BUILD THREAD Sweet Johnny & Gina: A Love "Two Large" To Fail

[Sweet_Johnny]

That nerve damage stuff sucks man, the pain gets easier to ignore over time. Hope you can regain some mobility quickly with pt. Looking forward to seeing more progress on this build. Wish I had something to contribute and return the benevolence, but I'm still keeping an eye out for the parts we talked about. Lmk if there are more.

Man, pain and I go way back- I could share some stories but I'll save that for another time. I will say that a BNSF train sent me flying about 20 years ago though, and that's one of my boring ones. Best part of PT is every woman there is incredibly attractive and wants to hold me.

I appreciate you scanning the horizon for my personal "unobtanium", you certainly don't owe me anything my friend.

 

[Sweet_Johnny]

This right here. I've refined my SS over the years with things I've seen to upgrade it with and even re-built a few things better. It doesn't happen over night and well worth it in the long run.

Definitely get the physical limitations, do what you can and don't tear your body up worse in the process.

Thanks for the encouragement, it's always nice to hear positive things. Once I get started I have a tendency to push myself and deal with the ramifications later, so the advice of not doing more damage probably needs repeated to me on a daily basis. Maybe another tattoo is in order.. I get the feeling I'm not the only one here that was raised that way or had to become that way to survive either. Luckily the past few years have taught me an extraordinary amount about myself and what I can improve upon, but my dumb *ss still tried to toss a 50# box of powder up on a shelf as high as my head today.

 

[Built6spdMCSS]

Best part of PT is every woman there is incredibly attractive and wants to hold me.

I've got a funny story about walking into a Bath & Body Works having one of them girls randomly walk up to me and start rubbing my hand with some of their lotion. Couple jokes about a handjob I ended up with a phone number.. 🤣

 

[Sweet_Johnny]

Alright guys I'm a day late but I brought pictures so I hope you'll forgive me, and the good ones are towards the end of this long post which I've split in half due to size. I didn't take many while working because I didn't really see it as being necessary. Time underneath the car has been extremely limited and I haven't done anything exciting under there anyway. I did change the oil and filter again to remove the 15W40/ trans fluid combo that I initially poured in, and Gina now has good ol' 10W30 coursing through her veins. I also opted to treat her to some products that offer up the zinc and other protection these old engines desperately need, and try to keep some on hand.

I flushed the power steering system while I was under there, and greased all the fittings again just for fun. When I purchased the car I removed what I could via suction, leaving the old fluid still inside the gearbox. At the time I topped it off with an entire bottle of Lucas P.S. fluid and called it a day. Even though the new mixture was an improvement I now wanted that gone since it looked horrible and definitely had water in it, and I again refilled it with Lucas P.S. fluid.

When it came time to get greasy, my weapon of choice was a semi-automatic mini Carbyne. The ammo? Lucas Red 'N' Tacky.

Winter began and I replaced the spark plugs and wires but still had to show the distributor some love. I got to that in early December, and that love came in the way of a new cap and rotor to turn this into this.


Here's a shot of my old rubber washer and rotor bug with a new one next to it to show how much was missing. The rubber was actually melted and my coil showed signs of extreme heat, most likely due to this little guy arcing like crazy.


I also took this opportunity to clean the inside of the distributor housing, lube the advance mechanism, and re-grease the ignition module. Gentle cleaning was all that was required to remove the small amount of dirt and corrosion inside, and spray lubricant containing Teflon was carefully shot only where needed. Using the correct grease on the module is paramount to it having a long lifespan, and the wrong stuff can kill it in no time flat. The correct stuff is thermal grease, and I get mine at Radio Shack. Yep, we've still got one. The wrong stuff is silicone dielectric grease and here's why: the ignition module generates a fair amount of heat and needs to dissipate it into the distributor housing quickly. Thermal grease facilitates that whereas dielectric grease is a thermal barrier. I learned that the hard way at age 16 after killing an aftermarket unit by using "spark plug boot grease" because I was told it was correct for the application. It is not.

Does anyone remember when I used oxalic acid to clean some rusty El Camino cargo hooks? I did the same thing to a set of center caps that I bought as backups, and here they are prior to letting them soak. I intend to have 2 slightly different sets of wheels and tires so I can change them out at will.

Here's a side by side comparison of before/ after.

I gave the same treatment to a full set of the correct caps for my '78. Here are 2 of them in all their glory.

While I had the stuff handy I decided to see what it could do to a spare coolant overflow tank I intend to install in my El Camino. Here's what I started with:
And here's the result of it being completely submerged overnight. I think I'll do the same to the one that currently resides on my fender.

This is where Paul Harvey would say "Page two"...

 

[Sweet_Johnny]

And now we've reached the portion that contains the pretty pictures after showing 1 last boring one. I tried both of these but ended up choosing the Meguiar's to try and remove the multitude of oxidation and other issues from the surface of Gina's black paint.

I switched back and forth between applying it by hand and using a small battery operated polisher from Bauer. To be quite honest it was the wrong tool for the job but I don't have a medium sized short or long throw polisher, and I didn't feel like using the 7" Makita. Using the compound made an incredible difference but I did manage to start to burn through a couple spots where the car has been resprayed, as it was surprisingly thin compared to other areas. It appears that the roof has been resprayed at least twice, the passenger quarter and lower half of the passenger door got resprayed only once, and the hood seems to be comprised entirely of overspray and bird dropping residue.

The trunk lid took a little more work because it appeared to be all rust and no paint, but wet sanding with 800 grit quickly revealed that not all was lost. I progressed to 1k and then 1200 but had no 1500 so I decided to see what the compound could really do. I started with this:

Before rubbing out the decent paint I had to do something about all the rust and white primer that just jumped out at you, so I made it less ugly. Really. I did nothing to remediate the rust, solve any issues, or prevent anything from getting worse- this was strictly a "vanity" move to improve the appearance. I grabbed a can of Rustoleum black sandable primer and squirted part of the roof and B pillars as well as a strip atop the passenger quarter panel and another on the passenger front fender where the trim is missing. I spritzed a little on the crumbling and faded bumper filler panels in an attempt to divert attention from those areas too before masking and spraying the trim piece beneath the rear window. Of course it's pointless up close but it made a huge difference in how Gina looks cruising down the street. So without further ado, here's how she looked last night after a trip to the car wash. I drove around a bit between the wash and these pics but you can see water droplets in a few of them. The paint is dry however, and I intend to see what the Ultimate Polish does soon. I also need to polish all the chrome and stainless parts that are supposed to shine. No wax has been applied yet.

 

[Rktpwrd]

Man that’s quite a difference on the paint!
Nicely done.
👍🏻

 

[Sweet_Johnny]

Man that’s quite a difference on the paint!
Nicely done.
👍🏻

Thank you, I appreciate that very much. I admit to deliberately taking the pictures at night for dramatic effect though, since it hides quite a few imperfections that just aren't going anywhere. The change in appearance has garnered stares and compliments from multiple women, which is a considerable step up from the typical person that approaches me at every gas station.

 

[SoFloG]

I knew she had it in her to shine up nice! You worked magic on that trunk.
What did you soak the overflow resevoir in?

 

[Sweet_Johnny]

Thanks bro! Now I have to post pictures taken in the daylight to accurately show what the paint truly looks like, but the trunk surprised me a little for sure.

The reservoir was filled with a mixture of Barkeeper's Friend and hot water and left to sit, but I was sure to shake it a couple of times over the course of about 12 hours. After capping and filling it I mixed more of the solution in the sink and just dropped the tank right in the center, but it was a bit too tall. So I simply draped a dishtowel over the top and let capillary action keep that portion wet.

 

[Sweet_Johnny]

As promised here are some pics I snapped at lunch today. The sun stayed behind the clouds all day so it's the best I could do, but it still reveals plenty.