Project Sic Sic 620

[lowdatsun620]

Damn, lost post.

 

Played around with phantom grilles made from two newer style grilles. 75 came with two, while 77 came with an older style with the chrome trim, which I like better.

 

Here's one light left open, looks kinda like toyota. Both mounting tabs are close, ribs have more overlap for fitment and easier to blend end and middle around the headlight bucket.

 

Here's full phantom. Would require a third grille to bring ribs right to end, or perhaps turn signals in the ends to fill the few inch gap. It looks bigger than it is, because those fenders are rotted. Maybe 2.5" from last rib to edge. I kinda like idea of signals. Then I'd shave the chin.

 

Could do something like this too, kinda classic Camaro look to it.

 

Sorry for the shit quality, was getting dark.

 

Also played with headlight buckets, flipping to the backside of the mounts. Would gain an inch of depth with a couple spacers and some trimming. Didn't get pics. LED 5 3/4" replacements are available in shallower versions too. Then just trim out backs of grille around bulbs for clearance. Will help light output if shallower anyways.

 

Haven't thought about doing a Cougar-type retractable cover. Cool, but probably too much.

[lowdatsun620]

Thought about combining a pair of these style motorcycle 5 3/4" with a pair of normal high beams under that phantom. There's several different styles of these multi-projector lights, if you google 'LED 5 3/4 headlights' I can't grab that link on my ipad. Kinda remind me of WRX projectors.

http://www.invisionsales.com/lighting/images/stories/products/large/Lamp_Insert-8630.gif

[lowdatsun620]

Double post.

[lowdatsun620]

This just happened.

 

Going to grind down the cuts and start wire wheeling the firewall when it cools off this eve.

[lowdatsun620]

Picked up a needle scaler after seeing one decimate undercoating on YouTube. Results were not quite as advertised, but sorta worked.

 

Darker, oil stained spots seemed much softer. It made less mess than the wire wheel, bigger clumps, and no burning/smearing, but it can leave divots in the metal, especially on outside corners, would not use on top side sheet metal. This corner took me about half an hour to get to this point, after which I hit it with the wire wheel, and that went much smoother with most of the undercoat gone.

 

 

This was about 1.5 hours. I just wire wheeled the right side as I'd already knocked most of the undercoat off previously, and some was completed already. I decided to try this razor blade scraper handle when I tired of noise, it dug in and broke 2/3 of the blade right away, then I realized the box of 100 blades it came with were plastic blades, for removing window tint...how deceiving. Used the broken blade with 1/3 left on it's own, and realized it was probably the fastest, cleanest method yet. Did the top around the trans tunnel in 5 mins. Takes most of the underlay off, sometimes right down to the red primer with no effort. Seldom gets ALL the underlay, but enough it should make a huge difference in wire wheel speed.

 

Good thing I found a quiet method to do most of it, because I got a bylaw noise complaint from some lady down the street. No fine, just told me to find a way to do the noisey shit in the garage. Apparently she went to my neighbours and asked them to complain for her, but they wouldn't, they don't care. I like them and if I hear them in the back yard I find something quieter to do, but obviously I can't check everybodies schedules. Dunno why she couldn't just come talk to me herself, gotta try and get me fined $500.

 

Guess tomorrow I'm either cleaning and reorganizing the garage, or turning my shitty leaky, steel, sunbaked, wasp hive of a shed into a grinding shack.

[hobospyder]

I say record the sound of the noise and set up a speaker near her bedroom window. On warm nights when she's in bed just play it

 

Or get an annoyatron and attach it to her house/car

[lowdatsun620]

Ok, so this past week I took a couple days to totally clean the garage out, rearrange stuff to have more room to work, then had friends coming over for the weekend so had to do chores n crap, then it's been crazy hot so enjoying the comfort of beaches and A/C. I did manage to squeeze a few hours of work on the truck here n there.

 

I picked up a needle scaler, which is probably as loud or louder than the grinder, especially on underside of the bed, and overall might take a little longer since it'll still need to be wheeled after, but it makes very little dust and doesn't fling debris clear across the garage, so it's nicer to work with (no gloves, no mask, glasses aren't even really required (dont listen to me, wear your PPE kids!)). Hopefully overall it's quieter outside, with me inside. I'd rather put $500 into one of these trucks than the city's bylaw coffers.

 

Here's the frame so far. Only done drivers rail, back to rear cab mounts, half the rad support and some of the engine crossmember, took about 2.5hrs maybe. All the paint and loose stuff is off, a quick brush, wipe and you could POR this no problem, with great results, but I'm still going to wheel it and get rid of as much rust then epoxy primer.

 

 

Contemplating what to do with crossmembers, they interfere with laying, I no longer need the torsion mounts and a 2x6 laid flat should be about perfect to lay rail and support the carrier bearing, so Ill probably just cut em out. But I'm a ways from affording a welder and I obviously don't want to cut the only two crossmembers left on the truck between the front and rear ones before something is in place. I'll probably just leave them in their condition till they come out.

 

Here's what I've accomplished on underside of the bed, and the tools used, in about 2.5-3hrs, but most of the top row was brute force with only the needler, I could probably do it all in 1.5 now.

 

 

First I take the yellow scraper, one of those pull scrapers with the replaceable blade that's like a thick razor but with the blades bent 90, and I just scrape as much undercoating/dirt/grease off the ridges, making sure to get the edges too. Maybe 7 seconds of scraping per length of ridge, doesn't have to be perfect, you just want to get as much of the soft crud off quickly. Then I use a 1/2" chisel to do the same in the valleys, again just quickly, don't worry about the edges, it's kind of awkward getting them and won't matter much. This will probably do a number on your chisel by then end, if you care, I don't. You can use anything you have that will scrape the soft stuff off, I just had these around, but the pull scraper is super efficient and the chisel was all I had that fit, a gasket scraper was just too wide to hit the valley flats. You could modify and sharpen the edge on a putty knife to fit the troughs and make it super quick, but whatever.

 

If you do this quick scrape, the needler works WAY more efficiently and will literally blast what's left of the crud and paint away. Just start with the scraped areas, working around and into any unscraped areas. Once the scraped flakes away around it, the needler makes short work of any cruddy spots, just work back and forth on them and quickly they will just peel from the surface. The key with this tool is to hold it almost perpendicular to the surface like this

The tool "seems" like it should be used at shallow angles like a power scraper, especially on the soft stuff, it's quieter, vibrates less, but it's nowhere as efficient. Prep, and hold it as above, and the needles will jar and jab the surface, it'll be loud as a top fuel dragster, and vibrate like a coin operated bed, but the paint chips will rain like confetti on New Years. And the LESS effort you use with this method the better. The more lightly you hold it against the surface, I guess the more the needles deflect on impact and the better it chips. You really just have to press a little on the unscraped stuff to get the vibrations into that boundary layer between paint and metal to get it to detach and peel away.

 

A last note on it, works great on solid parts like frames and the corrugated bed floor, presumedly axles, steel wheels and suspension parts too, but sheet metal has too much give, doesn't really let the needles get that solid impact. It's also fairly violent, doesn't leave a totally smoothed surface. Nothing that will affect thick paints and unseen parts, but I'd find other options for stripping those goodies.

 

Also gave the good old aircraft stripper a go on my firewall and the inside cab back wall.

Only wire wheeled the firewall below the drip rail, just scraped the rest with a putty knife.

Anybody have tips for using this stuff? It'll burn on your skin and burn through latex gloves too so scraping it, especially if you use too much is a real hassle. I started with thin coats on the front, applied I think 3, one after 10, then one more after maybe another 5 minutes, just where it wasn't working as effectively, some spots it helped some just seemed more resistant to it. Then I let it sit maybe another 20. Most of it scraped off beautifully, and was mostly clean and dry metal beneath. Once I scraped everything, there were a few patches that only partially stripped, so I reapplied thinly. Some worked a bit more, most had little effect and now I had this extra caustic gunk all over the place that wasn't reacting with anything, just getting gunkier. I had to wipe it down with shop rags and keep changing gloves every time I got some on them. Real PITA. Then of course what was left of the dried residue I had to wire wheel off into dust, which must be just super healthy.

Anyways, the back wall went a bit smoother, I just did a few fine coats again, decided I'd try to get as much to lift before scraping and not doing it twice. It was kinda a mix of both scrapes, more lifted clean, but some still left and was a little excess product, but not as bad as the firewall.

 

Is there some prep I could do to help it work better? Scuffing/scratching to let it under the paint? Degreasing maybe? Just let the light coats do what they will and leave more for the wheel? Let it dry longer before scraping? What's worked for you guys?