GM 8.2 I Believe, and How Would You Finish Cleaning It?

kennith

Well-known member
Apr 22, 2004
10,891
172
North Carolina
I'm pretty sure this is a ten bolt 8.2. If I'm wrong, let me know. Most people that claim to know actually don't, so I just gave up and took a guess. Either way it'll work well enough, so it doesn't really matter. It's got 295s in the rear, but currently couldn't even dream of actually making use of them. It's all show and no go.

Some of the gunk on that thing was an inch thick, and I intend to paint the majority of it with POR 15 if I can get it to stick.

I'll be using a wire brush as well, and I've been using engine degreasing spray, brushes, a scraper, and even a chisle. This is as far as I've managed to get at this time after an hour or so in total. The pressure washer wouldn't even touch the stuff (2.8gpm 3,000 PSI). I had to chip it away.

Obviously I'll need to hit it with some brake cleaner and pre-paint. I've got the little POR 15 kit with their own degreaser and prep stuff included, but there isn't much. I'll have to rely on generous scrubbing to get it as clean as possible before using that.

No, I'm not removing it from the vehicle. I'll just have to keep being careful around the new parts. I just got all that stuff on there, and it was a pain in the ass.

So, aside from more brushing, spraying, soaking, pressure washing (doesn't seem to do much of anything, but it'll be good in the end), and scraping, is there anything I'm missing? I've never had to clean something that caked up before. It was fucking gnarly, and I was going to leave it alone, but then after installing the other stuff it dawned on me that painting the new tank satin black, using stainless straps, and painting that axle would really jazz up the ass end.

I just know POR 15 is pretty sensitive to prep, and I may not be able to get this perfectly dry. The paint job won't be show-worthy either way, as the axle just isn't worth it, and the car isn't a full restoration. It just needs to be black. If there is a superior finish, I'd love to hear about it.

Normally, I spend a lot of time and effort prepping stuff, and I would remove, tear down, bake... The works; but this time I just want it looking decent and adding a touch of pizazz back there as easily as possible.

Minus removing the axle for the process (or building a better one), what would you guys do to finish it up?

Cheers,

Kennith
 

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kennith

Well-known member
Apr 22, 2004
10,891
172
North Carolina
Here's the vehicle before a wash. After I pressure washed the whole thing and really scrubbed it, I found out it's actually pearl white! :ROFLMAO:

You know your car is dirty when the paint color surprises you, but there was no point messing with it. I'm going to have to spray it one way or another, so we're pulling it into the iron-worker's booth and just hitting it with the same Rustoleum satin he sprays on his rails. I've seen him do cars, so it'll turn out okay once we sort out the bigger body flaws.

Finally got that ass sitting better. It needed a bit more perk.

I'm putting 2" drop spindles on the front. I'd rather only drop it an inch, but I don't want to cut the springs. Whatever. It's sitting much better now.

56209

Minor bit of photoshop in there, because I took that shot to plan for the rake, and some leaves and stuff in the bottom right were visually distracting.

Cheers,

Kennith
 

kennith

Well-known member
Apr 22, 2004
10,891
172
North Carolina
Here it is roughly as delivered, for amusing reference. Every single wheel was different, and yep, I gave it a spin on a country road.

All the lights worked, the horn, the brakes... It's a shame it didn't need at least one inspection, because it actually would have passed. How is it legal for me to drive that without an inspection, but until recently they'd hassle me about a new car? I'm glad they at least dropped emissions, but damn... If I were in charge, that thing would't have been allowed to have a plate.

It's got one, I just took it off because I kept hitting my head on it.

It was running on three cylinders, sparks were flying next to a fuel leak... I still haven't done anything about the dual cherry bombs ending before the last of the bodywork. Those fuckers are out of here when I take the thing down to have the heads serviced for good measure. Might swap out the headers, as well. I don't like the looks of them.

The carburetor is completely cleaned and rebuilt now, but I haven't installed anything else under the hood aside from making a cleaner throttle linkage. I did clean it a bit, but it's going to get more than that. I'll be painting it in there in the next few months and painting the engine. It'll just get a decent black dress-up kit and better ancillaries to round out the engine bay. New hoses, a refreshed radiator with a lick of paint; that sort of stuff.

I think it's going to run fine, despite being a bit of a hodge podge. Needs a transmission, but I'll just pick up a turbo 400 and clean it up.

Next up is installing a proper upper trailing arm on the driver side, as well. Some came with only one, but this one came with two. The axle was replaced at some point, but I have the bracket. I just need to get another upper arm. I'm not using that factory dog shit. This car would have been a deathtrap when new.

If it had only come with one upper arm, I'd suggest it would have had no business being sold to the public. I still contend this was perhaps the worst suspension design I've ever seen on a car. A Model T would have handled better, and Jaguar had already been cranking out rears with inboard brakes, a tubular sub-frame, and four coil-overs in the rear for several years before this was manufactured.

Where people get the idea that these cars were high quality is beyond me. They were shit, but they sure did look cool.

56211

56212

56213

Now, I know that engine looked messy, and so did the rest of the car, but you just let me know when you spot the proper rust that will be a pain to eliminate. It's not bad at all. Even those crumpled quarters gave up their secrets when I really nailed them with the pressure washer.

Dents and Bondo. When it started to let go in a few spots, all that was visible was shockingly well-lived galvanized metal. Yeah, the trunk floor needs some patches, and there is one spot on the driver side floorboard, but beyond right at the corner of the wheel well on one side, it's solid. When I had the glass out, it looked brand new back there.

It just got hit in the back at some point. That explains the six inches or so of replaced frame attached to the bumper and the replaced axle. I'd been wondering about that. It must have been a quick swap from a junk yard; probably along with most of that ridiculous engine.

I'm looking forward to new body mounts. That will finish up making the suspension safe. Then it's on to the engine, exhaust, and then brakes. I don't want new brakes sitting there rusting while I'm doing the other stuff, so it'll have to be towed a couple of places.

Cheers,

Kennith
 
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kennith

Well-known member
Apr 22, 2004
10,891
172
North Carolina
Not even a single criticism of the vehicle? What are you guys doing? Logging in and reading old shit, or just using Discoweb as an IM service?

Fuck it. I'm breaking out the Dremel for the tight spaces. I know how to do this shit. I just thought (and correct me if this is just my fucking imagination) that someone here might actually want to discuss something aside from politics and a truck they don't like.

I guess that's not the case anymore...

Cheers,

Kennith
 

kennith

Well-known member
Apr 22, 2004
10,891
172
North Carolina
That 10-bolt is a turd :)

It is indeed. I wish it was at least an 8.5. :)

I don't think I have to worry about breaking it, though. I believe that engine will put out around 280bhp. Even running on three cylinders with a caked-up carburetor it was having no trouble getting out of it's own way; though it was damned near uncontrollable.

It's not much power by modern standards, but the car's light enough that it should be enough to feel like you've got at least a little something under the hood. Taking it to the strip with those rear tires and that axle, though... Not a good plan.

Cheers,

Kennith
 

kennith

Well-known member
Apr 22, 2004
10,891
172
North Carolina
That 10-bolt is a turd :)

It's missing a bracket for an upper control arm, so I'll probabaly have to pull it anyway for easy access.

My next question is do you think it would be a smart move to roll with a 12 bolt? There's one available for $575 shipped that was actually set up for this car; it's factory fitment on a 1966, and should work, so long as nobody fucked with the well mount track width. I've got that question out there to the guy.

Hard to find those, and the price seems decent, but I don't know if that's good or not for a 12 bolt that just drops in. I'd still have to clean it up, reseal, and rebuild the brakes, obviously.

This one would need a bracket welded on, and it's not really right for the vehicle anyway. It needs studs, too, but I've no idea if they'll stick when pressed in. Several are broken off, and buying some to test just adds expense. It's a razor's edge on this potential swap. I don't know if I'd even be able to sell the 10.

Cheers,

Kennith
 

p m

Administrator
Staff member
Apr 19, 2004
15,617
838
58
La Jolla, CA
www.3rj.org
If a 12-bolt drops in and you have plans to show how good off the line the car is on a regular basis, it would be a good investment :)
 

kennith

Well-known member
Apr 22, 2004
10,891
172
North Carolina
If a 12-bolt drops in and you have plans to show how good off the line the car is on a regular basis, it would be a good investment :)

I'll be running against a 2016 WRX at least one time whether I like it or not. There's no way I'm getting out of that.

My mother won't let me hear the end of it unless she gets to beat my ass F&F style, and she'll know if I just let her win to protect the axle.

I wouldn't mind breaking it doing that, though.

Cheers,

Kennith
 

kennith

Well-known member
Apr 22, 2004
10,891
172
North Carolina
What is the plan for cleaning the engine bay and engine?

Thanks.

There are two ways to restore an engine bay:

1: Remove the engine and do it right.

2: Do the best you can, and visually simplify everything you can't.

I'm going with the second option to preserve my sanity.


That means wiring and plumbing will later be streamlined and routed in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

First I'll strip what I can without complete removal of easily misplaced parts; then mask, plug, and wrap things with desiccant under the plastic, and set up bins/plastic under it all, because there's no nice way to clean something that dirty.

Starting with the engine itself, from the bottom up and back down again:

An initial pass will be made with soapy water to loosen light deposits.

1: Degreasing spray, wait fifteen minutes, scrub with steel brush, blast with pressure washer. (Repeat until I'm tired of buying convenience in a can or broke; whichever comes first.)

2: Leftover brake cleaning spray on further difficult areas.

3: Follow up with acetone and a rag on particularly stubborn deposits, using a wire brush on an angle grinder, a chisel, and a Dremel to finish it off.

4: Thoroughly blast everything I can safely hit with the pressure washer.

That's the nutshell version. In reality I'll have to get creative as hell.

From there I will move to the engine bay itself, and it will be more of the same, but with a little less aggression so far as chemicals go. I'll pull everything off the sheet metal that can be removed and reinstalled without multiple steps to get underneath. I know the wiring looks bad, but it's not time to replace it yet, so I don't want to be flexing it too much or losing track of more odd-ball clips that haven't been manufactured in 51 years.

Once I've blasted the entire engine and bay again as well as I can with my pressure washer and fired the engine back up to dry it all off (replacing any immediately and obviously leaking gaskets/seals once dry), I'll be pulling it next door to weld in firewall sections and dash corners to accept a factory air conditioning system. If we find any rust it'll be cut out and repaired, but I don't think we will.

Special attention will be paid to body mounting areas, and those will be finished, because it's getting new mounts as soon as possible. If I can do them on the concrete pad, great. If not, it'll happen in the next step. If they're in great shape and still greasy, the tabs will not be cleaned; they will be masked off. Better to leave them alone and let the old car protect itself.

At that point, it's going to the drag shop for analysis, head service, distributor installation, and better ancillary planning. He's pulling that other crap off anyway, so he may as well be the one replacing it. That guy has one of those crazy diesel boiler pressure washers, and anything I didn't get he ought to be able to cure with a few passes.

There's no way I'm going to get it all, and I'm not going to break a sweat over perfection, but I'll do what I can. The sheet metal will be painted satin black with Rustoleum Professional over red oxide primer; same as the outside bodywork. It's right next door and being sprayed all the time. I'm not an idiot. (y)

When the heads are off, they, along with the intake, any other stuff that comes off easily, the oil pan, and front cover are going in a refrigerator looking device he has that magically turns old parts into new ones. I think it's some kind of steam convection oven from the 1980's. I don't know. I've never seen it work, but the results are impressive.

That's the Konami code I'm using. The stuff you actually see when you look at an engine will all have been completely cleaned and painted separately. I may use powder for those parts, and if so I can include the dress-up stuff in the batch for a more factory look, in which every main assembly is the same color.

The engine should probably be orange, but I hate orange engines, and I absolutely can't stand red engines unless it's Italian. It may just end up whatever color I like, so unless someone stops me, it'll probably be Buick green or black.

Every piece of chrome I can remove is coming out of there. Years of seeing cheap Autozone valve covers and thermostat housings ruined chrome in engine bays for me. I'd love to ditch those headers, as well, but that might be financially foolish if he can make them work in my favor. At the very least I'll consider wrapping them if the things have to stay.

Dress up parts are going to come from a Summit Racing kit I like that's just plain black (may be coated with other engine parts if I go the powder route), and I'll more than likely just have the radiator boiled and paint it with that Eastwood stuff. Then come new hoses, and so on. Eventually I'll replace the wiring harness up there, as well.

I'll slap on a few replica stickers in appropriate places, and it'll pass as a "well-maintained survivor", unless I choose a stupid engine color, and so long as nobody looks too closely at the engine parts that don't technically match each other. I will be taking some steps to prevent the stuff that's been painted from looking like it's brand spanking sparkling new and contrasting too harshly with the rest of the car.

Cheers,

Kennith
 

kennith

Well-known member
Apr 22, 2004
10,891
172
North Carolina
I do want to point out that this is not how I would approach the engine if it was original, or if I intended to restore the vehicle to show condition.

When you do that you're after preservation as much as possible. I'm just after shaving about thirty years off the thing.

As long as it starts fast, idles smooth, stops safely, and drives like "new", nobody gives a rat's ass about that engine. It's just cosmetically in my way.

Cheers,

Kennith
 

Blueboy

Well-known member
Apr 20, 2004
3,205
459
Back in the USA; Rockwood, PA
Thx. Good tips. My engines are not that dirty yet need a cleaning.

Just one of those things - I like a clean engine and bay.

Thinking about a small steam appliance as an alternative to the chemical route.
 

kennith

Well-known member
Apr 22, 2004
10,891
172
North Carolina
Thx. Good tips. My engines are not that dirty yet need a cleaning.

Just one of those things - I like a clean engine and bay.

Thinking about a small steam appliance as an alternative to the chemical route.

Honestly, mild dish soap (heavy concentrations are hard to remove from dishes; let alone a rough cast surface) and a microfiber rag will get most of it, usually. Use plastic brushes first for agitation, and don't be afraid to raid the dish-washing and toilet-cleaning section of the hardware store, and cleaning section of a gun store for shapes that fit tough areas. Then just wash it down with low pressure (normal garden hose on the "water a plant" setting, and immediately start it.

Matte tire dressing is great on hoses and engine bay plastics, but let it absorb for a few minutes and wipe it dry so it doesn't yellow over time and doesn't become all sticky.

You don't want to use harsh chemicals on aluminum, as it will start to oxidize and produce those white powder spots. Check whatever soap you're using to be sure it doesn't include some chemical that's incompatible, and if it does, just use car wash solution. It'll get the job done, but be a bit more labor-intensive. The benefit is it's not going to hurt anything, but just get the basic soap; not the fancy stuff you'd use on paint. Often that includes other stuff.

Again, though; start from the bottom up and work your way back down. Do the engine first, and then hit the sheet metal with normal car wash solution and sponges; using rags and brushes only where required. Grab someone's old bucket for this. You won't be reusing it for washing the car later, and don't touch wheels, tires, or paint with anything you use, either.

That means get your rags and stuff from Sam's or something. You're going to be throwing them away, but microfiber is the way to go. Paper towels and those blue paper things aren't going to cut the mustard, and will just be more frustration, in the end.

You can try a consumer-grade steamer, but generally they are pretty weak. Detailing steamers are expensive. You're going to want to find a middle ground or rent something with balls. If it's pretty clean in there, consumer-grade might be fine, but some really, really suck. Steam is good if you can use it; just watch it around gaskets.

Cheers,

Kennith
 

LRflip

Well-known member
Oct 8, 2006
5,741
25
none of your fucking business
only you would spend this much time on a 4 door...

then again, you've always been thorough. I remember when you photoshopped that dog I was fostering all those different colors to try to make him more marketable.
 

kennith

Well-known member
Apr 22, 2004
10,891
172
North Carolina
only you would spend this much time on a 4 door...

then again, you've always been thorough. I remember when you photoshopped that dog I was fostering all those different colors to try to make him more marketable.

I was just thinking about that dog the other day. A family member recently considered scoring that same place you were in at the time.

I ended up buying the axle. Mine turned out to be 2.75:1, and that's unacceptable for a vehicle with that little power that needs a touch of bite for initial impressions.

Yeah, I spent a while recovering from some nonsense, and got behind on everything. I'm getting back to being captain perfect, though. I'm not combing my pubes quite yet, but I'll get there. :ROFLMAO:

I'll shoot you my new number if you want to bullshit a bit and catch up sometime.

Cheers,

Kennith