[Touring919]

If you guessed quarter panel dent repair you win.
Donor car had a straight quarter. Mine had creases in the corner around the tail light bezel and on the character line. Much easier to replace than to pull out. I'm holding the dented panel. Patch from donor is resting on the body.

After about 30 mins of trimming it fits. Like a glove.

Welded and dressed with the trusty flapper wheel on the angle grinder. Much straighter.

 

[Touring919]

And that was the last of the rust and dent repairs I could do trying to kill time until my quarter patches showed up again. So stage two started early. Restoration of the frame.

These are semi random pics. I wanted to document routing of the fuel and brake lines. Can you imagine the number of pics our kids will need to document wiring routes on their restos of 2020 Accords!

 

[galaxiex]

Nice!
I also have the 211, great welder.
I don’t have a plasma cutter but I do have a TIG.
Everlast DV185. Decent machine, I mainly got it for aluminum welding.

 

[Touring919]

Mouse nest in here....

= rust here! So much for a solid frame. It isn't too bad. This is the only bad spot.

 

[Touring919]

Was doing well loaded pics in order. Now I'm off again.
This is an interim step. The donor cars frame was just scary. But it had some clean spots and I found a section from the engine area that had the right curvature to make patches from pretty easily.

Not quite the invisible seam I was shooting for. But good weld and no rust. So I'm happy.

Nice big gaping hole to fill. I tac welded some supports from the trunk extensions to the ground so it wouldn't sag when I cut this chunk out.

 

[Touring919]

Patched in some fresh metal on a couple left side body mount holes and both core support mount holes on the frame. This was before dressing and painting. Glad to say these went on perfect. Once the welds were dressed there was zero evidence of a repair. Everything was flush and smooth. Nothing complex. Just cut out the old. Square is the easiest shape and then cut a new piece to match. Weld in.

 

[Touring919]

Wire wheel for a few hours (then wait a day for the dust to settle). Hose down with por15 metal prep and cleaners.

Then paint. For all this surface area I spray it. 1.8 tip requires no thinning. It spray very well. All smaller items I brush on.

DesertXL asked how I was treating the inside of frame to prevent future rust. The real answer is I have not 100% decided. One option is carwell. It's a oily RP that I use on my daily drivers that see regular salt. I am looking into proper coatings like the ones he used on his 66 frame. I think the best deterent for rust is that this will always be garaged, never driven in snow, and fresh rodent poison will always be near by.

 

[Touring919]

On the the fun part. Bushing R&R. This is my preferred method.

Step zero if the bushing is sort of squished out of the shell like a muffin top is to slice off the excess rubber.

Step one is heat. Evenly heat the outer shell. A real torch makes quick work of this. The little cigaret lighter (map gas) I was using takes about 5 to 10 min per bushing.

Step 3 just tap the bushing out. Once it gets moving it will just fall out.

 

[Touring919]

If you are replacing with urethane bushing and retaining original shells you are done. Maybe clean them a bit first.
If replacing with good old rubber then the next step is cut or grind a thin spot. Some use hack saw blades. Some use jig saws. I prefer a carbide burr. Easier to see when you get thru the shell and if you go too far it makes a smooth radius instead of a sharp cut that could turn into a crack.

Next give it a few wackos in the radial direction adjacent to the cuts. She'll will colas and it falls or wiggles out easily.

Then you are ready to install new bushings. For that you need a press.

 

[Touring919]

Don't have much pics of suspension at the moment so I'll just give the details of the plan. I want good handling but minimal loss of ride comfort. I also like a good project and saving a buck.

So went TVS where I would get the most bang for my buck and elbow grease were I thought I could get close or maybe even better than TVS.

Front sus is all stock rebuilt arms and bushings. Except the strut rods which get urethane bushings on stock rods. TVS front springs and dampers and stabilizer bar.

Rear sus is getting all urethane bushings on a stock upper trailing arm. The lowers are urethane bushings and boxed. Main reason I boxed them is for torsional strength against the twisting the 1" rear stabilizer bar will put on it. 40 bucks from a swap meet. It's for a fox mustang. Rear will also get TVS springs dampers and panhard bar.
Below is the first step of tacking in the mounting plates for the rear bar.

 

[Touring919]

I measured the dimensions of my stock front and rear springs. Then crunched the numbers for their stiffness. Here they are compared to TVS parts.

Front springs stock. Approx 335 lbs/in
TVS is 700
% increase of 109%

Rear spring stock approx 125 lbs/in
TVS is 190
% increase 52%

Front bar 17mm originally and TVS is a huge 35mm.
I guessed on wall thickness of the TVS but ball park stiffness increase over stock was 94%
I was expecting a lot more since torsional rigidity goes up by the 4th power of the diameter and the diameter doubled. For reference I assumed a wall thickness of 3mm.

Rear bar I can't show a delta since dividing by zero (no rear bar) always equals infinity regardless of the size of the new bar.

For the rear one would need to actually measure total roll stiffness stock vs TVS to get the contribution in an objective value.

The front roughly should be twice as stiff in roll if only looking at the springs and bars contribution. Suspension geometry plays a part but I'm not taking that many measurements.

 

[Touring919]

The mighty 390 4v. Locked up. Time to fine out why. My money was on rust.

While decrudding and disassembling I did check date codes. All seems to jive. Engine tag. Intake and carb are all December 64 date codes. I think my body was December 65. I'll need to double check that.

Love the inch thick seeds and mouse poo across the whole intake. Don't know if those MFers got some of the seeds for food or defence. The barbs on some were just crazy!

 

[Touring919]

Not terrible. I have seen way worse sludge than this. Hopefully that is a good sign.

Hey ther is an intake under that mess!
Didn't get a good pic. But after pulling the spark plugs I found remnants of a spider web in no. 1 cylinder.

 

[Touring919]

Oh. Rust. Shocking. Actually i was pleasantly surprised. I was expecting a mouse nest and pitted cylinder walls no machinist would touch with a 10 foot hone. Looks to be just normal condensation rust. A few decades worth.

should be salvageable. Especially since all signs point to original bore diameter.
So 3 days of soaking with PB blaster in each cylinder and still stuck. BFH time. Found a cylinder with piston at about half stroke so the rod and crank were about 90 degrees to each other and gave it some hell. Several wacks and she broke free. Few more on another cylinder to rotate the other way. Repeate a few more times and then i was able to rotake 360 degrees smoothly with a wrench on the fly wheel. I win!

All that is left is to pull crank and pistons. Then it's off to machine shop. And some major credit card swipes!

 

[Touring919]

Couldn't resist posting this slime. Certainly had water accumulating in the pan. There was plenty of milkyness. Judging by the cylinders I'm guessing this is also just condensate water.
Judging by the number of creepy crawlers in the bottom of the pan I should not have been surprised to find Cobb webs in the cylinder.

 

[Touring919]

One question for all you early FE experts. Far as I can tell this engine is pretty original. To my surprise the head gaskets were single layer metal and only .020 thick.

Is that normal?

 

[808Mark]

You're doing an awesome job! It was crazy to see the floor at that angle after you cut it out. Keep it up!

 

[Dakar09]

LOVE that your daughter is right in there with you! @gearheadct, mine is also in college and has plans for ME to do a JDM build "with her" but I reminded her that she only spent 15 min at a time helping me wrench on things when she was younger. I like her enthusiasm, but not her commitment, lol

@Touring919, don't you love kickin yourself in the ar$e for waiting to buy better equipment 😉

I'm going to guess "hood hinges" are coming up in the next episode of "Touring's Tear Down"

 

[Touring919]

I never felt regret for waiting to buy the "proper tool". I do laugh at myself though. It's kind of like learning long division and then getting a calculator. It's still better to have "wasted" that time doing things the hard way. One understands the process better and then can recognise more quickly when the new tools are doing something wrong (or being used incorrectly).

I think my daughter is more interested in staying up late. But I'll take any excuse for her to learn how to fix stuff herself.

 

[Dakar09]

Admittedly, I will sometimes continue using old methods or tools even knowing there is a better tool to do it with. I'm stubborn sometimes. But your analogy is spot on!