Variety is the spice of life - and of restoration work!

The holiday weekend coincided with my having several projects in progress and in need of attention. 

The '68 Camaro 's seat backs where blue units and had been painted black at some point. With the rest of the car at show-level, we couldnt just leave them like that, so new ones where ordered. 

 

While the new ones look very similar, instaling the lower screws was impossisble due to the angle of the bottom fold-over and the position of the screw holes. 

Look closely: the holes on the originals are closer to the edge and the screw that secured them to the seat bottom pulled the hole right to the very edge - which meant the new holes where way off....

The fix was to drill anew hole closer to the edge, allowing the screw to go into the threaded seat bottom hole without being overly angled or stressed.

Next up was some prep work on the 390FE for my 67 Galaxie. The block is at the machine shop being honed and fitted with new pistons. Here the heads were cleaned and tested:

After a thorough cleaning, the runners on each side of each of the heads was filled with cleaning fluid from the parts washer. Cylinders with well--sealing valves would maintain the fluid. Valved that didn't seal perfectly allowed fluid to leak past. On one side you can check the exhaust valves - flip the heads over and you can check the intakes:

As shown in the photo below, the intake runner on the number 6 cylinder leaked. As it was the only valve that leaked - and this engine is being set up for a turbo -  I won't need to address it. Had it been a large/fast leak, or had several leaks been evident, a valve job would have to be considered.

The 240Z project got some attention today as well. With the fibreglass kit I purchased a while back I finally got to work on the front air dam:

This kit from BONDO has enough resin, hardener and fiberglass matting 

to do several large repairs - or many smaller ones. Just pour the required amount of resin in a mixing container and add 8 drops of hardener per ounce of resin. 

Then, having cut the fiberglass matting to the required size for the repair

 (I used strips sized 1/2-1 inch past each side of the cracks), dunk them in the resin to coat them with the resin....

Then lay the strips over the crack, gently pressing them down to lay flat on the surface being repaired. The kit comes with a 'tongue-depresser' to use as a tool, but a small brush works best. 

The resin - and soaked matting - hardens like a rock in 25-40 

minutes and is ready to shape shortly thereafter.

The largest cracks were reinforced with metal strips secured with 1/8" pop-rivets:

 With the 240Z's front air damn repairs hardening, I turned my attention

to the rear suspension, which is about half-way through the re-assembly process

The front underside is mostly done, save for the sway-bar mounts!

Looking back at the air dam, the repairs are now hard-as-rock and ready for shaping:

1956 International Harvester Restoration: BD 240 (BG 241?) teardown and Inspection

 I was corrected by a member on the OldIH forums in that AMC didn't start making engines for IH until 1968 or later. Thus this would be an in-house IHC engine, denoted the BD 240. So we'll start by making that correction and by referring to this engine as the "240", which we could safely assume is the displacement, in cc's.

                              Here it is, as it was pulled out of the truck a couple weeks ago:

The single pot carburetor is about as gummed up as they come - 

But when I pulled the valve cover....

The valve-train was as clean as a whistle. No oil build-up, no crud......good sign.

1956 International Harvester Series 120 Restoration: back from sandblaster!

The IH is back from the sandblaster!  Seems $2000.00 doesn't go as far as it used to, but we did get the entire frame and running gear done, plus the worse of the body rust: cab floor, inner fenders, running boards, plus the worst spots on outer cab and box. Everything that wasn't done will be sanded to bare metal and  treated with Metal Ready Rust prep.

Check out these before and afters:

 Cab floor:

Cross members:

The sand gets EVERYWHERE! It needs to be carefully vacuumed 

and blown out so it doesn't get in the paint down the road. Looking back, the 1956 Chevrolet 3100 truck I did last year went to a paint shop who did a little blasting prior to painting and they left sand in the cab - only to have it show up in the finished product!
The truck was still a show winner, but I knew that it was there - and it still bugs me.

Inner fenders - will all get the POR15 or Rust Bullet treatment

Underside of running boards - they where real bad:

Underside of fender. 60 years of crud and rust gone:

Frame was blasted end to end. Factory fresh!

 Running gear and suspension - much easier to rebuild without all the grease, mud and tar:

Some bits will still require some more manula labour....

Could NEVER get that crud out without a high pressure industrial sandblaster.

Thanks again to Jackson's Sandblasting!

Don't forget to check my website for lots of great info and photos of other builds:

      www.E-tekRestorations.googlepages.com !

International Harvester 122 series restoration

Summer in beautiful Saskatoon is a time for outdoor fun, hanging with the kids, festivals of every sort and of course, time to enjoy the cars that can only be enjoyed in the summer-time!

But, even with all the fun-in-the-sun, it's not like work in the E-tek Rod Shop grinds to a halt. I've been plugging away at tearing down the International Harvester, the Comet Caliente and even managed to get the 240Z off the rotisserie and continued tweaking on the 1968 Camaro.

Of course with all that extra activity, something has to take a back seat - right? Of course - and what has suffered is my blog postings! Who wants to spend time on the computer with all of that other stuff to do?! So, my apologies for getting so far behind in the posting of my work, but let's catch everyone up here:

After removing most of the body, including fenders, hood, inner fenders, running boards and the rear fenders and tailgate, it was time to tackle the engine and tranny....



....which you'd think would be fairly straightforward....but in a 1956 IH 4x4....it was not to be so....

The front mounts, no problem:

But the rear mounts - under the bell-housing of sorts - where a bear to remove...

Largely due to the way the trans mounts in the cab,

 including a toe-pan and several cross members being in the way- 

The 3-speed gear box was separated from the bell-housing....

Then - with a ton of pulling, prising, yanking and hammerin'..... finally.... out she came!

Then I hooked up the Pullz-all to the tranny and yanked it in the opposite direction, setting it on its own trolley to be pulled apart and inspected later:

The 4-wheel drive linkage attaches to the levers you see here (now flipped upside down):

The right tool for the job (steering arm nut) -

And here she is - the 227 Torque monster straight - 6. First produced by American Motors, they also sold their straight-sixes to International Harvester for powering International's "Light Line" of trucks, as well as their Scouts and Travellalls.

But before I can tear into the engine, the body - including the cab, what's left of the box, the fenders and inners, tailgate as well as the frame and suspension components, will have to be sent off to the sandblaster. And I can't wait to see them back - as clean as the day they left the foundry! And so everything was loaded up and the entire mess was loaded onto a flatdeck  hauler from AstroTowing.

Via www.E-tekRestorations.googlepages.com !