Well.... These things take time - a Lot of time. As most of you know, I crunched my car pretty bad at the last Autocross of 92. Yes I crashed at an Autocross! Yes I feel like a jerk. But you know those curbs and fences can just jump right out at you sometimes and bite you big time Anyway, with a lot of help from my friends, the car was quickly disassembled. The chassis was straightened out by Gregski and Paul Quiniff. Then Rich Cwik and I set forth to reinforce the heck out of the chassis. When you are this deep into a project, the "You Shoulds" come out. You Should reinforce this, You Should reinforce that, You Should do this, etc., etc... For each You Should, add another weekend of work. Couple this with the chassis being galvanized, so it doesn't weld very easily - it takes a lot of time. Here is the welding process: 1. Attempt to strip galvanizing off where you need to weld using muriatic acid. 2. Produce much smoke, and stink causing coughing, retching and dry heaves yet seemingly removing no galvanizing! 3. Grind all areas to be welded, yet somehow much galvanizing remains. 4. Weld with gas mask on. 5. Get sick from fumes anyway. 6. Wake up the next day with a tremendous headache. I can understand why Rich was a bit slow in getting this project done. Why would you want to do something that made you sick and gave you a headache? Couple this with the fact that during this time, Rich moved to a new shop and was trying to start up a new business.
But the chassis is finally done. We reinforced everything using square steel tubing running along the corners in the front. Ran 1 inch steel strips on a 45 degree angle along the bottom. Put a plate across the front underneath the air reservoir. New supports for the front sway bar. Reinforcing strips along the inside of the back frame legs. Added new plates for a rear sway bar. Reinforcing plates on the back shock towers. New cross brace. A tab here a plate there. I did most of the fabrication, and Rich did all of the welding. Whew! It was a Lot of work! Diamond blast in Melrose Park blasted it clean, ready for paint. A heavy coating of epoxy primer, a tube of drip rail check sealer on all exposed joints and tonight it gets shot with Lincoln dove gray (just a color I have always used).
What about the body? Well, since the body was off, I decided to detail the underside. I ground off all the paint and removed all the oil and grease. The trans. had been leaking really bad, so you can't believe the mess! This was very time consuming business. My compressor is not the big industrial size type, so I would grind for 3 minutes, and then try to find something else to do for 5 minutes while the poor old compressor tried to compress. It made all sorts of racket like it was going to die, and overheated a couple times, but it hung in there. I finally got the underside all ground down.
Gregski came over and in a couple hours hung the nose back on straight. It's amazing how much faster things go for talented people! I repaired several broken areas, plugged up unneeded holes and replaced a couple missing bobbins. The first "You Should" for the body was the underside of the nose. I made the bottom flat, recessed and tapered at the ends. Now I can bolt on a rubber spoiler across the front end. The taper will keep the water out of the sides up front. It looks pretty good. The next "You Should" involved cutting out the trunk where the exhaust routes to make a nice neat straight area to hang the supertrap muffler. Next I decided to copy Gregski's hood hinge system. This wasn't as easy as it looks. Lots-o-variables. But after a couple frustrating weekends and nights, its all there. The inner fenders needed a Lot of work. The fender lips were not up to the same standard as the rest of the body, so I spent much time grinding and glassing and grinding and glassing until I think they look and feel pretty good. Again, a slow compressor and unskilled hands make the job slow and tedious.
Paul Quiniff owns Midwest Fiberglas in Addison. He talked me into using Gelcoat instead of paint for the underside, trunk and engine compartment. The stuff comes in 5 gallon buckets, sprays on real thick, dries as hard as a rock and is relatively inexpensive. I purchased some tinted light gray and learned the hard way (AGAIN) on some tricks to spraying. The first time I went to spray, I used the same amount of hardner as I had used for featherfill. This turned out to be about 4 times too much. About 2 minutes into the shoot, the gun stopped spraying. I opened the gun and the gel was getting! There was a glob of gel in the cup the size of a baseball and getting very hard! I quickly disassembled the gun and scrubbed everything with Lacquer thinner. It was a frantic 30 minutes, followed by sore hands for 2 days. You see, the Lacquer thinner needed to clean the gun is like industrial strength stuff, it sucks the oil out of your skin making it raw. No fun at all.
I returned the borrowed expensive gun to Gregski and borrowed a cheap old Sears gun from Greg Zelazek. With a Lot less hardner, and with some instructions from Paul, it turned out pretty good. The strange thing about Gelcoat however is that after it dries a little, you have to spray over it with PVA and let it sit for a day to cure. PVA is Poly Vinyl Alcohol. It's tinted dark blue, sprays like water, runs like crazy, and looks real UGLY until you wash it off with water. Carl Sarro came over one day just after I had sprayed on the PVA. All he saw was this dark blue stuff drooling all over the place and I'm sure he thought "What a mess".
Anyway, it all washed off and it looks pretty good. Next up is to paint all the suspension parts. John Zorns bead blasted them all for me. Then I will assemble everything for a trial fit with the body before the outside detailing and painting begin.
Other things I have done: I bought a tandem master cylinder from R.D. Enterprises, which required some engine bay fiberglass work to make it fit. Bought an aluminum flywheel from Dave Bean. My new wheels just came in - Performance brand from England through Select Sales in Florida. They look just Like Minilite/Pariasports but are reasonably priced: $450 for 4 delivered! Joe Nepsa spent a couple afternoons with me, and we rebuilt the transmission. Replaced a couple worn parts and fixed the leak.
Another major thing occurred this year which has really slowed the progress of the rebuild. My priorities have changed! My boy's are growing up right in front of my eyes, and I don't want to miss it! Baseball and Soccer games all the time. And when they aren't playing, they are at practice. And when they aren't at practice, they are playing in the backyard. And you know what? I love it! It melts my heart when Mike or John ask "Daddy can you play catch with me". Here I've got a mask on grinding in the garage, covered with dust, sweating like a pig, can't hear a thing from the noise of the compressor and the grinder, not really enjoying the mess I'm making anyway. Of course I can play catch! Somehow I'll find the right mix between family, work and the Elan.
