Full frontal nudity!!

[Dino]

Made you look!   

[Alaskan_TA]

It must be cold out.

[Ghoste]

It is stripped.

[myk]

You are one busy freaking bee...

[billssuperbird]

Sexy

[ODZKing]

 

[Dino]

Over the weekend I'll be doing all the welding which will include repairing the big rust hole under the battery tray.  After all that's done I'll be masking off the car and hanging plastic sheething throughout the garage so I can get paint on it, the underside of the hood, hinges, tray, and whatever else needs color.  The engine bay's not done yet, I just wanted the bulk of it done.  The a/c blower still has to be removed as well as the throttle cable, vacuum hoses and I'm going to prop something between the frame and fuel lines to give me room to paint.  Then it's time to da sand the whole thing with 80 grit and get that SPI epoxy on there.   

I'll spray some undercoating on the floor boards as well, I removed everything to about where the exhaust pipes start.

[tan top]

     arrrghhhhhhh  , not what was expecting        


charger engine bay looking good Dino 

[cdr]

lookin great, aluminum foil works real good for masking things .

[Charger-Bodie]

lookin great, aluminum foil works real good for masking things .

Yep. 

[Dino]

Yep I'll be wrapping some aluminum foil around the heter and a/c tues for one.   

The foam piece behind the a/c tubes is not looking too good, but without removing the heater box there's not much I can do about it.  Maybe I can push a piece of felt right over it.  I can get a little bit more room when I remove the nuts on the firewall and push the box back a little.

In any case this engine bay is going to look a whole lot better.  For those that don't know what it looked like, the before and after pics will be very interesting.   

It's a bit weird though, the engine bay will look better than the outside of the car.   

[keepat]

Great job stripping down the engine bay that's a lot of work to make it look that good!
Pat

[71 SE3834V]

It must be cold out.

Can't be that cold. No headlights showing.

It's a bit weird though, the engine bay will look better than the outside of the car.   

That's a nice problem to have though.

[69wannabe]

Wow!!! That thing is gutted!! How long it take you to get it stripped down? I have had mine apart several time's but not to this level of nothing at all in or around the engine bay. Have had the engine out several time's then the tranny out a few times and have had the fender's and the grille out a few time's but not all of it out at once!! Sure is clean tho...

[67440chrg]

It looks like your making good improvements. I wish my engine bay looked as good as yours will.

[Dino]

Thanks guys 

I'm not sure how long it took to strip it down as I didn't do it in one go.  Most of the components are easily removed leaving you with the empty bay.  Stripping the paint takes a bit longer.  Once the engine was out I put plastic sheeting under the bay and soaked everything in Super Clean.  Getting the decades of grime off is probably more work than taking the actual paint of.  The undercoating needed to be scraped of.  There's not much that paint stripper or even a sandblaster will do to it.  Once all that was gone I brushed on the aircraft stripper and let it sit overnight.  Then I hit it with a variety of tools with wire brushes and knotted steel brushes.  The paint didn't stand a chance.  The pitted rust was hit with the sandblaster.  I did a quick once over with a da and 80 grit and I will do so again, but more controlled, just before painting it in epoxy.  I also made my own patch panel to go under the battery tray but when I was almost done with it a member here sent me an original piece so I fitted that instead.  That's ready to be welded in place.

I wasted a lot of time trying to clean the  k member and suspension parts, thinking I was going to leave all that in place but the more I got into it, the more I realized it all had to be done.  Eventually the k member was hot tanked and I have the Firm Feel reinforcement kit to be welded on tomorrow.  I should've had the control arms tanked as well but I already cleaned them by hand.

It's amazing what you can do with a gallon of cleaner and a gallon of evapo-rust though.   

As I removed parts I cleaned them up and set them aside.  I have a bare metal vacuum canister, 2 speed wiper motor, engine mounts, torsion bars, all engine brackets and pulleys, and a bunch of other pars waiting for primer.  There's not all that much let to clean up.  Most of the engine block paint has been stripped as well.  I haven't touched the transmission yet though, that one's covered in black paint.