My 6.9's

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Well Inop turned into 3+ months from leg surgery after the disk surgery. Took all the trim to Denver and had the anodize stripped. Most of it came back very nice but one bunch they etched a bit.  That will add extra steps of sanding with various grits to get back to smooth metal.  First piece I did looks excellent. Now I have >60 hours of polishing to do.    I have 3 cars worth of trim.

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2 doors stripped and painted with epoxy sealer.

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This week after a summer of yard projects and health recuperation I finished off rebuilding the 2 front hydro struts. Had to use a 4' long pipe to extend plumbers wrench to get them open!

I have also sent off to Salt Lake City Chrome several bumper sections to get straightened and rechromed. I managed to find on fleabay 6 different parts for reasonable prices.

[raueda1]

This week after a summer of yard projects and health recuperation I finished off rebuilding the 2 front hydro struts. Had to use a 4' long pipe to extend plumbers wrench to get them open!

I have also sent off to Salt Lake City Chrome several bumper sections to get straightened and rechromed. I managed to find on fleabay 6 different parts for reasonable prices.

Hey Robert, great news about the health!  Any plans to post anything about your strut adventures?  I'm gearing up to do the same but I need a kick in the butt.  Cheers,

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Today I sanded the last door panel using a painter stripper machine that I bought several years ago to strip paint from a house I was painting.  I found a spare grinding pad and that got me thinking if it would work on a car. It's a Wagner Paint Eater. The pads are made by 3M and both are inexpensive.

This door had some bondo on it so the sander really helped remove all of that. Of course it is all extremely dusty, but it got the job done. I will add this tool to my arsenal for further paint removal.

[rumb]

At Dave's request here is my tale of strut rebuilding.

I did the back ones first and they were pretty straight forward for taking apart.  I clamped them in my wood faced bench vise and heated them to @220 degrees. (I later learned you can heat them to 280 or more and still not damage the paint.  Using a pipe wrench on the end cap and a bit of strong pushing I got them off. I noted that on both front and rear struts the outlet for the big hose is 180 degrees offset from the little drain hose at the bottom.

After the caps are off it is quite simple to replace all the orings and seals. The bottom cap should be put on first as there is a seal ring on the end. The top cap is not tightened all the way, instead you stop about 1/8 of a turn from tight as this is where the two ports line up as before.  Using red lock tight will keep it in place.

The Front struts are another story!  Getting the big cups off can be quite a challenge. As I posted elsewhere I made up a wrench to fit in the cup to get the ball joint off.  The @2' length is needed to get enough torque. 

The end caps on the fronts were much tighter.  I increase the temp to 280 degrees and added a 5' square tube to the plumbers wrench and that barely got them to move.  I also had to clamp a 2nd wrench in the vice to hold the bottom.

I would be willing to lend my custom wrench to anyone needing it.

Here is another excellent write up with pictures https://forum.w116.org/mechanicals/6-9-hydraulic-strut-overhaul-take-2/msg96477/#msg96477

[raueda1]

First, great to see your progress.  I hope you'll get it going by summer.  Then we could hook up for some kind of Rocky Mountain rally.

Anyway, Thanks much for the info.  As the winter progresses I'm going to take up the strut project.  These tips are gold. Mine are working but one or more drip and I just don't have confidence in them - though that hasn't stopped me from driving thousands of miles on them. 

Do you have any plating jobs pending?  If so that might animate me on getting the front cuffs off.  Cheers,

[rumb]

Cant believe it's been a year since updating. I managed to use up all of this spring,  summer and fall building a 1985 CJ7 that I bought disassembled. The rust damage was slickly covered up by the seller.  Major repairs required.  Good news is that my welding skills increased.  Also lots of painting work.

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more picts

[raueda1]

Wow!  Great job, looks beautiful!

[Randys01]

You're a force to reckon with!

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In general news I sold my 1972 MG Midget on BAT a couple of weeks ago.
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1972-mg-midget-16/#comments-anchor

I also finally got my dream car: 2016 AMG GTS with 3500 miles on it. It is an absolute beast! Half throttle spins the tires.  Still learning to drive it.


Finally back at metal work on the 6.9.  Working on passenger side rocker panel and rear wheel arch.Since the inner arches are NLA I discovered that you can use the outer wheel arch patch panels and cut the bottom edge off and reform it to fit as the inner.  The tricky part is patching something that isnt there anymore.  Getting a reference point is problematic.

https://img.gg/hEj9HPb

https://img.gg/WFSiNwG