Well been awhile, and I've been pretty busy with work and family stuff but I finally got a chance to get some more stuff done to the regal. Be forewarned, lots of pics coming, some old, some new.
Heads ready for paint!
Engine compartment ready for undercoating
I think the rear bumper might be in even worse condition than the front was... I took a pretty thorough look around the junkyard Bill but I didn't see any azteks or rendezvous'. I'll be going to another one this weekend to see what I can find.
The ac and idler brackets before cleaning.. our head guy told us about a process his media blasting guys do called "tumbling". Anyone heard of this? It works on anything aluminum, all you have to do is put bolts in to protect the threads.. not recommended for parts that house bearings, though perfectly fine to use on gasket mating surfaces. All they do is put the parts in a large vibrating drum with glass (I believe) bead media and run it for ~30 minutes. What it does is rolls over the pores on the aluminum and makes it a real smooth almost glassy looking surface.
Anyways, here's the before, we had these done as well as the LIM, I'll try to see if I have any after pics of just those parts. I'll probably just have to snap some this weekend.
Another dirty bracket we had to clean and paint.. not the grounding surface of course
Used intercooler I bought off a member on here.. lots of RTV to clean off
My girlfriend is awesome and extremely patient... she straightened out all the fins with a pick
Hillbilly sandblasting booth. If it looks stupid, but it works; it ain't stupid
Rust.. but an original barcode!
Heads up just sitting on the motor to keep the cylinders covered.. heads unpainted still.
Aaaanndd the motor all painted, and finally together (except for the sc, lim, and ic.. waiting on lifters to come in, and I'm still missing the two long bolts to bolt it all together.. anyone know where to get these?)
Finally got some headers too! Except they didn't have the greatest quality control...lots of weld filler etc had to be grinded down.
Not as bad as the other spots, but still a lil ridge I didn't want in there
EGR tube sticking through.. it was about twice that length before I started grinding :th_angry2:
Nasty scuff in the finish.. no one will probably ever see it but still not happy about it.
Lots of weld filler.. this was a pain in the ass to grind smooth
An idea of what the engine compartment will look like when it's finally done..we taped off the factory stickers because I wanted to keep that factory look.. yes they were taped of better than that when we sprayed that tape was just there from when we were spraying the bottom so we didn't get over spray on them lol.
Bottom partially sprayed.. once dry we'll move the front and rear jack stands/blocks into the middle and finish spraying the front and rear.
And i finally managed to get the right throttle body off a member on here
What do you guys recommend for heat insulation on the firewall, exhaust tunnel, etc.? I was looking at dynamat, but it's crazy expensive. Then I found
lizard skin which I really wish I would've known about before I undercoated, but what's done is done.