Seized engines and A/C

When you work on cars because you love them, you end up doing weird things with your weekends. For example, I went out to a farm yard last weekend and picked up 2 seized flathead engines, over 60 years old, that were pulled from some old farm implements - paying over $300 for them, including lunch and gas. 

Since that time, I've been playing nursemaid to them, spraying  them down withWD40, pouring my special mixture of ATF and KLEEN-FLO  in each cylinder - hoping and praying that deamon of rust hasn't welded the rings to the cylinder walls!

After that, I got a start on the AC system for the Camaro. Like any good automotive engineer, I read through the instructions, then followed them precisely, wanting to be sure everything was done properly. 

 Of course we all know where that can lead.....exactly....

I ended up having to take it apart again  in order to get it mounted! 

Once I undid the fist 30 minutes ( no charge ;)), the condenser was installed

Followed by the dryer and assorted bracketry

I'm sure glad I learned one thing as an older adult : winters spent

working in the shop, building show cars sure beats the HELL 

out of sliding downhill bouncing off the snow on my ass!!

Popping the top off the 68 Camaro

We decided to replace the roof panel now as well, due to finding several rust holes along both front and rear glass channels, as well as some perforations above the doors. Replacing it - if done without warpage - can save time cutting and patching, save time, material and frustration of having to use filler to level all the welding work - and most importantly -  allow us to repair and abate any rust issues that exist both on the underside of the roof panel, as well as on the support structure.

The easiest way to remove these panels is to first find the attachment points and then cut near them, but not on them - in order to remove the panel, exposing the areas that need to be separated:

A chunk of filler that was pushed into a rust hole the last time repairs were performed.
                                            Definitely NOT the way to do it!

Heavy rust scale from both the roof panel and the structural panels:

The trimmings - removed by way of drilling out spot welds and separating the pieces with the air chisel:

After clean-up, we can see that some of the inner structure also needs to be repaired:

But first, any surface rust, hidden rust is converted and clean metal is prepped, using a phosphoric acid solution: