well, if you aren't totally sick of seeing my progress pics so far here are some more.

The motor is about as done as it can get until it's dropped back in the car.
motor reassembly
the most recent pics are at the bottom onf the page.

I've also been working on the frame, front suspension, and steering components and I've managed to get most of the heavy, caked on , crud off everything and the loose flaky surface rust all off with a steel brushes, a flapper wheel, and LOTS of gegreaser and brake cleaner. I think one more days worth of work on her and these parts will be ready for paint.
i'm amazed, I can actually SEE the different parts now and the fittings and bushings and grease joints with all the heavy crud and grease and dirt off of everything!
front end clean-up

 

Nice job...excellent work! Great web site,

 

Did I read that right? The car only has 9,489 original miles?

It looks a lot like the condition my '79 was in before I started my project, but my '79 had about 140,000 miles on it.

Your restoration project is looking good!

 

thanks Muddy

Victor, yes, that is correct. The car only has 9,489 original miles. Unfortunately it was neglected and while it was barely used it also wasn't taken care of very well as you can see and it sat outside under a cheap plastic tarp for a few years untouched.
The tarp made things worst I believe than allowing it to just sit without one as a plastic tarp won't breath and let moisture out. Behind the firewall and back the car looks perfect - about what you would expect of a under 10,000 mile car albiet one almost 30 years old but forward of the firewall the chassis and components were all covered in surface rust (luckily nothing worst than that) and all the metal and aluminum parts of the motor were covered in oxidation. It's taking a lot of work to clean everything up and make it look good again.

 

Hang in there, your doing well!!

Chris B

 

hi Fl

i'm trying........ some days are a bit difficult though

 

Looks like you are going strong

 

Dean

I'm trying. some days are stronger than others..........

i'm hoping to get the frame cleaning finished up today so I can start painting it tomorrow

 

UPDATE: 3/31/06

well, worked my butt off today all day on the car since about 6:30 am until around 6pm tonight.

When I pulled the motor out 2 weekends ago I was hoping to get everything done to drop it back in this weekend but even after only a week I knew that was never going to happen so I've been working as hard as I can so I can try to get the motor back in by next weekend. I have my fingers crossed but I still have a pretty long list of things to do before I get to that point.

Today i managed to finsihed getting the front of the chassis cleaned up enough to start putting on the Eastwood Rust Encapsulator. I got about 75% of that done today also and I'm hoping to finish up on that tomorrow so I can start painting the frame and front suspension parts first thing Monday morning. Sunday I won't be able to work on the car as I'll be helping to judge an NCRS event in Baltimore all day.

i never used the rust encapulator before ( well no surprise there since i've never done anything like this project before) and I wasn't happy about it at first as I was putting it on. When you first paint it one ity looks like absolute crap but I was very surprised that once it dries down in about 20 minutes it looks really good - almost like a finish coat of flat black paint.
Just applying a coat of this stuff really makes a difference in the cosmetics of the front of the chassis and I can finally get an idea of how this well end up looking when i'm finished.
Here is a quick look rust encapsulator
The last 5 pics on this page are from today.
it's FAR from looking perfecrt yet but it's a start and I still a number of areas to still do and a few areas to go back and touch up that got missed a little but as you can see it's already a big improvement.

after the frame is painted on Monday and Tueday, I still have all the vacuum lines and wire harnesses and looms to clean and inspect, clean the firewall, paint the inner fenders, paint the wheelwells, pull the torque converter and change the oil in it, and than spend probably at least the better part of a day under the dash removing an aftermarket alarm and redoing the wiring to reconnect everything back to stock. That's a lot to try to get all done by next weekend!

All things considered, most especially my complete lack of expereince doing this, i'm not too displease at my progress so far considering I started working on this car March 3rd.

 

Very good work on the motor. It looks brand new.

 

thanks Eddie, that was the idea
i really just wasnted to make it look a lot better than it was but it came out even better than I had hoped