I spent some time today smoothing the welds on my intake pipe.  I don't have any "before" pictures, it was made a few months ago when I didn't have a working camera.  The welds were very nice, they were done by a local guy named Bill Lewis.  Even though they would have looked good exposed, I want the smooth look on this piece.

Turner's Tea is good stuff.

 



I finished welding the reinforcements to the drivers side rocker tonight, and finished the shape of the lower edge.  The angled part at the front is cut flat so it doesn't hit the ground.

Stocked the fridge.

Merry Christmas!  More tools.  Some of these I bought myself, some were gifts.  The Council Tools 2lb drilling hammer is built well and made for working, but it certainly won't win any beauty contest.   It's made in America from quality materials for about $20, but I have seen better finish work from middle school woodshop students.  I can't wait to beat the hell out of something with it.

My grandma bought me a first aid kit for the garage.  I hope I never have to use it!

I fell for the gimmick on these things, but they work really well!  I spent $4 on the cutter and wristband tape dispenser, these are absolutely worth buying if you have more than 0 gifts to wrap.

I stopped at the autobody supply store today and got some 40 grit 3" DA pads, a roll of 80 grit 6" DA pads, and a handfull of 40 grit 6" DA pads.  The 40 grit is good for shaping bondo and finishing welds.

I made another reinforcement panel for the drivers side rocker.  The front edge is already 1/8" plate, but I am extending it back for a longer jackpoint.  This is 1/8" plate, with weld-thru primer

I'm welding the bottom seam too, which will get ground smooth, this is about half done.

I ordered a few more wrench organizers, these are from Ernst.  I bought a set of SK stubby SAE wrenches and needed to reorganize my wrench drawer to get them to fit.

Wrench drawer before

Wrench drawer after

I also moved the most used wrenches toward the front of the drawer, with the old layout the stuff I used the most was all the way at the back.

I made one more little patch on the Jetta tonight, this is under the drivers side seat crossmember.  I had access to the back side of this one so I didn't use Weld-Thru primer, it welded so much nicer with clean metal!  The weld-thru stuff is a necessary evil, but I was able to go without it in this case.

After it was welded, I sprayed the area (through the hole in the crossmember) with 3M Rust Fighter I.  This is similar to the Transtar Amber Rustproofing I usually use, I had a little of this left over from a previous job.

My Rabbit daily driver hit 70,000 miles as I pulled up to my house today.  It's due for some sort of massive electrical failure at any minute!

I bought another hammer today.  I was on the Snap-on truck and my guy had this BF632A, it was all rusted and had a 2003 date code.  He also had a new hickory handle, and made me a deal I couldn't resist on the pair!

These are only available with a fiberglass handle.  Fuck that.

The head cleaned up nice after some WD40 and Scotch Brite.

The handle eye appears to be drilled or milled rather than forged on this hammer.  The earlier hammers (BF6xx versions) are assembled as-forged and the eyes aren't cleaned or finished at all.  I have never rebuilt a newer BF6xxB hammer, this is the only BF6xxA revision I have ever seen or owned. 

The dremel grind mark is from cleaning out the remaining epoxy that was holding the handle in.

Tapped the new wood and steel wedges in.

How it should have been from the factory!

The drawer is getting a bit crowded!

I'm still looking for these three hammers to complete my collection; the BF616, BF633 curved vertical chisel, and BF634 vertical chisel shrinking hammer.  They have all been discontinued for many years, I will buy in any condition.

I got a decent amount of work done this weekend!

My friend Jason stopped out to help today.

Among other things, he helped scrape the remaining sound deadener off of the exhaust tunnel.  This wasn't blasted off because I originally wanted to save it, but after the epoxy primer and stray sand it looked pretty nasty.  This will be replaced with Dynamat or something similar.

Sometime during the blasting, the drivers side rocker got dented.  I couldn't get behind it to straighten the dent, so I borrowed a stud welder and pulled it.  I threw a quick coat of Evercoat Tiger Hair to see if it was good enough and I'm pretty happy with the results.  Jason was able to snap some action shots.

This thing is pretty easy to use, it was my first time and it went pretty well.

I pulled out a little further then I needed and tapped the high spot back down a bit. 

Evercoat Tiger Hair

Roughed it down with 40 grit on the DA

It needs a little more sanding, then a coat of regular filler, but I think the shape will work.

I also bought some stencils and more clearly marked the load capacity of my AC jack.  It's the only jack in the building that actually works, so people are always tempted to use it on really heavy things.  Hopefully this prevents anyone from trying to jack up the forklift!

Now this post should get me up to date, this work was done tonight.

Part of the recent rust repair work was to replace both rocker panels.  After I repaired the pinchwelds to the factory specs, I realized they would probably end up below ground level!  I put the subframes back on and set the car at its ride height (0.00") to check clearance. 

After the first round of trimming, which still needs cleaned up, I have about 1/8" under the rockers when the subframe is on the floor.  That sounds about right.

I need to tweak the shape in a little better so it's parallel with the ground, I left early tonigh to watch the Pens lose to Detroit :(

The rear bumper brackets on my jetta were both rotted away. 

I was able to find a part number stamped in one of them, and it turns out they are still available new from the dealer!  $3.10 each:)

After cutting away the old rotted section, I had to make a patch panel.  Remember all those different pick radii on my hammers?  Well the Fairmount fit the original dimple the best.  I have found this is a pretty easy way to hand-form a bead in small parts.

Just as before - patch each layer, weld-thru primer, then weld on the next!

One side done and primered.

Note: start with a cleaner shell next time!