Author: James

I'm just this guy, you know? Musician, Software Engineer, Loner-Dottie-Rebel in Asheville, NC

Roof Paint Part One

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As mentioned in the Panel Beater post, my last batch of shine juice clotted up and became tacky cement on the car. It wouldn’t wash off. Mineral spirits wouldn’t take it off. I ended up wiping the whole car down with Acetone, which accomplished a couple of things.

It easily cleaned off the shine juice residue, but also removed the top layer of dead paint. Since I have been washing the car with Scotch-Brite pads and CLR, it didn’t break my heart that more of the light blue paint was coming off.

What did break my heart was seeing that the sun-burnt rust spots on the roof were much more deeply pitted than I had previously noticed. I felt like I needed to take action beyond keeping it oiled up with shine juice to try and slow that rust down. Having ten cans of that Matte Vintage Blue spray paint sitting around didn’t help to deter me from the bad ideas that were creeping up.

I got a can of Sprayway glass cleaner, a sanding block and some 220 grit wet/dry sandpaper and went to work.

After getting it smoothed out for the most part and fading up the edges of remaining blue paint, I got it all washed and wiped down with another several rounds of Sprayway.

A few places had bare metal peeking through, but for the most part, it was down to rust and factory paint.

I had some brown packing/craft paper laying around from various parts shipments and decided that would be good enough for masking the windows.

I started off with two or three coats of rust converter spray.

And then two coats of primer.

It was still early in the day, like 11:30AM, but the sun was out and the primer seemed to be drying in the air in between the can and the car body. There was a ton of over-spray. I got (what I thought would be) a lint-free cloth to wipe it down in between coats…

…but clearly that just made a mess. I went back inside and found a microfiber rag that did a great job cleaning the lint and dust off. The primer was still really textured, though and I wasn’t sure about the amount of time needed for that to properly set up, to withstand another wet sanding.

I put a thin coat of color on next.

And then another.

By this time, it was after 5:00PM and I didn’t want fresh paint getting wet overnight, so I decided to stop here.

After removing the masking:

Goodbye, Matte Vintage Blue

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After finding a decent color match with the Krylon Fusion All in One Matte Vintage Blue, which I sprayed in the spare tire well, I decided I should go buy another can or two to keep around. I went back to Lowe’s where I originally bought that paint and that whole line of paint was removed from the shelves, with no empty slots.

Looking on the Lowe’s website, the paint was still listed, but was marked unavailable. Further researching on the Krylon website, it looked like Ace Hardware was the only other place where it was available. Not knowing for certain what my paint plans are, I decided to stock up, and went around to every Ace Hardware in reasonable driving distance, from Candler to Swannanoa, and bought every can. In five stores (three didn’t stock it to begin with), I found ten cans.

Vent Window Rubbers

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I bought a set of door glass rubbers/felts/scrapers, because they are all dry, cracked, and broken. When I saw how much disassembly was actually necessary to replace all of them in each door, I decided to start small and just do the vent windows.

Starting on the passenger side, I drilled out the rivet on the top hinge.

And then removed the old gasket. Here are the old and new seals, side by side for comparison.

They look very similar in size and shape, so that’s a good start. But, I quickly realized, the measurements were off just enough that the new seal wasn’t going to sit flush.

The distance between the slot that is molded in the top for the hinge bracket and the hole in the bottom for the hinge pin is an extra 3/8″ or more larger than the original, so the seal is floppy around the edges. I made some “precision” cuts around the bottom end to shorten it and make it fit against the back side of the vent window opening.

But it still didn’t sit right in the frame and was too thick below the window, so it bunched up when opening or closing the window.

My first attempt at pop-riveting the top hinge didn’t go so well…

…so I didn’t mind having to drill that back out to put the crusty old window seal back in.

While I was there, I decided to go ahead and replace the vertical seal along the back edge of the vent window. Here are the old and new seals together for comparison.

Luckily, that went more smoothly than the main vent window seal did.

The lock/handle broke off of the passenger side vent window a while back. I have new ones, but it looks like a tough job that I’m not quite ready to take on. When I opened the driver side vent window to replace the vertical seal on it, that lock/handle snapped off as well.

It didn’t match the one on the passenger side and isn’t the correct one for this year of car, but it looks like a factory fit, so likely a window from a different year had been swapped in at some point.

The rear vertical seal went in on the driver side without issue.

With as big of a job as it looks like it’s going to be to tear the doors apart to replace all these other rubber and felt seals and scrapers, I’m not ready to take that on at the moment either. Also, the kit for both doors was over $350 and the first seal I tried to mount didn’t fit and was clearly not the right size.

That doesn’t instill much confidence in how the rest of the process is going to go, but that has basically been my experience with aftermarket parts for this old car. Nothing fits right and I can’t ever tell if it’s because the original part that was on the car wasn’t from a ’68 model or just that the aftermarket is a criminal enterprise these days.

Brake Fluid Eats Paint

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I used to carry a spare quart of oil and a can of brake fluid in the spare tire well. The brake fluid tipped over at some point and a couple of drops of juice leaked out the top. The new paint I had sprayed in there was ruined. Turned to goop and wiped off with the brake fluid.

So, I cleaned it all up and roughly masked off the stuff I didn’t want to over-spray.

Put down a couple of coats of primer

and a couple of coats of fresh paint.

This is from the same cans of primer and paint, but for some reason, the color was off from what I had sprayed before, which was really noticeable when I pulled the masking tape off.

Panel Beater

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Note: I apologize in advance for the pictures in this post. I didn’t have a whole lot of day light left when I started this process and couldn’t get very good before and after pictures. Decided to go ahead and post this up anyway for posterity.

So, there are lots of whiskey dents and dimples in various areas of the car, but overall, she’s sound. That old steel is thick enough, I felt pretty good about my chances of being able to massage them back out.

My toolbox for this session was this hammer and dolly set (Amazon link).

Starting with the left rear fender:

The last time I washed the car and slathered on the mix of boiled linseed oil, mineral spirits, and WD-40 was a few weeks ago now. It’s spring time and the pollen has been thick. The worst thing about that oil finish is it’s forever tacky and rain doesn’t help to wash the gunk off. Instead, it just sets it in like concrete once it dries.

The progress pics below show what dirty hand prints and hammer/dolly mess looks like in that sticky old oil…

Moving from front to back in the picture above:

Minor dent to a minor ripple. Not too bad.

I worked on this one the longest. I was able to get the crease at the top-right smoothed out and the lowest spot is now about half as deep as when I started. Definitely not a win, but we’ll call this one a draw.

Also, fun fact, this fender has a surprisingly thick layer of body filler over the whole thing. Hammering away from on top and below, this stuff didn’t crack or fall off at all. The paint was crazed to begin with. I have never seen body filler this resilient. I don’t know what this stuff is, but it’s quality!

I am considering this one a win. It is completely smoothed out, save for the smallest low-spot crevice. It is creased pretty hard down in there and I came at it from every angle, trying out several different combinations of hammers and dollies from above and below. I think the body filler was fighting me once it got down to such a fine crease.

There is still a lot of work to do on this fender alone, not to mention the rest of the car, but I’m pretty happy with my first attempt at metal massagery and what I was able to accomplish in only 40 minutes.

Road Trip and Lots of Progress

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I took a road trip to my parents’ house a couple of hours away. Well, normally it’s a couple of hours away on the highway at modern car speeds. I plugged their address into Google Maps and enabled the Avoid Highways option, so it turned into a 4 1/2 hour trip instead. It was a rainy Saturday morning, but was a nice drive nonetheless. I mounted a cheap action cam (Amazon link) to the windshield and filmed the trip.

The last time I was there working on the car, we found that the brake master cylinder was very old and weepy, explaining the near non-existent brakes. Also, the swing axle boots were completely destroyed. I ordered a Dorman master cylinder (Amazon link) and Beck Arnley swing axle boots (Amazon link) and ended up sitting on them until this trip.

We found that the car backs nicely up my dad’s ramps and that was super convenient.

Got the axle boots changed without any drama. The old hose clamps were much higher quality than the ones that came with the new parts, so we reused those.

Once the axles were sealed up properly, we checked the transmission gear oil and if there was any in there, it was well below finger-checker level. Put nearly two quarts of 75W-90 in before it was spilling over.

While that booty was up in the air, we continued the hunt for the mysterious clanging sheet metal. My dad found that adjusting the heat exchangers further out, adding more clearance around the exhaust headers, we could clang them around even less than before. We thought we had that mystery solved, but spoiler alert – something is still clanging around under there.

Up front, we found the last person who had the master cylinder out mounted one of the bolts in the firewall with no washer, so it was sucked in so tight, we had to try a bunch of different wrenches and sockets, trying to find one that would bite onto the little bit of exposed hex head.

A 1/4″ drive ratchet and socket ended up doing the trick, but the ratchet was so small, we couldn’t get any leverage on it to break the bolt loose. Ended up using a 3/8″ extension on the end of the 1/4″ ratchet as a cheater pipe and was able to get it broken free.

Once we had the old master cylinder out, we noticed the brake warning light switch was badly cracked and had been leaking, so with a couple of quick searches of parts stores in the area, I found an O’Reilly about 20 minutes away that had the part in stock (O’Reilly link). I was honestly quite surprised. I phoned ahead to make sure they could actually lay hands on the part. Sure enough, it was there.

Horizontal crack is noticeable in the pic above

For the trip home, I went the normal highways route, again recording video. Fun fact, I was able to make it up Black Mountain on I40 in 4th gear, never falling below 50MPH. Last trip I made, I was in 3rd most of the way up, struggling to even get it up to 50MPH.

Clang, Bang, What’s The Problem, Ma’am?

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The last couple of times I went out beetlebuggin, there was a terrible clattering coming from under the car. It definitely sounded like sheet metal rattling and would only happen when going over an especially rough patch in the road, like railroad crossings.

I still don’t have a garage or a lift or even a paved driveway, so it’s still a challenge getting decent access under the car to investigate. I went around, man-handling all the fenders, doors, and running boards, but couldn’t get anything to make a sound. I jacked up each corner and got each wheel off the ground, one at a time, and couldn’t find anything.

There is a drainage ditch at the end of my driveway and I have found that straddling the car across it gives much more (safer) access to the undercarriage.

From under there, I was able to find that the bolts connecting the heat exchanger to body heater pipes were missing and those assemblies were just loosely flopping around. There is a threaded bracket on the undercarriage, but I wasn’t able to find a bolt to fit, so I did the right thing and zip tied them snugly in place. The hose clamps were really loose, so I got them tightened up as well.

Took a little test drive and the clanging didn’t happen as often, but was still there on more extreme bumps in the road.

At Hominy Creek River Park

Oil Filter Mystery Continued…

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I ordered a couple of tools from Amazon to help extract that rusty mystery oil filter canister. (Amazon link)

The ratcheting three prong thing gripped really well, but was just crushing the end of the canister and was starting to twist the canister, so I switched to the pliers. Locked on at the very top and with barely any force or damage, was able to twist it off.

Not sure what I thought I was seeing before. There’s no blue text and it definitely doesn’t say Bosch or Bo… It’s a Hastings filter.

I had previously purchased a Wix 51515 filter, based on lots of info I found online saying that the standard PH8A filter for a Ford 302/5.0 liter (and many other makes and models) would work. When I tried to mount the new filter, it wouldn’t go on. There’s not a lot of room under there with the car on the ground to be able to see what was blocking it, but I tried for a while and gave up.

I drained the oil out of the old Hastings filter, popped it in a big Ziploc freezer bag and headed off to the O’Reilly Auto Parts down the street from my house. The staff were super helpful. They got out a pair of calipers and started measuring things, making several trips back to the oil filters wall trying to match the model.

I ended up with a Wix 51521, which is the correct oil filter canister for an 80’s model Nissan Pathfinder. When I got it home, it spun right on with no issue. Oddly, it’s the same outside diameter and has the same threads as the 51515, it’s just not as tall. The height wasn’t the issue with the 51515, so I will try mounting that again at next oil change, as I like the idea of a little extra capacity.

Stop calling them Saturday Updates

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Back onto the headlight bezel thing for a minute.

The new outer bulb brackets are the same size as the old brackets, so that’s not the problem. It looks like the bulbs are just sitting off center in the bucket. Kicking that can on down the road for another day.

There is this thing that also needs attention.

Which looked like this after a little while

and is now torn down even further… No spark. New points, condenser, coil, and a fresh fuse.

Anyway, back to the other lady.

I replaced the heat exchanger hoses (which were held on with black household caulk) and the air intake hose (Amazon link). All shiny, but man that original cardboard covered hose is so much sturdier. I will likely end up having to put that back on unless I can find one that isn’t made of aluminum foil.

More of that purplish paint back here.

Every couple of days, when I lift up the trunk lid, the gas tank has overflowed here around the fuel sending unit. “New gas tank” he said. Sometimes it’s a little puddle and sometimes it has flowed all down the sides and into the spare tire well.

I tried to measure the resistance of the fuel sending unit with a multimeter, to figure out why the gas gauge stopped working, but either I wasn’t doing it right, or it’s dead. But either way, new gasket and mounting screws with little nylon washer things to snug down in the mounting holes better (Amazon link).

Seeing as how the spare tire well is always wet with water (and hopefully no longer with gas) it’s pretty rusty down in there. I thought that would be a good, out of sight, place to do some painting.

I got some nylon cup brushes (Amazon link) and went after it in the wrong order (the softest one didn’t remove much, so I stepped up and removed a little more, then stepped up to the stiffest one and removed a little more).

Wiped it all down with acetone and started spraying. First with rust converter, then primer.

You can see that the factory Zenith Blue paint is actually blue, when you put a gray primer up against it.

There are some weird angles in there and I had a couple of runs. I’m a well-qualified rattle can spray painter, but this Krylon Fusion 2 in 1 really runs wayyy too easily.

I pulled the inspection panel covers off and gave them the business as well.

Rust converter
Filler primer
Low glass black engine enamel
Rebuilt.

And then a couple of quick coats of Matte Vintage Blue paint, Krylon Fusion. Oh, and I did wipe off that body tag and the gas tank with acetone after each coat to get rid of the over-spray.

Note: This color is apparently no longer available from Krylon. That happens SO OFTEN – I find something I like and it immediately is removed from the marketplace. I only bought one can and am now hitting every Ace Hardware in town trying to buy up all remaining stock. They are completely gone from Lowes…

Why are there flies all over my truck?

Anyway, with it all back together, it looks pretty sharp. The color match isn’t too bad for some random rattle can from Lowes.

I don’t think I would paint the outside of the car with it, but if I’m doing body work and removing rust, it would definitely be a better alternative to leaving it in primer for who knows how long.

Seriously, there are flies all over…

The Next Saturday Updates

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Back at it this weekend. I’ve got replacement headlight buckets to be mounted.

Rusty screws
It’s nasty back in there
Brake Kleened
Tight fit on that bottom mounting screw
Broken plastic
Hella SB12
That’s factree.
Another tight fit on the bottom mounting screw

You can tell in the last picture and the fact that the bottom mounting screws were so hard to get at on both sides, the bulbs are sitting off center, way down at the bottom right. The chrome bezels wouldn’t mount over the bulbs. That’s a problem for another day.

From the spare tire well fiasco, you can tell she had a front end shunt at some point. Also evidenced by the front trunk lid being smooshed in around the handle.

The front trunk is always wet (with water AND gas, more on that later). I tried putting a big fat weatherstrip seal around the underside of the trunk lid, but that didn’t work and quickly peeled off. $26 well spent.

While poking around, I found another area where water was getting in. The sunlight caught my eye.

Removed the handle and sprayed some rust converter on both sides.

I replaced the hood handle seals (Amazon link) and put a strip of copper shielding tape I had laying around (Amazon link), left over from a couple of noisy guitars I was working on last year.

In doing some further archaeology, I found there is another vinyl seat cover underneath the black vinyl seat cover on the driver’s side.

And just below that, I found the stickers on the new floor pans that were installed on both sides. It looks like 2009, but that may just be a part number or something.

“I’ve never seen such good floor pans in an original car” he said. “I’ve never seen such an unmolested original car” he said. I’m happy it has new floor pans in it and a rebuilt engine, but that’s not the original engine, either, friendo.

These are good things, I suppose, more work has been done than I thought, but the “original” was what I thought I was paying up for. Oh well.

There appears to be a bug on my backup camera.