Frame Repairs cont...

I went and picked up some already removed body mount brackets from a forum member this morning so I now need to cut off the old brackets and mount/weld/bolt the new/used ones on.

Frame was sandblasted, wire wheeled and sprayed with Rust Converter tonight.

New frame support pieces were also cut to shape and tomorrow I'll fit and weld them.

The Rust Converter, well, it converts rust into a new metal-like material through some kind of chemical reaction, acts as a primer and if it works then brown rust turns into a black color indicating that the process has worked.  In case you were wondering about that...

Frame Repairs: Stage 1...cutting, grinding, bashing...

So this is the frame from the Camo Rig, as I'm using all the running gear (motor, tranny, drivetrain, frame, etc) and just putting a new body on top of that.

However, since the body's off, why not beef up the frame a little, right?

Here's a few pics of some of the cleanup...tomorrow I hopefully start welding in new 3/16" plate to make it good and strong again.

PS: I learned that when welding new pieces into a frame, one must use diagonal lines for structural integrity...glad I found that out the day I started cutting into it!!!

Demo Day 2: Camo Cruiser

Got back from the Mainland this afternoon and was determined to get the body off the frame.

That happened, then I checked the body mount brackets (a few need attention!) and gave the transmission a douse of commercial degreaser to remove some oil buildup.  Got one half side cleaned.

Here's what that all looks like...

Demolition...Round Two

The Camo Rig got some serious attention today...like 16hrs of attention.

But before we get into that, it seems that thinning the new paint about 20% is working much better.  Here's a teaser pic of what it's starting to look like.  I've come to terms that this will not be a perfect paint job and perhaps when better weather returns, I can cut wax what's on there and see what it looks like, and if that doesn't turn out nicely then I can slap another coat or two on it when I can pull it outside on a nice warm day.

So yeah, this happened...

And this, my friends, is what half of the body mount bolts look like. Half of the remaining half couldn't be there for the photo and the other half of the remaining half were never even present to begin with...so...yeah, kind of glad this is all getting taken care of now!

Think I figured out the HVLP thing a bit more (inner doors).

I did some adjustments tonight and eventually adjusted the fan width down quite a bit and it helped to load up the paint better, but meant that I still needed to do two paths slowly and only covered a 2-3" fan at one time.

I got the inner doors sprayed and they turned out pretty decent.  I'll see how they look in the morning and then work on things again tomorrow evening.