Primed and Ready For Paint

Last weekend Ariel brushed off all the bubbled paint and thoroughly cleaned the sheetmetal areas that had been damaged by the fire. She then applied a coat of Rustoleum primer.

While she was doing that, Tom was removing all the engine seal retainers and prepping them for priming. He also removed the harmonic balancer from the crankshaft.

The two of them flushed brake fluid through the lines to make sure that no contaminated fluid was left. Then, after Ariel went back inside, Tom got to work on the brakes. He replaced the damaged brake hose, flushed out the driver's side wheel cylinder and replaced all the brake components with a self-adjusting setup he's pulled off of a junked '63 Corvair.

The next day Tom came out and rebuilt the rear passenger side brakes with another salvaged self-adjusting setup. He started working on splicing in the replacement wire harness after determining that it would be too much work to replace the entire front-to-back harness.

Engine Out

A couple of weekends ago, Ariel and Tom put my back end up on jackstands and carefully lowered my drivetrain (engine, differential, and transmission assembly) and moved it out from under me. They had to drain the motor oil and transmission fluid and disconnect a few wires and stuff first. They also had to destroy one of my transmission mounts in order to get my drivetrain loose.

Where There's Smoke, There's Fire - OUCH!

Ariel was driving me on Interstate 70 a couple of weeks ago, when she noticed that I wasn't running as well as I should. Then she and her sister smelled smoke. She pulled me over to the shoulder and as soon as I stopped moving, my engine died. They got out and saw smoke rising from my engine compartment. Ariel immediately called her dad who told her to move away from the car and wait for him to arrive to take them to school. He said that he'd deal with getting me home and fixed. About five minutes later, a man driving down the interstate noticed sparks coming out under the car, so he pulled over and called 911. Ariel then called Tom to tell him that I was on fire. Within ten minutes two fire trucks and two State Troopers had arrived and the fire under my engine lid was extinguished. Here's a picture of the burned area.

Tom had me towed back to their house and put in the driveway. After close examination he discovered that my harmonic balancer (pulley wheel on the end of the crankshaft) had failed. This meant that the fan belt wasn't turning the engine fan, so my engine overheated and melted the insulation on some wires which in turn shorted and started the fire. I am updating my To Do list based on the damaged parts that Tom and Ariel will have to replace.

One More Little Bug

Yesterday evening Ariel and Tom were readying me for my day as Ariel's commuter car. First, Tom fixed the sticking heater seal on the driver's side so that air would come out the vent - one more item to strike off the To Do list. Tom then instructed Ariel in the operation of my heater/defroster controls and door locks.

As they were backing me down the driveway, Tom noticed that the brake lights weren't working. He pulled me back in the garage, and a few minutes later, after cleaning the terminals in my fuse-box, I was good-to-go.