Finally rotated my G-10 out of Bay One and onto the street in front of my house. it is now my daily driver again.
That left Bay One empty so back to work on the Monte again. The inner door skin is hanging in the paint/prep booth and I took the opportunity to move the cradle out into Bay One and shoot a couple of coats of grey anti-rust primer on the inner surface of the door skin. By way of amplification, the default EDP black coating is not waterproof. Most shops will sand it off to get bare metal to start with. All i did was give it a good scuffing with a sanding disc and then took the shots. This will likely be my only opportunity to have access to this side of the skin as once it is mated to the inner half, they are pretty much a pair for life. I had already sanded a bare area around the perimeter of the skin, about 5/8 inch width. This matches the flange on the inner shell and is where the adhesive will be applied to get the best bond possible.
I also spent a little time in the shop this evening, barked up the compressor, and punched some small holes into the fold over flange on the outer skin. The adhesive will do the structural part of the assembly but i want to tack the fold to the inner skin once it is dollied over and flat. This is not going to be a continuous seam, although that notion is appealing; just a few rose welds about the same way the factory did it.
For round two, I finally was able to slide back under the rear end of the car and start stripping the back frame rails and the kick up over the rear end of all the crap and crud that they have accumulated over the years, including old coats of undercoating. The rails are in decent shape so the next step will be a good soaking with Rust Mort and some time to let that dry and cure. After that the process will be about the same as what I did for the S-10 last summer.
Even in full bunny suit with breather and muffs and full face shield, I still managed to get pelted with debris. Blew up two wire cup wheels, one right down to nothing. Later found one of the cup wires floating around in my beard!!!
Did drop both the old shocks and the rear exhaust pipe hangers out to get better room for the stripping work. The agenda calls for new shocks anyway and I have that UMI cross brace to set in place at that point as well. I had wanted to tack that in permanently once I had it correctly located but it doesn't look like that can done unless the body is off the frame; Now wouldn't that have been nice.
So this week is basically an exercise in cleaning the floor by crawling all over it. Good thing bunny suits are cheap as they die easy and turn from white to black very quickly.
The end game is to get the rear end hung again so I can bring in the S-10 and do a potentially complete replacement of the front brake circuit, including all new lines. BOTHER.
Nick
