My new 1988 T/A

[MP81]

As long as the balancer doesn't come out of balance and wear a hole into the chain cover, you're allll good haha

[DynoDave]

No, everything looks good there.

Didn't get any shop time last night, but did stop on the way home and pick up some Permatex thread sealer, and some VHT gloss black engine paint for the new water pump.

In the past (20+ years ago) I had used a Permatex product for removing gaskets...scrape off what you can, spray the magic chemical on, and it softens up the old gasket and makes it easier to remove the rest. I have an original water pump gasket (38 years baking in place) that I have 95% removed, but there's one last little patch that I can't quite get. None of the stores (O'Reilly's, Advance Auto Parts, AutoZone) had the chemical (one had never heard of it), so I ended up ordering it from Amazon (they have a CRC version). Should be here in a day or so. I'll get the other side scraped tonight.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000M8IE6W...fed_asin_title

That warm weekend weather looks good painting the pump!

[MP81]

I'd certainly say it should be excellent painting weather.

Unlike me painting my washing machine inside my house a month ago, because it was like 15 out.

[DynoDave]

Well, that weekend went largely to waste.

Saturday was a 2.5 mile run (which for me means quick walking punctuated by bursts of what I call running, that is more like a jog), followed by much recovery. That's my 4th event since December, run with my wife and daughter.

I did get a few hours of shop time in here and there...organizing, condensing. Trying to create a car-sized space in the back garage to bring the Chrysler home from it's "temporary" post-garage fire storage (which JUMPED from $95 to $175 under new ownership....gotta get the hell outa there).

With other chores (bought a welder and cart and assembled same), that left just an hour or so last night to work on the T/A. No painting like I'd planned. Pathetic progress, really, but better than nothing. My CRC gasket remover came in, so I used a few caps to plug the water pump holes, applied liberally, waited 10 minutes, and got nice clean surface on both side now for the pump. So I guess I squeezed in a good amount of garage time in total.

If I'm lucky, tonight will be the intake and thermostat housing. Both are aluminum, so I'm looking to that spray gasket remover to help me avoid gouging them with the gasket scraper.

[DynoDave]

A few picks of the new welding rig. Eastwoods inexpensive line. We'll see if it was worth it.

[DynoDave]

Are you seeing photos here Kyle? At work, with or without VPN, I'm not seeing them now. It appears the links are even gone when I try to edit the post. Very strange.

[MP81]

Yup, I see your pics just fine.

[DynoDave]

Yes, I can see them again now too. Strange.

Anyway, I continue to find moments here and there to make a little progress on the car. A super thin layer at a time, finally eliminated the old t-stat gasket on the intake. The CRC gasket removed did NOT turn out to be a miracle product (I suspect a weaker formula than what I could buy 30 years ago), but it did help.




Went to start cleaning the original thermostat housing, only to discover it had been accidentally thrown out. I could not quickly get my hands on another original, nor one in as good of shape as my original (which was not perfect...had a surprising amount of corrosion on the neck), so a new one was picked up locally. Cleaned, plugs run in and out a few times, the a touch of Teflon on the threads (belt and suspenders on the NPT threads), and a tiny bit of excess removed with a toothpick.



The included gasket, badly creased, had the additional charm of being as large as an elephant's ear, sticking way out past the housing and intake.




It could be trimmed and saved, but I have a new Mahle gasket, which fits much more nicely, and isn't creased. So the supplied one went in the trash, and we'll use the Mahle piece.





Wiped down with Eastwood's Pre so she's close to ready to paint.





Set that aside for the night to let the Teflon cure. Started cutting out the plate for the A.I.R. pipe. Shop is a little crowded, so not throwing sparks and shavings using a cutoff wheel or the grinder to dress the edge (yet). Just the good old sabre saw.



Crude but effective. Center punched and ready for drilling, de-burring, etc.



Got the holes started, and up to the final hole size (5/16ths), and the battery dies. That's OK, I'm in the shop past my bedtime anyway. Battery charging, shop cleaned up, and off to bed.

[DynoDave]

On 10 hour days at work for a bit, so garage hours are scarce. I did get out to the garage and finish hacking out that plate to block the A.I.R. pipes. Taped up the openings in the thermostat housing, cleaned both parts again, then started priming.

[DynoDave]

One of the problems of cleaning on a 38 year old car is...where to stop! With the passenger side aluminum accessory bracket now well exposed (with A.I.R. pump removed, belt, coolant hoses, shroud and radiator out of the way), I went over this several times last night with engine degreaser, a brush, L.A.'s Totally Awesome spray cleaner at it's strongest concentration, then a water rinse. Was pretty happy with the results, until I saw this close-up photo and saw several stubborn spots that I will have to hit again. Still, looks pretty good compared to the 38 years of grime that was on it.



Compare Passenger and driver side, where I have not touched the driver side (yet). The driver side, despite it's power steering fluid weeping over time, was not as greasy as the passenger side with a/c compressor oil all over it.



I had no intention of attacking the driver side accessory bracket at this time, but I can't just leave it like that...I'll have to make some effort to clean that tonight. I knew the frame rail and associated items on both sides needed some love, so no surprises there.



And the factory water pump bolts are a little crusty. My media blaster went away in the garage fire, so I'm breaking out the HF tumbler I bought years ago and have never used (it was in the back garage and didn't see the fire). I'll throw the thermostat housing bolts in too, though they are not as bad.



Also noting the relative location of the Teflon sealer patch applied from the factory. This will be my first time dealing with bolts that require a thread sealing compound (already picked up a bottle along with the thermostat housing from my local Auto Value store).



And away they go. No quiet, but not awful either. The fatigue mat helps quiet it, and keep it from walking around. Just have to crank the tunes a little louder.



Got another coat of primer on the thermostat housing and plate last night as well. I'll look 'em over tonight, and let them cure a little longer, but they should be ready for paint.

[DynoDave]

More cleaning on Saturday. Pretty greasy around that idler arm and the frame ear supporting it. Triangle brace is coated in filth as well. Generally looks better in this photo than it was.



Ran into this before under the hood. The paint in the engine compartment is not really clear coated at all. So when you clean with anything stroung enough to cut grease, you remove base coat also.



So once the grease is gone from this area of heaviest deposits, so is the color. It was also very thin in this area, being a vertical surface. The area in front of the frame ear for the pitman arm shows that thinness, and it was pretty clean...didn't need much work. They just didn't get much paint on the vertical surfaces. Looks how much redder the frame ear is, because it sticks out at an angle, and caught more of the factory spray. I "may" try to spray a little color back on to this surface, just for the protection. I have the rattle can red I used on the battery tray some years ago, and it's a pretty darned good match. And it's an area that is hard to see.



Core support, sway bar and wonder bar too. Everything got cleaned.



I won't attack the driver side until I get the timing chain cover painted. Don't want to get grease and solvents on it. It's cleaned, dried and ready for paint.



Ran a 5k on Sunday and was too beat and sore to get back out there that day. The bolts did turn out nice coming out of the tumbler...but still some very stubborn paint on the heads. Have them soaking in a paint stripper now.

[MP81]

Man, you are really getting into finite details!

[DynoDave]

A perfectionist on a paupers budget. And it eats up a lot of time I don't have to spare either. But I can't see a mess like that and just leave it. This is how all of my projects snowball out of control!

[DynoDave]

With the beginning of the Easter Holiday, I was able to get a little work done yesterday.

The days before got a second coat of primer on these fasteners.



Thought I'd better mask off some adjacent surfaces before I started in on the KBS coating. I started with painters tape, but I thought the aluminum brackets, with their complex shapes, might do better with good ol' masking tape. And, OLD INDEED. Sears brand masking tape. That's got some age on it, but still good.






The product I'm using. Dispensed by a plastic spoon into a disposable paper bowl. No cleanup. Small cans, so less spoilage (I've chipped my way through the hard top layer of several quart containers of similar products [POR15, Bill Hirsch Miracle Paint], or had to just throw them away). Before resealing the paint can, a burst of pure argon from a spray can of argon (also purchased from KBS) to displace air and moisture, to help prevent that hard, cured layer from forming. My first time trying the argon trick, so we'll find out some time in the future how well that works.



A few other project essentials:
- A list of items to be painted. Nothing worse than getting everything cleaned up and put away, turning around and finding out you forgot a surface.
- Plastic food service gloves. Discovered the convenience of these in the years following my garage fire, during hours of cleaning hundreds of soot covered items. Fast on, fast off the hand, super cheap, super disposable. Fantastic for jobs like this, where you might get a little paint on your gloves, and don't want to risk accidentally transferring that paint to another surface....probably went through a half dozen pairs, always had clean hands. Sam's Club, 500 per box, 4 boxes, $12.
- Cheap disposable applicators...chip brushes shown, but also used a foam brush cut to a fairly small point to get into the rust seam of 2 welded surfaces on the pulleys. No cleanup.
- Also used some long handled cotten swabs, to get to those coolant pipes. Long reach, no cleanup.
- Also used an not shown, a paper plate to set the can and lid on, along with the soon, and brushes. When done, thrown it out. No cleanup.




x

[DynoDave]

Progress, not perfection. Not pretty, but better looking than rust, and it stops the rust.












I knew it wouldn't "match", but the stark difference between the semi-gloss / chassis black color of the pulleys and the gloss of the KBS....I think I'm going to have to do something about that.