Nissan Weekend #14

As much as I'd like to pretend that weekend 14 never happened (or at least to not count it as an actual “work day”), I guess I should go ahead and tell the tale.

Mostly, the fourteenth installment in our continuing series largely consisted of me futilely attempting to wipe tar off of where the quarter-windows and tail-light assemblies had been on my car (and removing the pinstripes and adhesive for the trim). I bought a BIG bottle of tar & adhesive remover that probably would have worked fine had it just been a single small blotch or two that a person might get by driving through a road construction area with fresh tar ...not a huge quarter inch bead of the stuff covering a line that perhaps equaled 15-20 feet or so in length ...and this isn't even counting the double stick tape that had held the bumper strips on (another 15 feet or so), or the pinstripes. Back when I was working in the field, we used some stuff in an aerosol can that nearly melted the shit off on contact. I think I was kicking myself most of the time for not making some phone calls to find out what that stuff had been.

My dream had been to do all of the body work and put on the primer coat of paint this weekend. As much as I want to bitch about the complete waste of a day ...the truth is that I probably couldn't have successfully done that anyway: it rained cats and dogs nearly the whole day, and I have doubts that the paint would have even stuck. It also doesn't make me feel any better when the goal for #15 weekend is now going to be the same as this one though.

So I went out first thing in the morning and started wiping the tar out of the quarter window flanges with the solvent I had purchased (keep away from "Goof-off" everyone). Nearly two hours later, I started on the tail-light flanges. I didn't work QUITE as hard on those, and eventually I took a razor to the pinstripes and double stick tape that had a consistency that was somewhat similar to concrete has after having been on the car for 24 years. I guess that on the upside ...at least I did go ahead and mask off the quarter windows and all of the bolt holes where I had taken out parts (rear bumper, lights, etc) while I was working.

...it was well after one before I finally figured out that what I was doing just wasn't cutting it, and that I needed to try something different. I drove into town to see what was available, and had to settle on detergents and some heavy-duty scrubbing utensils. I put all of the “components” back into place inside the car and drove it outside; it was a bit amusing to drive a car without a dashboard in it. None of what I bought turned out to be particularly impressive or overly effective when I made it back with them, but I think the plastic scrubbers and brillo-type zinc pads may have been a bit better than nothing at all.

Ultimately, it came down to wet-sanding the shit out of it, and that mostly did the trick although it went down to the primer in a lot of the heavy areas. Then when the heavens opened up and started dumping what I'm pretty sure was one of the local lakes on me, I pulled the car back inside the shop and started pulling a vacuum on the AC system. I took off the RF fender and did a bit of pounding on the fender with a rubber mallet to get the worst of the dents out, then put three cans of refrigerant in the AC. I either have a pretty big leak, or something else is going on; it cycled rapidly like there wasn't enough refrigerant (R12 capacity was only 34 ounces, so three cans should have been overdoing things a little bit). I guess I'll find out next time; I dumped a shit-load of oil into it, so a leak should be pretty obvious if there is one.

When the monsoon passed over, I pulled the car back out and did a little more sanding before calling it “enough” for the day. Had I done the body-filler work, it's probably almost ready for the primer-coat. As I was finishing up, I set the fender back on it and remembered that I had done absolutely NO sanding on that.

I'm considerably less than thrilled with the progress on this trip, and I guess that I'll just have to hope that next time I won't have the rain variable mixed into things. I got a fair bit done as far as prep-work goes; there's still a fair bit yet to do though. As I've said, I'm less than thrilled, but it could have always been worse I suppose.

Nissan Weekend #13

So number thirteen was a bit of a short weekend as well; we brought my Mom's sister and one of her kids out to the ranch Friday night, but came back home Saturday evening after dinner. I got in about six hours of work time; I think I probably got a lot more done than I had really thought that I would, although I suspect that my BIL thought I set myself back a ways rather than moving forward.

It really was a slow start. Although I brought my toolbox along with me, I never took it out of Mom's car. I used the BIL's quarter inch socket set and a few screwdrivers the whole day; the "mechanical" end of it is mostly done now, so I don't really need very much. Oddly enough (or maybe not), I started out on the front bumper cover. The epoxy I used to fill the damaged area was pretty rough, so I just got a bit of a start on that. I worked on it for maybe 15 minutes or so; I have a cardboard box I carry a lot of the "little stuff" around in, and I forgot to bring some of the items that really would have aided in the sanding. As I worked on it for a few minutes, I got to thinking that perhaps I would be doing myself a favor to simply bring the whole thing home with me. It became somewhat obvious that I was probably going to be looking at hours of work to get the contours on the repaired section right; why not just do all the sanding and maybe even the primer coat here in Dallas?! Food for thought at least; I abandoned that project and got busy on removing the rear bumper cover.

The bumper cover came right off; it's amazing how easily all of that comes off when you have virtually all of the interior mostly laying on the exterior. There were two nuts on either side that were covered (hidden) by insulation, but I saw the top two before I even started so I pulled the insulation back to SEE if they had hidden a couple more. When I had everything loose, I gave the cover a big tug...

...and nothing. It wouldn't budge. I pulled both outer parts loose, but the middle of it was still holding tight. I looked closer and sure enough; I had missed one stud that had a wiring loom going over the top of it. Apparently 12 studs in the interior of the car isn't QUITE enough to hold it on; they need to throw one MORE hidden one in as well.

It was a surprise to me when I took the tail-light assemblies out; I had been reading about how the seals for them were rather notorious about springing leaks. I had a fair amount of rust damage in the rear that I had assumed was from the hatch seal (I'm still not ruling that out); the rust damage in the spare tire well was definitely from a leak in the right tail-light seal though. The standing water in the left side after I washed it is still a bit of a puzzle though. I saw a spot on the left seal that looked like water may well have been passing through, but I didn't see the obvious watermarks like I did on the right side. I'm certain that I'll have a lot of puzzles to figure out once everything is painted and put back together. Since all the water that runs across the entire rear hatch empties right by the light assemblies, it's a pretty good bet that the leaking problem was there all along.

The same sealant used for the tail assemblies is what is used on the rear quarter windows. I had been reading an article about how if you were re-sealing one, you might as well do all of them. The sealant is a really annoyingly sticky black tar-like substance that apparently loses its thickness with age; it had been running a little bit on the side windows for as long as I had the car and was almost impossible to clean off. The more I read about these leak-potentials, the more I liked the thought of just taking them out, painting the trim separately and re-tinting the glass while it's out of the car. One of my "projects" while home is to find a good cleaner for the tar; that stuff is almost impossible to get off with nearly everything I've tried so far.

The quarter windows came out with relatively little fuss; the adhesive-cleaning was (and will continue to be, on the next visit) the most difficult part. I took all of the side moulding off, and I'm not really sure how well those parts are going to go as far as repainting since they are SO flexible. Hopefully not TOO bad is all I can say; only one side had severe damage, but I'll need to paint them all to have them match. I used a razor and cut off the worst of the double stick tape that held them on; hopefully tar remover will take care of that as well.

After I spent goodness knows how much time with a razor blade trying to get the worst of the double-stick tape and the tar on the window and tail lens areas off, I remembered the ground effects, which turned out to be no big deal at all. Once those were off, I took a few steps back and tried to figure where to go now; I still had time on my hands. I guess that the logical next step would have been to have gotten busy on spit cleaning under all the things I took off; only I didn't have anything to take the tar compound off and that was going to be getting in my way no matter what I did.

I was so proud of myself for finding that dashboard cover a while back ...it really makes a world of difference in the looks. The more I thought about how badly the vinyl was peeling up, the more I started thinking about ways to clear off the old rotten stuff before attempting to gue down the cap. ...to the point it was actually starting to literally bother me. I had a thought creep into my head about the possibility of just taking the whole dash out; after all, I had all the lower trim out, the AC control head/stereo assembly, the glovebox ...the instrument panel was really the largest obstacle standing in my way for getting at ALL the bolts for the dash. It isn't exactly FUN to take out, but not that big of a deal after everything else I've done.

I had the time now ...and it might save me some trouble down the line if I was able to do the work on it with it OUT of the car (shit ....everything is easier to work on when it's out of the car). I went ahead and got busy with that. I think the largest problem was just in remembering where all of the bolts were, and what peices had to come off to get at the "hidden" bolts. It was really a "couple of hours" out of my way, not a "couple of minutes" ...it sucks to take it out in any case, but in this case I think I turned out to be doing what may be a huge favor to myself later on. When I pulled it out, it turns out that the reason the vinyl started peeling up in the first place is because it has started rusting out underneath ...BADLY! I'll need to cut away almost all of the affected sections and do some major sanding and rustoleum painting ...then put in some low-rise sandable foam and hopefully that will work well enough. I'd really rather not have to chase down another dash for the silly thing, but I guess I'd rather find out now rather than a year or so down the line when it all starts warping because I cut corners (and I've cut more than a few already).

Once I had the dash out and on the ground, I called it a day. The BIL came out and nearly fell over when he saw the interior ...I think he said something to the effect of how it had LOOKED like I was in the process of putting it all back TOGETHER?!?! Ah well ...it may not be pretty, but I'll be happy I did it later. I chose to only bring home the front bumper cover, the quarter-windows and the tail-lamp assemblies this time; hopefully to get prepped and all of the tar off of before I head out the next time. Time will tell! She's looking pretty scary, but I'm sure hoping this means I'm still on the downhill end of things.