Story of my life: March 2008

Some water line work for the 4ag

So the 4AG 20 valve never came in a RWD application. The above photo shows where the water outlet for the top of the radiator used to go, and the holes in the back of the head is where the thermostat used to sit along with a pipe to go to the lower radiator hose. The previous owner of the engine did the 16 valve water pump conversion on this motor, but it was a bit ugly. So I did what anyone else would do. Re-do some of the plates etc.

Here is the blanking plate for the exhaust side of the head:

Cleaned up, fitted to the head with new bolts:

Next came the hose outlet for the intake side. This one goes from the head to the top of the radiator. I used what I had, and cut up the old flanges and pipes.

Must have beer while you work!

Two of the pieces now welded together, getting ready for the flange for the head to get welded on.

and here is the piece before grinding down the welds and making it look pretty.

Oh and not much work on Andy's truck lately. Today he used some rust converter for the hard to reach cracks and a bit of the floor to keep the rust at bay. If you look closely, you can see the dash mocked up and see how insanely small that windshields going to be.

Last but not least, it's kinda hard to see in pix, but last night I did a spray out on the two colors I decided to paint my car. When the paint was 1st laid out, it didn't look as though they'd match, but after letting it dry out over night, and placed in the sun...damn it looks pretty nice. I just have to take it to class on Monday and bomb some clear over it. That should give me a pretty good idea of what the overall look my Tina will have.

Back panel done for the time being

So this past Saturday, I got down and finshed up the rear panel. There were a few little things that needed some polyester glaze so a skim coat was applied and sanded down.

Sprayed the rear panel with high build primer and for the most part the panel came out alright. there's a little ding i missed right above the right tailight, but I'll come back to that when I block sand the primer.

Closer shot of the rear panel

One more..

Oh, and so I started to dig around on the passenger side 1/4 panel. This is going to be fun. I got my angle grinder out with a 36 grit disk to cut into the old filler. So I sit there and grind a bit, grind a bit more....where's the metal? grind a bit more...and finally i see the metal. I have to say, the filler work in this lower section is about 1/2' thick at the bottom. Man I gotta love the last owner who decided to fill rather than fix.

Looks like there's about 3 layers of filler!

Class is out for the next two weeks, so since I now have some engine bay measurements and my new engine, along with a good used front subframe, I think I'll be mocking up the engine in the subframe and making engine mounts for the 4AG.

Center Console and Engine!

Finally got me a center console for the Cortina, it was a little beat up, but I expected that. It actually was cleaner than I had thought!

So the whole thing was taken apart..

Found a crack in the center of the console...

Bit of MIG welding and all was good!

Everything was then ground down of little rust spots and old paint.

Another shot

Then sprayed with just regular Rustoleum Satin Black.

It came out pretty decent I thought.

So my next big news is....I finally got my engine for the swap. It's a 1600cc Toyota Twin Cam 20 Valve. 4AG. Came with ECU/Harness and pretty much what I needed.

Looks so good......

MmmMmmmmmm...ITB's!

Work Continues...

Work on the rear panel has started. Stripped the rear panel back to bare metal, nothing too surprising, both lower corners were a bit pushed in, but nothing a nail gun couldn't fix. Both corners were pulled, along with a couple low spots on the center portion of the panel.

Driver side, somewhat complete and in primer. Still have to block sand the primer.

I wasn't feeling the emblems on the back of the Cortina, so all the emblem holes were welded up..

I left the two holes on top, I figured I'd have to put a plate somewhere...

Welds ground down flush with the body..

And of course, filler work. I guess it's something that has to be used, As long as I keep it low, all should be good.

I went to cars and coffee before class this past weekend, and took some reference photos of 4 Cortinas. Was pretty amazing to see 4 in one place, was a really cool show, so I may have to try and get up at the crack of dawn again to check out all the other exotics..I was way too focused on the Cortinas. http://www.flickr.com/photos/12867379@N00/sets/72157604084513341/ linky of the reference photos.

Stupid Camera Phone

I keep forgetting to take my camera to school, so I'm stuck using my stupid camera on my phone. Finally, the car's starting to look decent, the driver side from fender to quarter panel is all in primer, next stop, rear panel and I think I'm going to weld up all the emblem holes and go with no emblems.

The sill didn't have a whole lot of damage, only a small patch towards the front, that I welded up at home, a few lows that were pulled and as always, a little bit of filler.

My instructor wasn't very happy with the way the door was turning out, so he layed out some polyester filler on the door and sanded the whole thing down for me. Showed the class on how to use the air file, and how to straighten out a panel using only air tools. I actually learned a few things that day!

After the door was worked, took it into the spray booth and bomed some high build primer on the sucker, I should have checked the spray pattern before I layed out the primer, I really messed up the bottom of the door, but it's only primer so it should all sand out, just more work for me.

This past weekend, I stripped the back left 1/4 panel, and to my surprise, that's the cleanest pannel on my car so far, only a small section was rotted, so I had to make a patch about 2" square