Finally working on the valance. It was in really rough shape. It's obvious it's had quite a few hits. Since they aren't too expensive to get replaces I'm not going to break my back trying to get it perfect. It's dented so badly in a few spots I'm worried about oil-canning once I hammer it out from the metal stretching. I did manage to get 90% of the dents out though and started to apply filler. I was blown away at how much filler was applied to it when i was stripping it. It was about 1/4" thick in an area that was completely straight. I don't understand people. Also, most of the dents did come out with just 2 hours of hammering. If i spend half a day on it I could get it really straight but that's when I'd be worried about the oil-canning so I'm going to leave it as is. I imagine someone proficient would have gotten more out and smoother than myself but rather this thing was loaded with filler.... it absolutely baffles me...
It looks like a lot of filler in the image but it's the second coat and has yet to be sanded. The first coat was thin and took care of most of the small dents. The second one looks like it may be the last one but I have a lot of sanding to do. I will probably take most of it off once done. I tend to lay it on a little thicker than I probably should which causes a lot more sanding work for me but still, it's not too terrible sanding it down when you have the right materials.
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After this I'll be putting her away for yet another winter...
Oh! So I took her for a long drive in the neighborhood and discovered something... I had yet gotten her up to speed enough to shift out of first since getting her driving this summer. You'd think I would have learned from the last time I took the Transmission out.... So I had been getting nervous about the shuddering she was doing off the line and why the hell I had to have her up in 2-3K RPM to get her going and having to ride the clutch for so damn long after she started rolling. I have a bigger cam so I just chocked it up to that and it's a new friction plate on the clutch so I thought that was the shuddering. Turns out I was not starting out in 1st but I was starting out in second. I stupidly installed all three linkage plates in upside-down which completely flipped my shift pattern. 1<-->2 and 3<-->4 and reverse was left and down instead of up... oye... That is the second time I had done that. I did it the first time I built the engine back in '04. Lesson learned? not so much. I'll be taking care of that first thing next spring when i get her out of hibernation.
I also got the axles squared away with respect to installing 1/2-20 studs. It turns out after removing the stock studs the holes were the perfect size to tap with 1/2-20 threads. So I went with screw-in studs instead of press-in studs. It turned out really nice and now I have the same lug nuts all the way around with the correct 45deg taper for these wheels.
Here is the latest photo shoot... with the gloss snorkels installed and sans valance...
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...3-2-1 Cali haters chime in
