Quote:
Originally Posted by Tango Charlie
Hey, where'd the four doors come from?  |
The accidental benefit of cut-and-paste...
Last week, I was all excited about the battery box. Finally, I could get the car up and running to the point where I would have enough range the make the car really useful, even in the winter.
A few days ago, I got one of the rear springs out, exciting to have done, but my car sure isn't driving anywhere without suspension.
I gave an open invite for anyone to help me out with battery boxes, but it looks like it was just a bad weekend for anyone to do it.
So instead, I am in my driveway with the rear of the car jacked up, a hole through the back seat and no physical or moral support.
The one thing I have always been very good at all by myself, is systematic destruction.
I have completely removed the front-end of the car, and the interior, with the exception of the dashboard.
The front-end removal started with the plan of being able to move 4 batteries total into the radiator position. Of course, it didn't take long to see that everything was just exactly wrong for four batteries to fit there. The upright through the middle of the front takes up a few valuable inches, as does the hood release. I do remember seeing a Metro conversion somewhere which had the hood release specifically removed just because of this. Maybe I can get some racing hood latches instead.
Just need to cram three more batteries in there...
Since I obviously could NOT mount four batteries up front right now, I instead returned to chipping away on the inside of the car. Since removing the back seat to start work on a battery box, I have been progressively pulling up the carpet and body panels towards the front of the car. In daylight, I could now finish removing the carpet.
Carpet, as removed from car.
Once I had it out, I could see that there was some minor rust on the driver side, and a mouse corn stash on the passenger side.
The driver side rust seemed to be just on the surface, and since there was no matching rust on the passenger side, I think it is from wet shoes and boots of the driver. The moisture gets down in the carpet, has no place to go, and causes rust. I guess I will sand it down a bit and hit it with some spray-paint primer.
Driver side surface rust.
Passenger side, including rodent pantry.
I also noticed that there are some areas, directly against the sheet metal floor pan of the car of some sort of hard black plastic/asphalt material. What is this stuff? It's hard and brittle. Is it for strength or sound-deadening or what? Can I remove it? Some of it was already popped off from the car. I removed any that wasn't attached.
The mysterious substance.
Anywho. I threw a tarp over the front of the car, and closed the hood over it. I'm sure another snow storm will come through before I can work on it more anyways.