Shop Safety Cannot Be Ignored

I had a scary situation last week in the garage that I’m sharing in the hope that others who read this will learn from my mistake. When preparing Ringo for welding, I removed the seats and rear carpet and pulled back the front carpet away from the driver’s door opening. I stopped at just pulling back rather than removing the front carpet since it was glued down and the gas pedal also held it in place. And since the floor was in good shape, I wasn’t going to weld in any patches there.

Part of my preparation for welding the rocker panel patch was to locate Ringo’s fire extinguisher. After checking to make sure the charge needle was in the green, I placed it on my workbench a few steps from where I was working. Then, to protect the carpet from sparks, I spread some rags over the exposed portions. I proceeded to don my welding garb and began making molten metal. The commensurate sparks flew, but I was very focused on the work at hand to give them much attention. After twenty minutes or so I noticed it was getting warm in the garage. I attributed it to the heaters I had going, but I decided to lose the sweatshirt I was wearing. At that point, I pulled off the welding hood and found out why it was getting so warm. The rags I had placed over the carpet were on fire. With my welding gloves still on, I gathered the flaming cloths and tossed them on the floor to stamp out the fire only to find that more than just the rags were burning – the backing on the carpet was also going up in flames. I quickly grabbed the extinguisher and put out both sets of flames.

After opening the garage doors, turning off the heaters, and turning up the overhead fan, I let the garage empty itself of the extinguisher powder fog before surveying the damage. I was very lucky (TYL) to find the only damage to the carpet was the burned padding and the slightly melted high-beam button grommet. I’d been afraid that I was going to have to shell out $$$ for a new carpet. I was EXTREMELY thankful that a little voice inside my head had reminded me to find the extinguisher and place it somewhere handy. Again a big TYL!

With all my years of working on cars, this is the first fire I’ve had to contend with. Yes Ringo had his engine compartment blaze a few years back, but that had been extinguished before I'd arrived. It was that incident that prompted me to make sure every old car I’ve got on the road carries an extinguisher. I highly urge all you readers to heed my warning – buy fire extinguishers, place them in a near and safe location when working on your vehicle, and periodically ensure they are properly charged.

Welder Working Wonderfully

The issue with my welder was the wire was hung up on the spool. Once I opened the cover and saw how taut the wire was between the spool and the feeder, I knew what the issue was. I unspooled a few feet of wire and then loosely rewound it on to the spool. That fixed it. I made a few more tweaks to the Watt and Speed dials and then proceeded to complete the welds on the upper surfaces of the rocker panel patch.

The next step will be to cut another patch from one of the used rocker panel pieces that I bought at the auction and weld it in.

Birthday Present Highs and Welding Woes Lows

I spent another lunch hour at Crazy Ray’s yesterday. The night before, the lovely Loriann had agreed that I could make the racing seats my birthday present from her. That prompted me to pack coveralls, gloves, and tools in the Suburban for the next day’s expedition.

It was a colder day than Tuesday, so I was glad that my coveralls were thermally lined. After paying my entrance fee, I made a bee-line for the already removed passenger seat. It only took a few seconds of seat time for me to be sure this would be a very comfortable seat for my daily drives and infrequent track trips. A closer inspection revealed that one of the posts connecting the base to the seat had a broken weld. I can fix that – I’ve got a welder, so that blemish was not a deal-breaker.

I moved on to the car and a few minutes of wrenching and the driver seat was loose. Since the Nissan’s neighbor was sitting rather close to the driver’s door, it took some finagling to work the seat out of the vehicle. Once free, I was able to give it a close examination. It too had a broken weld, and, sadly, some wear in the seatback cover near where my left hip would rest. The latter gave me pause about going forth with my purchase. I decided to fully cruise all the imports in the yard and make sure these were the best for me. It took some time, but I determined that: 1) these were the only racing seats, and 2) they were in much better condition than nearly all the other seats I’d looked at. Feeling much better, I lugged the seats to the cashier and closed the deal.

Now the trick is finding a place to keep the seats while I’m finishing Ringo. I don’t think the family will find the back of the Suburban an acceptable storage spot.

Then, last evening, I was out in the garage working on Ringo. I carefully trimmed one of the rocker panel patches to fit a large portion of what I’d cut away. With it fitting like a glove, I brushed off the surfaces to be welded and held the patch in place using panel clamps. I tweaked the settings on my MIG welder laying down test-beads on a piece of scrap and then started tacking the patch to the body. The first few tacks went down quite nicely with the welder making its requisite buzzing noise. Then things started to change. One of the welds burned through the metal, so slightly turned down watt setting. Then the buzzing was gone and I was only getting little dots of weld. For the next twenty minutes I made adjustments to the welder settings and tried to lay good beads on my scrap piece, but never got acceptable results. It seemed like the wire was not feeding out as fast as it should. At that point, it was after 9 PM, so I decided to knock off for the night.

Afterwards, while in the shower (doesn’t everyone get inspired while showering?), it occurred to me that I’d tightened the strap that held the gas bottle to the welder. Could it be I'd tightened it so much the cover on the welder was pressing against the wire spool? This would certainly affect the welder’s ability to consistently feed out the wire. Something to check this evening – hopefully the fix is that easy.

Are These Seats in Lucy's Future?

I went for a stroll through Crazy Ray’s on my lunch hour today. I was actually looking for something specific – something not Corvair related – something for the tow vehicle. The Suburban’s left rear (barn) door latch release broke a few weeks back, and I’ve been waiting for the weather to warm up before heading over to my local favorite auto salvage establishment. After entering the yard, I headed toward the truck section at the rear. Of course my path was via the Corvair behind the fence I’d blogged about a while back – it’s still there. And since I’m always on the lookout for ‘vair-related stuff, I peered into some of the sportier cars that I was walking by. I stopped in my tracks when I spied a racing seat in a Nissan 300ZX - just the driver’s seat. I investigated its condition and was surprised to find the cover in good, un-ripped shape. The tilt lever worked too. As I was dressed in work slacks, I chose not to plant my butt on the dirty cover, but I’d bet it would fit my frame like a glove. Only a couple bolts held it in place, and the fact that I was not equipped with anything larger than a 10mm wrench meant the seat was not coming home with me. I snapped a few photos and moved on. Soon after, I’d located a Suburban of the right vintage and was elated to find its latch still available and still functional. This had been too easy. Oh wait – a holdup. Rather than a nice upholstered door panel, this one came equipped with an access door held in place with four Phillip’s head screws. Sadly, I had not predicted this, so my flathead screwdriver had to do the job. With it on an angle, I was able to get the screws out. The latch came out easily once I’d removed the four nuts and the disconnected the two rods. Since I still had plenty of time before I needed to be back at work, and not wanting to waste the trip and the $1 admission charge, I wandered back through the foreign car section looking to see if I could find any Corvair wheel candidates. I was specifically looking for Japanese rear-wheel-drive cars with the four-bolt lug pattern. A few rose later, I found an 80s Nissan 280ZX with all its wheels. I took pictures of all four wheels and moved on. It was then I found the mate to the racing seat. It was sitting all by itself a row and a dozen cars over from the car it’d come from. Strange. I’d have been okay only getting the driver’s seat, but having the pair would be even better. That is, if the seat back tilted far enough forward to let passengers into the back seat. I checked it out, and it seemed to be in as good a shape as the other one. Exhausting the foreign car aisles without finding any more suitable wheels, I headed over to the GM area. There I found a mid-70s Firebird with Rally IIs and a mid-70s Cutlass with Super Stock wheels. Both sets would fit a LM Corvair. I’ve posted these finds on the CorvairCenter forum as well as Virtual Vairs mail list to help out the hobby. After paying for my part, I climbed behind Lucy’s wheel and turned the key. The idiot lights came on like normal, but that’s all that happened. No solenoid click, no whir of the starter. To rule out the ignition switch, I made sure the transmission was in neutral and the emergency brake was on. Then I used my iPod cable and shorted the purple wire that goes to the solenoid to the hot lead on the voltage regulator. I got a spark, but no response from the solenoid or starter. At that point, a guy came walking up and offered to help. He recommended I bang on the starter with my lug wrench while he turned the key. Sounded like a good plan, so I pulled the wrench out of the trunk and began to lie down on the ground. As I was reaching under the car, the guy turned the key and lo-and-behold the engine turned and started. I thanked him for his magic touch and uneventfully made it back to work.

POR-15 is Stubborn Stuff

The above photo of my fingers is testament to the staying power of POR-15. I spent yesterday afternoon and evening in the garage making some headway on Ringo’s bodywork. I focused on the driver’s side rocker panel areas, and cut away more rusted metal and wired brushed away paint and bondo to the point where I think I can cut patches and weld. But prior to attaching the new metal, I needed to coat the exposed inner surfaces. Out came the quart of POR-15. Knowing that a quart was WAY too much for the job at hand, I poured off three 8 oz canning jars and capped them tightly with a gasket of plastic wrap. That left me with 8 oz. to apply. After coating the sheetmetal around where I’ll first be welding, I set my attention to the doors. The driver door is being reused, but I wanted to POR-15 the inside surfaces as best I could. The passenger door is the one I recently bought and it had some surface rust on the bottom and forward faces. After removing the hinges with my impact screwdriver, I brushed the loose stuff and those surfaces got a coat of POR-15 followed by a coat of POR Tie-Coat Primer while the inside got just the one coat of POR-15. Even though I was wearing gloves, working around sharp edges of metal are bound to cause a few holes through the nitrile. I was able to get most of the stubborn stuff off my skin, but not all.

Today Ariel primed the inner surfaces of the rocker panel patches and the fender patch. Soon I’ll back out there and cut the patches to fit and weld them on.

Finally

Could this be the beginning of a serious push to finish Ringo? I hope so. Last evening I spent a couple hours in the garage removing the doors and cutting away some of the driver’s side rocker panel. Before removing the hinge bolts on the driver’s side (the door that’s getting reused), I drilled through both hinges from inside the body so I could be assured of reinstalling the door in exactly the same place when it’s time.

I’ve decided to use as much of the Clark’s rocker panel panels as possible. That meant, as you might be able to determine from the photos, the cut would be right where the sill plate screw holes are. Nice indicator. I laid out a piece of masking tape, marked some places ½ inch in from the edge, and then laid out another piece of tape with the edge aligned with the marks. That was my guide as used a cutoff wheel on my grinder to make the cut. Prior to making the cut, I made a measurement across the door opening that I’ll verify before welding in patches. This will ensure no twisting of the body. I’m also trying to keep what’s left of the vertical portion of the rocker in place to prevent movement. Next step is to the cut away the rest of the rustiness in that area, and then POR-15 what’s left.

My Dream Car Garage

A few times I’ve posted a list of dream cars on some forum; most recently in response to a CorvairCenter thread. Here's my latest list.


1) Cold-weather daily-driver: 1962 Alfa Romeo Sprint Zagato. I need a smaller, closed car with good handling. No radio required since the sound of any Alfa engine is music to a car-lover’s ears.
2) Nice-weather daily-driver: 1965 Pontiac LeMans convertible. I had to include the car I’ve been hauling around the country since the mid-80s. Someday, she’ll get the restoration she deserves.
3) Road-trip: 1972 Maserati Ghibli Spyder. I chose this Italian exotic for a number of reasons. It's Italian. It's a convertible. It's from an era that’s pre-computer. It's not a Ferrari or Lamborghini.
4) Track: 1966 Corsa. The ultimate factory Corvair. I could’ve opted for the Yenko Stinger version, but I’d drive one of those like I was afraid of wrecking it.
5) Towing: 1972 3-door Suburban. My favorite vintage of trucks, and the oddness of only three doors is too cool.
6) Family: 1957 Oldsmobile Fiesta. The fabulous 50s needed representing. Every family needs a wagon. The uniqueness of a 4-door hardtop wagon is irresistible.

Other than the LeMans and possibly the Corsa, I fully expect to go my entire life without ever owning, let alone being behind the wheel of, any of these beauties. Thank goodness I can find happiness and satisfaction in what is really important – faith, family, health, and friends.