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My new toy... BumbleBee

Daved_XB

So a few weeks ago was a good day in the Skunk Works… my new Toy turned up from Dublin…

There is a bit of work to be done to get Bumble Bee back on the road here… so now I need to pull my finger out & finished the bloody Challenger so that I don’t end up with 3 big projects on the go at the same time.

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Daved_XB

The first thing is always the need for new Australian compliant seat belts, so I went to my fave seatbelt place Morris in the US & ordered a set of new Aus compliant belts to replace the obviously lethal US spec ones that are in the car today. In fairness the drivers side belt no longer retracts fully anyway so needed to be fixed or replaced either way so two issues fixed there in one go.

Sadly the new belts are generic when it comes to the release button, I’ll lose the GM button for a sad looking push button

I couldn’t see any rear belts at all, but they were just sitting under the rear seat

Another thing that will need to be fixed is the headliner it sags horribly, back when my brother owned this car he had it fixed with spray adhesive & it was fixed for a while but now it’s fallen fully down again. I’m in two minds now as to whether I just try that same re-gluing fix or if I just buy a new one… they come pre-affixed to the cardboard liner in a new kit which will be spotless clean too… not sure what to do there yet.

Looking underneath there is a lot of surface rust that I’ll have to remove from the suspension & chassis & clean up with some underbody paint.. I’ll probably replace all of the front steering bits that are perishable at this time too as I did on the GTO as it’s fairly easy to do & you get the added benefit of removing all the steering & suspension slop as well as making it look better, the alignment is way out as can be seen by the pretty bad scrubbing that the passenger side front tyre has gotten.

Daved_XB

The rear suspension bits are not much better & I’ll most likely replace a lot of them too

The biggest work to be done is on the body really… the years of life in a damp & wet Ireland have really taken their toll on the lower body work of the car… The doors both have rust damage on the lower sections, I’ll strip this paint back on the weekend perhaps & see just how bad it is & if I should order patch repair sections or just complete new doors (as I did with the Challenger) TBH I’m leaning towards complete new doors right now.

The passenger side door is definite the worst, this side used to be parked against the bare metal wall of my brothers garage & I wonder if that somehow effected this side worse than the side in free air?

The driver’s side door isn’t as bad to look at, of course only when the paint is off will I know for sure, it only seems to be at the rear of the door.

The drivers side hinges are stuffed too & they sag nearly 2” so I’ll replace those as all of the adjustment seems to have been used already, you can see how it sits once you open it & then it gets worse the further you open the door.

The rear Qtrs both sides arfe showing signs of rust bubbling thru, the areas affected are in front of the rear wheel, on the arch lip & behind the wheel… so the complete rear Qtr on both sides really

Daved_XB

You can see that the inside of the rear Qtrs is pretty bad too… I’m thinking that it’ll be easier to just remove & replace both Qtrs rather than look at patching them, again when the paint is removed I’ll see how bad it is in there

The paint at the rear below the bumper is peeling off in a massive chunk & is just screaming.. I’ve been painted with a brush.. so that’ll be addressed too

The front passenger side guard is showing some rust at the bottom leg

In fact you can see where it’s broken off where it bolts to the chassis of the car

The headlights will of course have to be swapped for RHD versions too

Also the front lower grill piece is just sitting there, the 3 bolts that hold it on have pulled through so that needs a replacement too

Daved_XB

The car is fitted with exhaust cutouts that are just after the end of the headers, these have vibrated off over time… & as a result they have spun internally & stripped the wiring out… so I’ll have to fix that, but at first I need to remove them all together as they are not road legal here in Aus so my plan is to block them off & then after the roadworthy & engineering checks are complete I can re-fit them.

Step 1 was to remove the butterfly valve assembly’s & the exhaust tips from the exhaust

I took the metal clamps that held the tips on & used them as templates to make out on a piece of scrap metal that I had laying around

Cut them out & painted them with black heat proof exhaust paint & then bolted them onto the open ends of the cut outs to permanently block them off

So long story short… she needs a lot of body work, but I knew that before I bought the car & parts are cheap & easy to get & I’m too stupid to not start yet another big project… plus it was my brothers car for years so I feel a sense of family attachment to the old girl & fixing her up is the only right thing to do by her.

Krombopulos Michael

Great project to work on. What engine is it running?

Daved_XB

[font=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]The back story of the car that we know is that she was a Canada built car, shipped to Germany at some point in the 80's by a US airman serving in Germany.. she lived there for decades before getting to Ireland in the early 2000's. The original matching numbers smog choked 350CI is long gone (who knows where) & in its place is the Hi-Po 327CI out of a 1969 Vette.[/font]

Wibbs

Brave man. Then again we knew this already.

Cool that it's a "family car" too.

Daved_XB wrote: »

The passenger side door is definite the worst, this side used to be parked against the bare metal wall of my brothers garage & I wonder if that somehow effected this side worse than the side in free air?

I'd reckon that's it alright. Less air circulation so damp builds up. Had similar with my car. The passenger side underneath was tip top, but the drivers side had some rust, mostly surface and I caught it in time, but I did need a 3 inch plate let into the bottom of the drivers sill. Usually the passenger side of a car gets more rust running closer to puddles and the side of the road, but my driver side is parked next to the neighbours wall.

Krombopulos Michael

Love your project threads. Is the XB Falcon on hold for bumblebee?

Daved_XB

Krombopulos Michael wrote: »

Love your project threads. Is the XB Falcon on hold for bumblebee?

No, not really… all the projects went on hold for a bit as I was just over them all to be honest & I had a lot going on outside of the shed…

I’ll have an update on the Dodge next as that car is closest to the point of being ready to get painted I figured I’d focus on that for a bit & get that car out of the shed then focus back on the XB again.

All I’m doing with the Bee for now is making a list of bits I know I’ll need so I can order them & have them sitting here for when I do start the project.

blazard

thats a lot of love,going on the pics

beertons

Class.

Daved_XB

Ok, so I went to move the Camaro the other day off the hoist & it was a real struggle… the engine was up around 2500 RPM & it was barely moving of the hoist, it moved but it really didn’t want too… I assumed low trans fluid as that’s a classic cause of said issue, so I dipped the trans & added some fluid but no joy, gave it a bit more gas.

I figured then it would be the rear drum brakes locked on… again a fairly common thing, so I put the car in neutral & tried to push it & sure enough it won’t budge an inch.. so I jacked up the rear & pulled the wheels & drums off… to my surprise they were free..

Jacked up the fronts & what do you know… both front calipers are locked on solid, I couldn’t spin the front wheels with all my strength… you can see below where the pads are jammed solid against the disks on both sides..

It was an effort to pull the calipers & pads off the disks they were jammed that hard, but once I got them off there was no moving the piston back in at all

The rust on these guys is pretty bad I guess

Tried pushing the brake pedal again to see if I could move them out even a mm… but nope these guys are locked solid..

Now the issue I will have with this car will be the bloody rust on all the nuts & bolts… getting these brake lines off was a nightmare, not helped by the fact that someone had rounded the edges off the banjo bolt that connects to the caliper

In the end, had to heat them & then use the evil vice grips to get the thing undone

Looking at the state of these I don’t think I’ll even bother to try a rebuilt kit in them, I was always going to fit new disks, pads & flexi brake lines so I figure I may as well just upgrade the calipers too whilst I’m at it

As they are going in the bin I figured I’d clamp them in the bench vice & see how much effort it would take to press the brake piston back in…. short answer, I thought I was going to break my vice…. I don’t get it, the car moved freely a few weeks ago & in the space of 3 weeks it’s like someone broke in & welded the inside of the caliper up its that seized

Daved_XB

Now I’m sure a smart man would know that if you have multiple cars with multiple issues then you should focus on 1 at a time & get that car finished first & not have for example 4 cars off the road as you have no focus & you do jobs on them all from time to time… sadly no one has ever accused me of being a smart man, so my focus for the last few days has been on the Camaro front end issues.

I purchased all new suspension bushes, ball joints & tie rods etc as well as some new brake bits so that I could update all the worn out front end parts…. But job number 1 was to fix the trans leak that has it pissing bloody ATF all over the floor constantly.

A quick look underneath & you can see that it’s leaking from all around the pan, but there was so much I also pulled the inspection plate off to make sure that the input seal wasn’t leaking nor the torque converter cracked

Good news they were both fine, so a simple job of removing the pan was all that would be needed… first up I drained the pan… this should have given me a little over 3ltrs of fluid, I got over twice that out, so the internal seal on the TC is out of round & the TC is leaking back into the pan… this happens a lot when automatic cars are parked up for a long time & the weight of the fluid filled TC sits on the seal on one spot… sometimes just driving the car again can reshape the seal… but we’ll see

This should be a simple job, but the trans cross member actually blocks access to one of the pan bolts & I couldn’t get direct access to it

So I broke out the angle grinder & cut off the corner of the bracket to allow access for my socket

This seal is crushed & mangled & broken in several places

So it’s no shock that it was leaking all over the place, it was in several pieces when I was removing it

Daved_XB

I’m replacing it with a Moroso unit that is rubberised metal & legend has it will never leak… got to say looking at it that I believe them

Now I’ve been a bit slack with updates, so this has been on for about 2 weeks now & I can happily say that there has not been a single drop of ATF on the skunkworks floor since I put this on

Next job on the list now is pulling all of the front suspension & brakes off & getting that up to scratch for getting the car registered

Krombopulos Michael

Loving the update and the quality of the photos. Good job

Wibbs

I love seeing D's threads pop up in my notifications.

B-D-P--

Good and bad to know its not just the paddy mechananics that over use of silicone.

Nice project btw

Daved_XB

Thanks for the kind words guys.... I'm behind on updates on a few threads here including this one so stay tuned

Oh & B-D-F-- that gearbox had been worked on & replaced in Ireland.. so that silicone is 100% Irish..

Daved_XB

First job of the strip down is to strip off the brakes, so calipers, disks & very rusty dust guards comes off… every nut & bolt here is rusted solid & this took a lot of patience with spraying penetration fluid, or heating or both & I think I only snapped two bolts off in the whole strip down… so I was happy with that

Next was going to be breaking ball joints, so uppers/lowers & the steering arms.. so time to get the assortment of tools out to see which one works best on each

The steering arms popped off easy enough

The upper ball joint was a little more stuck & I needed to jack the suspension back to take the weight off the joint

The lower was a little easier, so the spindle was off

Daved_XB

Decided to pull the sway bar off next to disconnect the two sides of the suspension lower arms

Next up the upper arms

They are held on with adjustment bolts that are accessed from the engine bay side

These came out easy

You can see how all the rubbers & bushings are completely shagged out & it’s no wonder that the tracking & handling was all over the shop

Where the steering arm connects is so worn out it’s not funny

Starting to look a little bare under there now

Daved_XB

Again you can see how bad the rubber of the shock absorber is..

Lost the first bold due to rust making it impossible to remove

The job I hate/fear most working on cars is spring removal & refit… but it had to be done

So I put on my bomb disposal suit & used the spring compressors & some big pry bars to gently remove the springs

The driver’s side spring was actually sheared off at the bottom I discovered

Then it was unbolting & prying out the two lower arms..

Job done…. All removed & now I just have to clean up all the surfaces, buy some new bits & then refit the whole lot

Daved_XB

Had a few boxes of bits delivered to rebuild & replace the stuff that I’d just finished pulling off… Not that I’m looking for sympathy.. but we’re having a bit of a heat wave thing here in Aus this summer & it’s been heat in the mid 40’s every day & that has put the in shed temp to over 50 degrees… so this stuff is taking much longer to do as I’m simply stuffed with the heat & sweating like a pig

First job now was to remove all of the surface rust & dirt from the underside of the car & then treat it with a rust preventer & then put a few coats of tuff underbody spray… looks a bit better now I think

Now the car has an exhaust leak from the extractors where they bolt to the heads, so I decided to replace this gasket now whilst the suspension was off as this gave me more access thru the wheel arch to help get the bolts undone

Yep, problem found….

Daved_XB

I had a mate sandblast the upper & lower arms along with the spindles & then give them a good coat of truck chassis paint to make them look good… also had him press out the old bushings & ball joints whilst he had them… this is how they came back to me, not too shabby

Now it was time to get my get my own press out so that I could press in all the new bushings & ball joints

Whilst the new upper ball joint in a bolt in item, the lower ball joint needs to be pressed in

This meant making up some special tool for the job so that I could press them in with no damage… so I made some sleeves out of tube that the ball joint can sit inside with flat metal ends for the press to push on so that the pressure is applied to the correct places & the ball joints aren’t damaged

For putting the bushing in I was worried that he two sides of the arm would bend towards each other under the pressure… so I made up a half moon section that just fits between the two sides as a crush stop

Worked a treat when combined with my other special tools…. I’m sure that this is exactly how the F1 teams do this

Daved_XB

Lower arm done

Now the upper arm needs you to be awake as you have to press in one bushing & then remember that you need to slide the pivot arm in place before you press in the other side bushing to lock the arm in place…. Also note that the upper ball joint is a bolt in item on the uppers not a bolt in

Lower arm & spindle went back in first

Then the upper arm went in

I bought a new internal spring compressor tool for this job as there just isn’t enough room to use the external ones that I have, that combined with using the baby floor jack to compress the suspension enough for me to fully tighten the ball joints up

Again I hate this job as the spring under that much tension terrifies me… but I got them in & didn’t lose a finger or break anything

Then I was able to fit the freshly repainted sway bar back on to tie both sides back together

Daved_XB

Last job, reinstalling the new steering arms

& the inner & outer tie rods

Wheels back on

She’s back of the hoist now… the suspension is sitting way high right now but it’s only moved a few feet..

It’ll settle down once I drive it a bit, also I haven’t done any real adjustments on the set up, just rough eyeballing for now as I just needed to get the car rolling off the hoist as I’ve had a bit of an issue with the GTO & I need the hoist for that now, I’ll update the GTO thread soon on that…… it never ends… but this thread is up to date as of Feb 3 now

Daved_XB

Just because I needed more parts taking up space in the shed & to take another car apart & distract me for actually finishing anything I bought some new bits for the Camaro… I bought two full rear Qtr panels, two new door, two new sill panels, floor repair sections & two new guards.

I don’t plan of starting on this car until I have all the panel work finished on the Dodge at least & maybe even the XB too… but as I’m a total idiot with no idea what I’m doing it’s just as likely that I’ll pull the Camaro apart over Xmas…

Daved_XB

Right the Ute is gone & the Challenger will be leaving for paint very soon, so I I've gotten all the bits for this that I have so far back in a neat pile next to the car....

I have some little bits to do on the GTO but then I'll rip into tearing this one apart whilst I finish putting the XB back together.

Now the big question is.... do I keep doing thread updates like I do today of this one, so lots of pics & text updates or do I shift gears as it where & look to do video updates on YouTube using my GoPro's etc??? I can't spare the time to do both so it's one or the other... thoughts

Daved_XB

Right... I'm done with the Dodge for now & she's just waiting for her timeslot for painting which will probably be Jan/Feb at this stage based off my painters workload. The XB is at a point where I'm being help up with parts & services delays... as an example I'm told it may be 12 months+ for my bumpers to be straightened & re-chromed etc.

With that being the case I took advantage of having a mate over on the weekend helping me to shuffle cars about & I had him help me pull the bonnet off as that's the only part I can't do single handed

My plan now is to spend some time pulling this old girl apart over the next few weekends.... stay tuned

Gremlinertia

Sweet, always something to pore over in the XB garage

Daved_XB

After resisting the urge to smash the GTO transmission pan to a million pieces with the biggest hammer I own on Sunday morning I decided to start pulling the front end of the Camaro as I figure with the front end off it will be so much easier to remove the engine & transmission as one unit.

The rust under this car is pretty bad & most if not all of the fasteners where corroded to some level or other... some eventually came undone, some snapped & others meet a more grinding fate.

It is possible to take the whole front clip off these cars in one giant C shaped bit, but I would only have to break down that one big bit later anyway so I decided to pull the car apart panel by panel... first up was the inner fender wells

Whilst unbolting the bottom of the front passenger side guard big chunks of it just fell off... shame I plan on undoing all of this performance enhancements rust after all is lighter than carbon fibre

I got the guard off eventually but it took way longer that it should & I couldn't get the smaller front lower extension off as the bolts holding it to the nose cone refused to budge & I couldn't get in at them with the nose on the car, so I figured I'd sort that off the car.