Chapter 16 - Still more bodywork, and a bit of engine rebuilding.
Well guys its about time I did an update to keep you all in the loop of where The Cat is and what I am up to. I havent spent a great deal of time on The Cat in the last month as work has been really busy (spent 1 whole week away in FNQ), and the fact that I had Jamie's (DaMokeMan) Moke in for its G13B engine conversion. Well the Moke's all finished now, so I can spend some more time on doing mine.
Previously, I had sent the shell out to be sandblasted. I knew the shell had some rust in it when I bought it. I also thought that I had found all the rust and repaired it - how wrong I was. When you have a shell sandblasted, any rust spots will definately come through as big gaping holes, and so it was with The Cat.
Part way along one sill was a patch or two that I knew about. That was fine. But what I didnt know that whoever did the job did a sh!t job and that it was mostly bog filling rather large holes.
This is what I was presented with when I picked it up from the sandblasters:
On closer inspection:
So obviously the rotten bits had to come out, and the only way to do that properly was with Mr Angle Grinder:
And, new pieces had to be cut to fit and then welded into place. I used 1.2mm sheet here because the sill could benefit from the added thickness:
Another angle:
Then all that was left was to grind off the excess weld with a flap-disk:
And from a slightly different angle. It is not so critical that the surface be file-finished perfect as the side-skirts will cover all of this area. It is important however, to make sure that no rust exists in his location, as it easily and very quickly gets out of control.
The engine was looking a bit worse for wear after I had cleaned it with Blitz. It wasnt the blitz that made it look unsightly, but general wear and tear, and ingress of water behind the timing belt cover. It was looking a bit rusty in there. I had to take the timing belt off to change it anyway, so I decided to strip the motor down into its basic parts and clean and paint them.
This is how the motor looked after the gearbox was taken off:
And the gearbox, even though it came up all right after the Blitz, was well and truly oxidised from the exposure to the elements:
So, after stripping the engine down in base components, it was time to paint. The sump and block were done with gloss black engine enamel, and the IM, head and gearbox were done with bright aluminium. I hate polishing, you end up re-polishing for ever, so paint was the way to go. And the end result wasnt too bad:
Well thats all for now. The shell is off to the panel beater/spray painter on Wednesday to get its stuff done. He will have it for four weeks as he is doing it in between jobs. So, the next pictures you see will be of the enntire car straight and undercoated, ready for the bodykit fitment.
