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Lots of Work Today – No More Steering Squeal!

August 9th, 2009

I got a lot done.  Part of it last night, but most of it today.  I got the yellow cowl plate clean!  First I chem stripped it, then I applied rust converter.  After the rust converter cured, it was apparent that the rust converter wouldn’t really work, so I wire brushed it all off down to the bare metal.  Took hours.  Shot it with some primer and Rustoleum and it looks a lot better:

Mmmm...  chemicals.  I wore a mask, goggles and gloves.

Mmmm... chemicals. I wore a mask, goggles and gloves.

After the chemical strip.

After the chemical strip.

After wire brushing.

After wire brushing.

Repainted!

Repainted!

Next on the list was to tackle the electrics.  All the cabling that was done on this thing is pish.  Lots of vinyl tape and twisting.  I went through what I thought I could reasonably complete today and knocked a lot of it out.  I reworked the positive leads from the battery to the starter etc.  Did the same for the negative.  Then I wire tied it all into place as best I could.  Have you ever tried to solder 10 gauge stranded copper?  I have the highest wattage soldering gun I could find, and it wasn’t easy.  Heat shrink was also done.

Lots of this kind of thing in there.  There was bubblegum involved.

Lots of this kind of thing in there. There was bubblegum involved.

Cable ties!  Nom nom nom...

Cable ties! Nom nom nom...

New Battery

New Battery

Next I tackled the alternator.  I’m not SURE it was bad, but come on.  It was rattlecanned yellow.  Got the lifetime replacement on the new one.  MUHAHAHA!

Yuck.

Yuck.

Yum!

Yum!

But the BEST part of the day was the fact that while I was working on belts, I tightened up the power steering belt and…. no more squeal!  I was really not wanting to spend any cash on a new pump, so that’s really good news.

I fired it up, and it looks like all my repairs held up.  It sounds pretty good at idle.  The gear slipping is getting worse though.  So vacuum wasn’t the issue.  Definitely in for some tranny work soon.

In the meantime, here is a little video of her purrin along!  For the record – there is now low end in the camera mic, so you hear a lot of the fan noise and not a lot of the rumble.  I’ll take a better recording sometime soon.  In person, it sounds great.  Man I love it….

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Incidently, if anyone knows what the two things in these pictures are, I’d love to know.

Passenger side on the firewall.

Passenger side on the firewall.

Driver side next to brake booster.

Driver side next to brake booster.

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