I inherited this car when my Dad passed last year. He had this in his shed. I was under the impression that he was keeping it in good shape, but as he got older, I think it was left to sit a bit. A lot of undercarriage and frame rust, body is in good shape except for a couple of small spots under rear wheel skirts. Needs new brakes, brake lines, gas tank clean up, radiator, exhaust, and probably a lot of clean up of rust. I do not think a frame off is necessary, and don't really have the ability or set up to do this anyway. I started by putting up on jack stands, removing wheels, brakes, backing plates, and gas tank.

Brake drums are off and restored. I have all new brake parts. Going to keep original drum set up. SS brake lines are sitting here.

 

I pulled bumpers. Do not need re-chroming, but rust behind the bumper will be cleaned up and painted to prevent return. Gas tank dropped. Wet blasted with abrasive media and power washer set up. Worked quite well. Needs a few pinholes soldered.

 

Once the pin holes are soldered up I'm going to paint this using Eastwood's tank tone. I dropped the differential and rear suspension. Going to sandblast and go with epoxy primer and the black satin urethane overcoat. That's the same thing I'm going to the frame, under carriage and parts

 

Keep going! Does it run?

 

Yes. I got it running before the deconstruction. The points needed to be cleaned up and a new battery and some fuel in the carb, and it ran fine. I wanted to post a video of it running and the MP4 could not be uploaded.

 

Very cool!

Sorry to hear your dad passed though.

Make sure you wear PPE when you line that fuel tank. It's nasty stuff.

Instead of posting the video to our website, it's easier to post it to YouTube and provide a link.

 

Thanks for the kind words. Dad made it to 94. He was in pretty rough shape at the end, but he was happy to hear that I was going to get the car restored. He needed round the clock care at the end, so when it was my shift, I would work on it while he was taking naps.

 

Eastwood tank tone after 2 coats. I'm not 100% happy with the finish. It's a bit rough and chalky. It should do the job though. I might thrown on a third coat. I'm cleaning up the sending unit. It's in good shape. Will likely just keep bare metal, but I do worry about it rusting. Tank tone or clear? Next order of business is to media blast differential, axles, control arms, suspension.

 

Nice job Nick, sorry about your Dad.

 

Don't paint the fuel sending unit. You don't want to damage it and it needs a secure connection to the car.

 

Thanks for the advice. I would only paint non attachment points. If I don't paint, any ideas to keep it from rusting?

 

Don't over-think your build. The factory never painted the fuel sending unit. If you install it unpainted then it will need replacement again in another 50 years.

 

To prevent rust, a light coating of marine grease, Eureka Fluid Film etc.

Kudos to you for the desire to perform complete detailed work.

 

Subscribed. Nice to see the big cars get some attention, you should join the "Darksiders" thread on here.

 

Make sure to replace every inch of rubber fuel line, I would hate to see all your hard work go up in flames.

 

Great car. Very nostalgic seeing that car. Thanks for posting your restoration process for all of us to see and learn something. Best wishes, it's going to be awesome

 

Thanks for the advice. That is my plan regardless of how decent the rubber looks. While I am there, right? I am replacing the brake lines with SS from inline tube, and was considering replacing the steel fuel lines, but they look a bit tricky to access.

 

Funny that you say that. I was wondering about greases or oil and was looking at the marine grease I used on my motorcycle bearings for my cross country trip. Problem is that it is a red color, and pretty tacky. I had thought about cosmoline, but that stuff dries out and gets nasty in a few years. Fluid film is a good idea. I have used Blaster surface shield in the past and it might be a good idea to put that on the sending unit, maybe even the top of the tank where moisture might accumulate.

 

I polished the rear bumper a few months ago, but now I have to address clean up of the lights and license bracket. The back of the bumper is also quite rusted, even though the outside is in great shape. There are no reasonably priced rechroming places near me, so I would have to ship it or drive quite a ways if I wanted to re-chrome. My initial thought was to get as much of the rust off the back as I can with wire wheel, disc, and then treat it with phosphoric acid, neutralize, and then spray something like a Rustoleum hammered silver just to protect the back of the bumper from further corrosion. This is not going to be a show car, but I don't like doing anything half assed. The thing is, once installed, I will never see the back of the bumper again. Opinions?

 

One other thing. My plan is to clean up all the undercarriage and frame rust and spray an epoxy primer covered with some type of chassis black product. Still undecided which one. Occasionally I will come across miscellaneous small parts and want to clean them up, blast them and paint them. For Simplicity I thought I might use something like a rust-oleum vs. dealing with all that a spray gun entails., but I'm a little bit untrusting of rattle can products. So for something like this bumper bracket. What say the hive? Rust-Oleum gray primer and Satin black? Wait till I'm mixing up and spray it?

 

I don't think the back looks bad at all. Just give it a good wire brushing and apply dp90 epoxy sealer rust preventative. I used it on the chassis of my cutlass and seems to hold up great.

 

Back of the bumper wasn't too bad but needed to be dealt with. First wire brush, then a couple of phosphoric acid treatments. Phosphoric acid neutralized and power washed off. Degreaser. Then three coats of Rustoleum hammered silver. Will reinstall light hardware then rear bumper done.

 

EXCELLENT!

I painted the outside of the fuel tank in my 71 98 with Rustoleum hammered silver. It still looks great 8 years later.

Here's another product you can use under the car.

https://por15.com/

 

Finally ran copper pipe and got my spray set up in my garage. I don't have a spray booth set up so I'm just working on things piecemeal. Using SPI epoxy primer. Matte black. Has UV inhibitor should should last for a long time

 

Unbolted the rear suspension and differential. Going to clean them up, mitigate rust, and paint.

 

This thing was completely caked in rust. An hour or so with an angle grinder and wire brush - pretty good. Will have to get a few nooks and crannies with something smaller. One of the brake line tabs was rusted and damaged. I have to decide if I want to buy a new one and weld a replacement in place. I have an old stick welder of my dad's and zero welding skills. I have gas welded before. That actually might not be a bad way to go for this. Regardless I will likely drain and replace all fluid, and Epoxy primer this spring

 

You may want to try an electrolysis bath to de-rust some of the parts. You build the bath, put the parts in and let them "cook" for a few days. NO stainless for electrodes allowed, it emits dangerous gas.

 

If you take the brakes apart just a warning that you can't easily find a kit to replace all the springs and parts that hold the shoes on like one can with an A-body. I'm under the impression some of that stuff is only available used from a parts car. John

 

I have replacement parts for the brakes, but kept all of the old Springs and small parts just in case.

 

I have used electrolysis before, but wire brushing, abrasive disc, or sandblasting seems to be working out okay

 

You're doing amazing work on the mechanical restoration. What kind of condition is the body and interior? Would love to see some pics

 

Thanks. I am truly making it up as I go. If I had the ability and facility a frame off would have been the way to go just for ease of getting at stuff, but I am not doing that since I don't have that skill set or assistance. The interior and body are in great shape. The issue is that it was a Chicago car that saw salted roads, and Grandpa had the car undercoated which was basically a layer of rubberized tar. All that did was make a mess for me to clean up, and a lot of rust formed behind the undercoating. I might have one small area of the body by a wheel skirt that needs fixing. It needs a new or rebuild of radiator and the brake system. All else seems OK.

 

If the tanks are good which is likely, consider getting the radiator recored for originality vs. replaced. Also do a very thorough flush before repairing/replacing the radiator to keep the junk out of the new rad.

Keep up the great work!

 

Thanks! That's the plan, but I am still working on where to get it done. I prefer not to ship if I can avoid that.