[The Boss]

No biggie, I had a ton of matchbox's and other 1:18th scale cars in their original boxes, those have gone to Toy's For Tots. Two other boxes (1 cubic foot each) went to the sons of friends of mine today - lots of people smiling today & this Christmas from stuff I haven't looked at in 15 years!

[Bentwheelbob]

Well, the weaather is crappy here, but the project marches on. It's time to get the front end degreased and get the last of the undercoating removed. We moved the car and lift out to the driveway and everything has been given a liberal spay of diesel fuel and PB Blaster to dissolve and soften over night. Tomorrow morning the fun starts with the tyvek suits and pressure washer. Honestly, I don't think it will be that bad, but it will still suck. It sucks in 70 degree weather and will suck even more with a high of 40 tomorrow.

Lots of other stuff got done today, but nothing big. All the bolts that have been removed have been cleaned, wire wheeled and cleared. The steering box has been finished up, and the plastic cover that goes over the steering coupler (rag joint?) has been sanded down and painted with plastic paint. It looks really good. Hopefully by this time tomorrow the Gold Car will be back inside, free of 36 years of grease and oil, and warm and dry. We'll see. Here's a couple of pictures.

[Bentwheelbob]

So did I say I thought it would suck removing the grease, oil and undercoating in 40 degree weather? I should have spoken more strongly....

Well, at least the job is done. 36 years of grease, oil and undercoating is gone - mostly. I'm not sure you could get it all without total disassembly and I am not going that far. However, I am very pleased with the result and ready for the next step. MPD and I got lucky today, as Tristan showed up and we just happened to have an extra Tyvek suit. Tristan is the 18 year old young man that helped us shuttle cars to the car show and his showing up today was pure coincidence, but a real blessing. We worked from 10:00am until 6:00pm and just barely got finished.

We started the presoak last night with diesel fuel and PB Blaster and I am glad we did. We did several cycles of pressure washing with hot water, soak with more diesel, and then blast again. After three cycles of that we switched to Tornado 50 degreaser which is to Purple Power what Moonshine is to beer. This stuff is industrial tough and will flat out cut through grease, grime and skin. The Tornado combined with scotch brite pads cleaned everything up nicely. The only spot that I couldn't get any real positive results on was the firewall. Every place there was a penetration through the firewall the factory sprayed some type of thick sealant. There is no comparison to undercoating, as nothing would soften it. Needless to say, I am going to go with the factory look and leave that sealant in place. I'll paint the firewall and over the sealant, as the cost benefit of trying to remove it is in the "only twelve more bolts" league...

A few interesting discoveries were the original factory sticker on the left from coil spring, and inspection paint marks on the spindles and left front lower A arm. All in all, this thing is amazingly well preserved, with almost no rust or pitting except where the battery has leaked at some time in the past. Here's a few pictures. I included some before and after....