Both Sides of the Pond

On this side of the pond, it was cleanup day today.

The donor car lived at the top of a hill reached by a dirt road - and not just any dirt, but the ultra fine grain clay-like powder dirt of Brown County Indiana. This dirt coated everything underneath in a permanent water absorbent layer, which not surprisingly, led to astonishing amounts of rust over the years.

Look at the flange where the half shaft bolts up to the differential. Some of those vague globs of mud are actually bolts underneath. Most of the undercarriage of this car was deeply layered with this concrete-like substance.

The pressure washer got rid of the clay quite effectively, but you can see in the above picture the amount of rust that formed underneath it. On much of this subframe, layers of metal can be peeled away with one's fingers - and there are some key structural areas that are too rotted away to be safe for driving. Unfortunate, because this subframe was meant for my Miata buddy John. 

In an earlier post I mentioned that we used the seat belt bosses to bolt the lifting chain to the body shell. What I didn't mention is that on the passenger side, the seat belt boss immediately started tearing away as soon as load was applied. Happily, this made a nice big hole to drop the chain through so instead of bolting the chain to the passenger side box frame, we just wrapped the chain all the way around it. 



Above is the engine, transmission, and front subframe after taking a scrubbing with degreaser and washing down. It's not what one would call "clean," per se, but it's certainly a lot less filthy and should be much less unpleasant to work on.

Here is the donor car body shell, sitting forlornly in the driveway, awaiting its fate. Ideally someone will take me up on my "free scrap metal" craigslist ad. Otherwise I will have to cut it up in pieces that I can fit into the pickup truck to take to the dump myself. I already started one such cut, and my only comment is that if I have to cut this thing up I will need more sawz-all blades. A lot more.

Meanwhile, on the Other Side of the Pond, my kit (chassis, bodywork, right hand drive front subframe, and a bunch of small parts) has been loaded for shipping and is headed for the Plymouth Docks. Thanks, Jase at R West and Sons Packaging and Shipping Ltd, for the update pic!