Got the transmission painted today. It took a lot of work to get all the caked on dirt and grime off of it. Wire brushing, scraping and pressure washing took care of it.. but it took an extremely long time.

I managed to get atleast a coat on, and I think it looks really good. The color is "Cast Aluminum" which is basically what it would look like if it were polished really well. This is easier.

Spent a while removing rust in the back section and then painting them with the first layer of Rust encapsulator. I actually ran out so I had to order another quart from Eastwood. The new stuff will be red, so don't let that confuse you.



The rear spring covers were rusted fairly bad, so I ordered two used ones from BFY. Should be here next week along with the paint so I can button this back up. Have a big parts order coming in tomorrow with all the tools, mounts and cv joints to complete it. Hopefully the rear drums don't need much work done to them.

Just spent the day undoing the rear suspension. I managed to remove just about every peice I need to, to clean up and paint and also lower the rear. Unfortunately.. its not going to be easy to put back together. I pulled the torsion bars and don't really know at what angles they should be at.



I should be able to wing it as I do have a few marks and measurements to go off of, but the suspension might be uneven until I can get the body back on and get some weight on it to readjust.

Also tore apart and painted the pedal assembly, but couldn't reassemble because I broke a spring that I had to reorder and need some new circlips.

Here is how I solved the stupid issue of those CV bolts, since I could not find a proper triple square driver. I did manage to get 8 of the bolts out, but had to resort to drastic measures to get about 4 out.



I used up a few drivers, and later bolts that I welded to the nuts in order to get them off.

I'll leave the outer CV bolts for when I get the triple square socket.. then I'll replace all the bolts with allen heads or something.

Got the transmission out today.





Gonna finish cleaning up the frame and paint it.. replace the shock, and lower it a spline.

I got the bottom of the floor pan painted yesterday. It took about an hour to do because I decided to brush it on. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Here is what we did to fix the problems of rust near the front of the pan. Some plates of 16 gauge steel were cut out to the exact same shape using a template, and then were bent to fit the contours, and welded.

Getting a good look at the underside has revealed some pretty big rust holes in the front frame area. Two of the areas just required a simple square peice welded in with hole drilled. The other however is going to be a much bigger piece with some bends and radiuses.





Otherwise the bottom is getting very clean and will be ready for paint later today.

We tipped the floor pan up on end in the garage and started to work on the bottom side. There is a lot of undercoating and paint that needs to be removed as well as a little welding to fix some holes, and rust.

I am hoping to have it all cleaned and then painted by Wednesday.

I put the wheels back onto the pan with the new disk brakes on. For the first time in a few weeks the pan is back outside and in the sun.





With it out of the garage I can clean up the big mess, and then prepare to flip the pan and work on the underside.

The brakes / hubs were installed on the spindles today. That means the chassis can finally get back on all of its tires and move around. With the front end back together, and the top of the pan looking good.. its time to concentrate on the underside. I will be flipping the pan and stripping it then painting it in the next few days.

Here are the disk brake install pics: