Okay, got some actual work done today. Ran over to Harbor Freight and bought an angle die grinder, a 5 inch air sander, some roloc arbors, a bunch of sanding discs and some new brass air line fittings. I was gonna buy a new hose but I had already spent $100 just on that crap, so i held off. Here is the die grinder I got-
The grinder itself is nice but the HF discs suck. I need to get some actual 3M green corps discs. The HF arbor is okay.
Got home, changed out the fittings, set up the new die grinder and went to work on the firewall. I got a lot of it stripped down, I still probably have another couple hours, which translates to another day or two. The compressor did okay, it kept up with the die grinder though it ran almost continuously. But I never ran out of air and I was running it at 75ish PSI without a lot of breaks. I was getting some water out of it, so it definitely needs a filter.
I was able to remove a lot of the really nasty old seam sealer and factory GM snot that they slopped everywhere. For whatever reason the upper left hand corner especially around the brake booster and wiper motor areas is really deeply pitted and rusty. I'm just gonna have to handle that as best as I can. I haven't figured out how I can get up under the cowl area, and I don't think GM ever figured it out either because there is hardly any paint under there. Its pretty ugly around there.
I also scraped a bunch of paint off from the underside. I think I gonna do this in 3 or 4 sections- firewall, floor from the firewall to the rear seat crossmember, and then floor from the crossmember to the back of the car. I may remove the rear axle to do the last section, not sure yet, I'll see how it plays out. Anyways, here's what I got done today-
The grinder itself is nice but the HF discs suck. I need to get some actual 3M green corps discs. The HF arbor is okay.
Got home, changed out the fittings, set up the new die grinder and went to work on the firewall. I got a lot of it stripped down, I still probably have another couple hours, which translates to another day or two. The compressor did okay, it kept up with the die grinder though it ran almost continuously. But I never ran out of air and I was running it at 75ish PSI without a lot of breaks. I was getting some water out of it, so it definitely needs a filter.
I was able to remove a lot of the really nasty old seam sealer and factory GM snot that they slopped everywhere. For whatever reason the upper left hand corner especially around the brake booster and wiper motor areas is really deeply pitted and rusty. I'm just gonna have to handle that as best as I can. I haven't figured out how I can get up under the cowl area, and I don't think GM ever figured it out either because there is hardly any paint under there. Its pretty ugly around there.
I also scraped a bunch of paint off from the underside. I think I gonna do this in 3 or 4 sections- firewall, floor from the firewall to the rear seat crossmember, and then floor from the crossmember to the back of the car. I may remove the rear axle to do the last section, not sure yet, I'll see how it plays out. Anyways, here's what I got done today-
