Update #13 - Rust investigation # 2020-04-19 There’s some rust just below the wind-screen. Today I’m removing the paint to see how extensive it is. This is a notorious problem area on these cars. The vent here is for fresh cabin air. There’s an inner skin below the vent which stretches almost the full width of the car. There are circular openings in the inner skin at the outer edges of the foot wells on both sides. ...
Update #12 - Steering column removal # 2020-04-04 Objective today is to remove the steering hardware. The rod in the top left of the picture is the accelerator. This connects mechanically directly to the carburetor. The other end of this rod goes through the firewall and the accelerator pedal is at the end. I love the simplicity of this. In the top right is the steering box. You can see how it links to the steering arms. ...
Update #11 - Rear axle assessment # 2020-02-16 I’m trying to identify what type of rear axle this car has. I need to decide whether it’s good to restore and keep or whether it needs to be replaced. There are some minor alterations here and there, but, as best as I can tell, most of this car is original. So, my first guess is that this rear end is original to the car. ...
Update #10 - Rear axle removal part 2 # 2020-02-15 Still working on removing the rear axle. Need to disconnect the hand-brake lines to free it up. To do that I needed to remove all of the brake parts. You can see the spring-loaded hand-brake cable poking out the bottom here. Here is the axle fully disconnected. Also the shocks. Close up of the serial number on the differential. ...
Update 9 - Rear axle removal # 2020-02-05 Started working on removing the rear axle.
Update 8 - Glass removal # 2020-01-11 Took out the some of the glass today. The wind-screen glass was already cracked, so, I did that first as it didn’t matter if I screwed it up. The first thing to do was remove the chrome from around the wind-screen. There’s a special tool for doing this. It reaches in under the chrome and unhooks it from little metal clips attached to the body. ...
Update 7 - Engine removal # 2019-11-19 The objective today was to pull the engine out. Before I could do that though, I needed to disconnect the drive-shaft from the engine. After a bit of head scratching and some searching around online, I discovered that the drive-shaft needs to be disconnected from the differential at the back first. It then slips off a spline on the transmission and can be removed completely. ...
Update 6 - Chop the exhaust # 2019-09-29 Taking out the exhaust. I don’t want to keep it and it’s really awkward to remove, so I just cut it up with the dremel. Disconnecting the shifter handle.
Update 5 - Extracting random bits # 2019-08-05 Battery tray, starter solenoid, radiator, and overflow tank all pulled out. Some of wiring loom has been partially extracted. Blower box also pulled. It’s heavier than I expected. Lots of metal in it. And, with the blower out, that means, I can get a first good look at the right hand cowl. Hmm, not looking great. Lots of nasty looking rust. Also, you can see something has poked a hole in the forward facing part of the foot-well. ...
Update 4 - Stripping the interior # 2019-07-18 Removing the dash-pad. I don’t know what these little end pieces of the piping for the interior air are made of but they basically disintegrated and turned to dust as soon as I touched them. Also the dash-pad was glued down in a few spots which made it tricky to remove. Luckily the old one was already split so I wasn’t planning to try and keep it. ...