1974 Rolling Resto

[Jimbosocal]

Way to go Colin!

They should look GREAT on your car.

[Colin]

I spent the better part of a Saturday afternoon with some aircraft paint remover and a power washer trying to get the old paint off the wheels. This was a pretty futile exercise. The stripper lifted the clear pretty easily, but it is just USELESS on the paint. I think I will have to take them in to get sandblasted.

I was able to get most of the gouges out of the lips of the wheels with some 320 grit paper and an DA sander. I still think I will paint over the lips, however, and just go full silver for the wheels.

I also fitted up one wheel on the front of the car. I think 7" is really as wide as you can go without hitting the steering linkage. ET25 really is just about right, too. I think I will have to run 195/50s for tires and roll the fenders as well, just to be safe.

[Jimbosocal]

Colin,

Thank you for posting the progress of your paint job! I have been debating whether or not my compressor (1.25 HP 3 gallon Craftsman) is up to painting a car. I'm using a HVLP spray gun and the paint says to use 6-10 psi, but something tells me I'm going to need a larger compressor (at least a larger tank). I'm buying a used Campbell Hausfeld tomorrow like yours (5.5 HP, 26 gallon) so I can start spraying primer on Thursday and basecoat/clearcoat on Friday. I'll post pictures on my project blog (1973 Repainting Myself) over the weekend! I figure after spendinging $500 on paint, that last thing I need is orange peel paint because of a wimpy compressor!

Jim

[Colin]

Here are some post-paint photos that I took ages ago but just developed.

[jgerock]

Where is the reverse light switch on a 240? I cannot see it in your pictures.

[quote name="ColinI also got a Getrag 240 5 speed transmission. This is less common than the usual Getrag 245' date=' but its much more compact and also a few pounds lighter so that makes it more attractive to me. I'm not building any sort of high horse power engine so the aluminum selector forks should be plenty strong.

[/quote]

[Colin]

Where is the reverse light switch on a 240? I cannot see it in your pictures.

[quote name="ColinI also got a Getrag 240 5 speed transmission. This is less common than the usual Getrag 245' date=' but its much more compact and also a few pounds lighter so that makes it more attractive to me. I'm not building any sort of high horse power engine so the aluminum selector forks should be plenty strong.

[/quote]

Its on the passenger side.

[Colin]

I realize I've been quite bad about posting updates, but I've gotten a number of things done on the car in the past few months. The big updates include getting Massive's Wilwood calipers on the front. These are a really nice upgrade from the stock brakes and I've extremely pleased with the kit. I had to switch to an E12 master cylinder as the Wilwoods are only a single inlet caliper, but this was no biggie.

I also put a new 32/36 with an electric choke on. I plan to Megasquirt the car, eventually, so I was trying to nurse along my tired old Weber, but it was just getting to not be worth it, especially when I realized I could get a new 32/36 from Webercarbsdirect.com for just over $200.

I also replaced the driveshaft center bearing AND the driveshaft. I have a new clutch master cylinder as my old one was leaking like crazy. I switched to the smaller diameter engine fan which has actually quieted the car a fair amount.

Next up I will be turning down the rear hubs with my new lathe (hopefully!) and installing the longer ARP wheel studs so that I can mount some new wheels. I'm going with some big 16x7s and will be machining some custome spacers to fit these.

I have also slowly started to build some coilovers for the front of the car.

[Colin]

Got a few more small things done on the car today. I adjusted the window on my replacement door (finally) and now its sealing and closing better. Its quite tricky to do this and I wish I could offer some tips. All I can say is that you sort of have to loosen up the vent window and all the bolts for the window mechanism and just play with it until it fits nicely and seals evenly at the top of the door seal.

I also got my rear hubs machined down for the rear disc brakes. I have brembo and ATE rotors and they fit exactly the same for both.

I also installed some ARP studs for my new wheels. I have read on this forum that you need an arbor press to install them, but its not necessary.

I put the hubs in a vice and drove out the old studs with a 3 lb. drilling hammer. One swift blow is best.

To install the new studs, I used an impact wrench, some oil on the threads, and two washers to "pull" the stud through. It works great.

Here is a video I found on youtube which shows a similar process.

[Colin]

I haven't updated this in ages, but have gotten lots done in the last few months. I'll have more photos soon, but here are Lee's front brakes with the Wilwood calipers and the new 16" wheels.

Rear disc conversion is also done.

The Wilwoods work very well. Stopping is straight, quiet, and pedal modulation is great. No signs of fade what so ever and they seem to mate well with the vw calipers in the rear. I had to put on an E12 master cylinder as the Wilwoods are a single line input. I also had to find some different grommets for the master cylinder (the I.D. on the E12 M.C. was wrong).

Hopefully in the next two weeks I can do a big photo dump here.

[Colin]

I finally got around to rolling my fenders this afternoon. I had some rubbing on the lip but nothing major.

I rented the Eastwood fender roller and I have to say that I wasn't that impressed. For what it costs, there are many flaws with the design and it doesn't seem to hold up that well.

For the front, I rolled the lip but then also used the roller up higher on the fender, above the lip, and "pulled" the whole fender out so that it has a slight bulge. This seemed to offer up plenty of clearance even with my 205/45/16 setup.

I hammered out a small dent on the passenger side while I was there. I am going to be respraying the whole front section of the car so I figured "what the hell" and just went at it. I have some crash damage where some asshole pulled into my car and smashed in the nose.

I think I might design a better fender roller specifically for 02s. The problem with the Eastwood one is that it is actually too long for the rear arches. You can only really get good contact in one small spot. I think I can improve upon the Eastwood design quite a bit. I'll post updates when I have something

Next week I'll drop out the front sub frame to replace some bushings. After that its on to EFI...

[ThatGuy]

Paint looks great, too bad about the douchebag in the SUV smashing the front.

[Colin]

Here are some photos of the dent repair process.

These shots show the damage left when someone pulled into the nose of my car.

Its hard to tell from the angles, actually, but the front is pretty pushed in.

Here is the damaged area with the paint taken off. The angles I shot it from are actually really horrible and you can't see the extent of the damage (sorry!) The areas directly underneath the vertical supports were the worst. I think I bondo'ed them before because I didn't have much time, so this time I wanted to be able to do a totally bondo-less repair.

Here is the result after bumping, slapping and shrinking.

I had to reconstruct the lines of the panel, including the "point" in the middle of the nose. Also, getting the areas around the vertical supports was a bit tricky.

The dark areas are slight low spots that are left that color from the shrinking process. After sanding they blend right in to the surrounding metal and you get a very straight piece.

Here is the top bit which was pretty ugly.

There was actually a HOLE in this part. Horrible.

Again, the angle is lousy but I filled the hole with the MIG and then bumped thing out a bit and then skimmed it with bondo. I'll have more after shots later.

The entire front of the car is epoxied now and then I'll do some blocking and then color and clear.

[indisguise]

Nice work Colin.

I am about to deal with the same mess....

What are you using for the slapping and shrinking? a spoon or heat?

[Colin]

Nice work Colin.

I am about to deal with the same mess....

What are you using for the slapping and shrinking? a spoon or heat?

I used a bit of both, actually. I use a light dinging spoon first and then heat afterward.

[Colin]

Well, after two years of thinking about it and planning, I got my EDIS system and megasquirt installed. I'm still running the carb, for now, though, but even with that the improvement is tremendous. Everything worked without a hitch, much to my surprise. Thanks to everyone on here who has shared info, its been a huge help.

The installation took about 8 hours of work out in the rain but that is with everything pretty much prepped before hand. I had to make a few brackets, but most of the time was spent wiring the 37 pin DSUB (I wanted to make the hole through the firewall as small as possible so I soldered the connector afterwards).

Can't wait to get the fuel part worked out!