young sang about rust never sleeping. This trunklid appears to have been sanded, and some rattle can ruddy brown primer put on it. Well that doesnt seal well at all. The process I am using to pull the surface rust out of the metal is simply 6% white cleaning vinegar and plastic to keep it wet. The rinse solution is trisodium phosphate powder mixed with tap water, a fine wire brush on the rusted parts and a green scotchbrite pad to scrub off the flash rust. The TSP and water act as a neutralizer to prevent flash rust.

The results of my first treatment from yesterday evening turned out great. In my last 3 pix I have applied the plastic and vinegar solution to draw more out. If you look closely you can see lots of spots of clean pitted steel. This works great on thin gage body steel that you dont want to hit with a sandblaster. This is a slow process, however the vinegar stops or severely slows down when it hits clean steel. When done we will spray coat it with an epoxy primer to prevent this from happening again.

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So I ditched work and took a vacation day and went to a swap meet outside Texas Rangers stadium ball park. Not bad. Lots of brand X and a sprinkling of mopar junque. I got this industrial lamp shade for $10, that I will strip and restore. Going to make a mount and put it outside my shop building.

I know the bellhousing is a toploader truck V8 bellhousing, however one of the things I wanted to make was an engine run stand. This is perfect for that. I lacked a starter mount, and this corrects that issue. Now I just need a flywheel.

Does anybody know for sure what size diameter and tooth count this bellhousing needs? Casting is PN 3893728. Rock auto has cast 143T flywheels for 78 small block V8 truck fairly cheap. Could it be the larger 143T flywheel? Both my 360 and the 318 are neutral balance so I will be getting one for a 318.

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Bought a solder it together yourself clock kit online. I wanted to see if I could do it. It was about 3 hours of fun for about $7 it displays the date, year, air temp in Celsius, and runs through these one time every minute. Also has an alarm lol.

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