745 into Pickup

[lookforjoe]

Hell of a day today. Left home with the Mrs. at 9am to head upstate for the annual Volvo car meet. We got about 30miles north & then the pickup died. I tried to fix it, but there was no spark & I had no parts to fix it on the spot. SO, we got towed back home around noon.



I still wanted to get up to Ithaca for the meet, so repacked the C30 & left on my own, the Mrs. had had it. I got about 2 hours or so into the drive & then this happened





Single lane traffic through a construction zone, basically we were all on the shoulder. Section of roadway heaved, broke the Tesla in front of me, I moved over as far as I could without hitting the concrete divide, and got the broken wheel & a bent strut tube









I put the space saver on it & drove the remaining 90 miles at 40-45mph. That was excruciating, but at least I made it, and ppl up here were able to source a strut tube, so I can change that tomorrow, if all goes well. I'll have to drive downstate on the space saver, which won't be fun, but at least I won't need to be towed all the way home.

 

[andyb5]

Hell of a day today.

Wow, no exaggeration there - brutal luck to have that much damage on the C30. Sorry that happened, but at least you made it up to Ithaca.

Hopefully your drive home is far less eventful!

 

[lookforjoe]

Wow, no exaggeration there - brutal luck to have that much damage on the C30. Sorry that happened, but at least you made it up to Ithaca.

Hopefully your drive home is far less eventful!

Thanks Andy.

Got the replacement strut tube installed today, no luck finding a full size wheel & tire that will clear my BBK - so thankfully Matt LeRoux had another S60R space saver - the one I drove 100miles on with the bent strut tube was toast

Space saver after 100 miles with extreme camber



Bent tube removed



Have to keep it 45 or lower to avoid drivability / handling concerns. Made it back to Deposit, NY where the accident happened. took me over 2 hours to go the 90 miles. The remaining 140miles will take about 3 hours, on a replacement same spec space saver (mid 00's Volvo S60Rs came with big brakes - so they provided a space saver with a deep offset, works for my setup.

Grateful to all the ppl who helped source & deliver the replacement strut tube, provide the work space & tools, and to Matt who gave me a similar space saver for the (long) drive home!

 

[302ftw?]

Thanks Andy.

Got the replacement strut tube installed today, no luck finding a full size wheel & tire that will clear my BBK - so thankfully Matt LeRoux had another S60R space saver - the one I drove 100miles on with the bent strut tube was toast

Space saver after 100 miles with extreme camber



Bent tube removed



Have to keep it 45 or lower to avoid drivability / handling concerns. Made it back to Deposit, NY where the accident happened. took me over 2 hours to go the 90 miles. The remaining 140miles will take about 3 hours, on a replacement same spec space saver (mid 00's Volvo S60Rs came with big brakes - so they provided a space saver with a deep offset, works for my setup.

Grateful to all the ppl who helped source & deliver the replacement strut tube, provide the work space & tools, and to Matt who gave me a similar space saver for the (long) drive home!

Oh man, Deposit is the middle of nowhere. Back when I was going to RIT and living in Suffern I always went Rt17 and passed by there often. I lost an oil pressure sensor in my e30 on one of those drives and had to be towed to a shop in Deposit. What a $#!% hole. 1 stoplight town. Lucky you made it to Ithaca! That could have been an even longer tow back to Rockland.

 

[lookforjoe]

The meet was awesome, I'm glad I went - not so much the actual travel to & from...

The pickup issue was pretty straight forward - no spark to the plugs, but spark present to the distributor. I didn't have a spare cap or rotor, or I probably could have fixed it on the road.



Ultimately, I replaced the rotor & 2 of the wires that didn't have positive lock on the plug anymore. Actual resistance values of the wires were OK. Plugs were all OK, gaps OK. I had just replaced the cap & rotor a few days prior when I removed the distributor to address the leaking shaft seal. I should have just left the old ones on, they only had maybe 5-6K miles on them. I re-installed the Bosch ones, just cleaned up the contact point/areas

Dead (non-Bosch) rotor on left





Plugs OK, gap OK (WR7DC)







checking spark on each wire after



running again , stable idle

 

[DET17]

Genuine BOSCH FTW...... somehow, those bargain China parts never satisfy (for long).

 

[lookforjoe]

Genuine BOSCH FTW...... somehow, those bargain China parts never satisfy (for long).

Indeed! The only reason I had replaced the (Bosch) cap & rotor I had on there was because the shaft seal was leaking, and the spare distributor I had had a new cap & rotor from when I lent the distributor to a Volvo tech to try on his brother's 940 - he put the new cap & rotor on it. I didn't even check to see what brand they were. I'm going back up to Ithaca in a couple weeks, so I'm going to carry a new Bosch rotor & a wire set as spares for the drive

 

[lookforjoe]

Getting the truck ready for another Ithaca trip, and a short one to Kingston, NY tomorrow - I got a new windshield installed today - the old original one was so pitted driving at night was a nightnmare

new wheels & 2 new Bridgestone Potenza T005's for the C30 came - so I got those mounted. Need to check the toe

This is what I drove home on last Sunday

 

[lookforjoe]

Waiting for Z parts.

Getting ready for a retake of the Ithaca trip in the pickup. Yesterday my wife pointed out that there was a bad noise coming from under the passenger side - the cat was disintegrating. I don't have another cat to put in - so today I modified a resonator to fit



Test fit - cut the flange and extension pipe off the dead cat - tacked to resonator



welded, added bung for O2



all good.



good offset on the O2



Also had to fix my Mum's weed whacker - the lower shaft wouldn't stay in the main body, so I just drilled it & put a set screw in there

 

[lookforjoe]

Back in Ithaca. Stopped on the way for ice cream at this awesome place - Sugar Lips in Johnson City

Also stopped where the accident happened in the C30 to get info for the DOT claim.

This is where the chunk was sticking up out of the roadway

There were other rough patches that day - but the above one was the one I couldn't avoid

 

[lookforjoe]

Started fixing the rust on the right rocker panel. Driver's side has no issues.

Pretty bad. It was bad when I got the wagon 3 years ago

started poking from the inside

cut most of the outer skin off

have to fix the inner structure before I can replace the rocker skin. This mid section below the captive nut is the reinforcement for the B pillar,

all this has to be replaced

Scraped all this sealant/undercoat back from the floor to rocker lip, to make sure nothing will catch fire when I start welding in new sections

 

[corivus]

while not surprising that's still a lot of rust! I'm sure it'll be rock solid once you finish it.

 

[bobxyz]

Wow, you New Yorkers are a hardy bunch! It's great to see the updates and more of your over-the-top skills.

 

[nibroc]

I like to see the updates also

 

[DD Ranch]

I didn't understand why after all the work you did on the conversion that you didn't do a full paint job. Now I get it!

 

[lookforjoe]

Scraping away at the underside where I will need to make a cut

Shoulder gets wider towards the rear. It's been hot & humid it's been very difficult to work outside

Cross section of rocker/sill cut from a wreck

Drilled out the sill welds on the spare section - I want to try & cut the inner repair piece from this

Cut some sheet metal in preparation for bending Have to match the rocker section, and make some inner support sections

Also put new handles on two sledge hammers I dug out of the yard many years back. Now I have 4 sizes - these two fall in the middle

 

[lookforjoe]

while not surprising that's still a lot of rust! I'm sure it'll be rock solid once you finish it.

Wow, you New Yorkers are a hardy bunch! It's great to see the updates and more of your over-the-top skills.

I like to see the updates also

I didn't understand why after all the work you did on the conversion that you didn't do a full paint job. Now I get it!

Thank you. When I pull the drivetrain I'll fix the rot in the battery trays areas as well. Still may not do a full paint job though - that would make it harder to use it as a working truck....

 

[lookforjoe]

Weather moved around - didn't rain all day as predicted - so, I was able to get started on fitting and welding in the first repair section of the inner rocker

Cut out back to solid metal on th car- made Initial cut of filler piece

Test fit. The drop in sill to rocker lip is perplexing - I don't see a stagger like this at the front of the driver's side



after some back & forth - I left a section of the floor lip that coincides with the area I had to remove

mostly welded - rain is coming back so I primed it all with weld-thru zinc primer. Lip alignment seems OK now. Just a slight step at the front

Just tacked on the underside where the floor pan had to be welded

The remaining rearward inner section should be possible with just plain "L" or possibly a dogleg section



I bent a range of options on my friends metal brake. Lower piece will be the rear rocker section



repair section I have that was cut from a parts car only goes as far as the pillar

The rear section is a little hairy towards the jack point & behind were the tie-in to wheel arch happens. Once all this is addressed, the rocker skin can go back.



Acid soaking a spare set of 280Z front control arms to remove excess rust. I need to modify these to fit the Apex Engineered front subframe. Didn't want to cut up the originals which are far too nice a condition to modify

TUS-11a UJoints finally came - hopefully tomorrow I'll have time to install one.

 

[302ftw?]

God damn that is a lot of work! Rust repair is a level of skill I have not achieved. This is why I go out of my way to find rust free projects. Killer job!

 

[lookforjoe]

God damn that is a lot of work! Rust repair is a level of skill I have not achieved. This is why I go out of my way to find rust free projects. Killer job!

Figuring out the best way to reconstruct the panel junctions is the bitch for me. I hate it. The only saving grace is the satisfaction of knowing it's going to be solid again & close to original construction, not a hodge-podge patch job - I've seen that shite.

That is also why I bought my Datsun 280Z from inland California. I did NOT want to deal with one of those with rust!