My new toy... BumbleBee

Daved_XB

With that off it was rinse & repeat on the drivers side followed by unbolting the large rubber nose of the car

The actual structural front bumper of the car was a bloody heavy piece of kit to get undone, lucky I opted to use my universal seat/heavy part holder during this process or I'd have smashed my toes for sure  

I was expecting the two frame bolts that hold the radiator support panel to be rusted solid but they came undone really easy in the end... nice win 

Then it was just a simple task of removing everything holding the engine in, I pulled out the headers too at this point to give me more wiggle room getting the engine & trans out as one block

​​​​​​​Then with the engine mount bolts & the trans mount undone it was a simple task of hooking up the engine hoist & yanking the whole lot out

Daved_XB

Now with that done, I don't really have a plan as such (shocking I know) I'd like to get it up on the hoist before I start cutting into the rear Qtrs, so I guess I'll look to fix the GTO leak when the new transmission pan arrives for that & then I'll swap this up onto the hoist.... I have ordered my 2nd hoist but no details on delivery dates yet 

Daved_XB

Decided to get back into this today, first job... remove the doors

Then pulled the boot lid & added that to the pile of panels

Then carefully remove the rear window trim, I bought this cheap ass tool off ebay for 3 or 4 dollars & it has to be worth it's weight in gold

Then moved onto the rear, first pulling out the lights 

Then the plastic outer bumper followed by the actual crash structure bumper behind it & the wing end plates

Daved_XB

When I was emptying the boot, I was reminded that I have two rare spare wheels for this car, the second which is the space saver is an interesting design, the tyre is stored deflated & folded in on itself 

Next up was the nerve racking task of cutting out the rear window without smashing it... 

​​​​​​​Good to see that the rust was eating its way through under the window too 

So that's all the hanging panels off 

Daved_XB

Tomorrow I might pull the interior out & if I have the time might start looking at cutting the rear Qtr panel off to see what the super structure behind looks like. I'll use the new Qtr to see when to make my cuts to remove the rusty one

Daved_XB

Oh & I'd also cut the exhaust off too before doing all of the above... it's an interesting patch work of many diameter tubes so this won't be going back on & I'm pretty sure that the rear tips are actually whole bike exhaust tubes.

Daved_XB

Pulled the interior out to see how bad the floor is... as bad as it is in places it's better than I thought it would be

In the rear of the car as I was unbolting the drivers side rear seat belt the floor crumbled away with each turn of the ratchet, makes it easier for the passengers to check the rear tyre thread for me I guess

The bolt holding the passenger side rear seatbelt in is stripped so I couldn't get that out but I expect the floor to be just as buggered to be honest 

Up front both footwells have fiberglass laid in them... which is a sure sign of quality previous repair work that won't need to be redone at all

There is a special place in hell for people who do fiberglass repairs of metal cars direct over the rust.... 

Some nice foot ventilation speed holes here that I'll have to repair... but as I said all in all I actually expected it to be worse that this, so I'm oddly happy 

Gremlinertia

Or extend the floor holes and save on petrol by getting passengers to run it a la flintstones?

Daved_XB

You're an ideas man, I've always said that...

Daved_XB

Under the close supervision of my floofy chief engineer I decided to take the joined edges of the Qtr panels back to bare metal so I can see clearly where the spot welds & joins are... note the clouds of bog dust

The more I dug into it the more rust & bog I found at the joins

Based off this I realised that the plan of taking the Qtrs off clean & whole (I had hoped that the rust was at the bottom only) was a waste of time so change of plan I'm just going to cut them off & leave the join sections to tidy up after 

Ah.... love how thick the bog is

The front of the inner wheel arch & the superstructure looks fine 

The front of the inner wheel arch & the superstructure looks fine 

It's Xmas day so I've opted not to piss off my neighbours by grinding the other Qtr panel off today... so I'll do that tomorrow morning 

Daved_XB

Cut the drivers side Qtr off today, again very happy with what was behind it. Again the boot floor upright needs replacing & has a previous repair section already, there is some small repairs needed to the front of the outer wheel tub as well but not enough to justify replacing the tub, I'll just patch that.

I've ordered the boot floor sections out of the US but tonight but all the part sites have notes to say that they experiencing delay with both stock & shipping so I've no idea how long it will take to get them here. I can't put the new Qtr's on until I have the boot floor repaired so I'll alternate between cleaning up the sections where the Qtr attach & back working on the XB again.

Daved_XB

The floor sections I'd ordered have turned up now

Now that I know exactly how these panels attach, I can spend some time on the weekend cutting out the old rusted sections 

Daved_XB

Wow so it's been over a year since I did anything at all with this car other than push it around when it was in the way. I had the engine crane out anyway as I'd just put the engine back in the Challenger & I had an engine stand spare as I'd just taken the Challengers engine off the stand. It only made sense then to finally separate the engine & trans from the Camaro