Rudolfs 2+2: The gleaming emerald......

[CroS13]

Update 22.7.17 - Second workbench done... and a stove? 

 

 

 

Lots, lots, LOTS been happening in the shed over the last month!

Where to begin?

 

I made my second workbench with the help of my mate, who is a extraordinary carpenter.

 

Firstly... acquire toolboxes...... (not that i need anymore...)

 

 

 

Start building up the framework:

 

 

 

 

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The basic frame is now complete:

 

 

 

 

Adding some doors, because why not:

 

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Now while this was all happening..... remember this image from a few posts back:

 

 

 

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Well my mate helped me pull down the framework, and he took it all home. I only asked for him to make my bench tops and what not from some of the old shed....

 

So once i had finished the basic framework, he came, took some measurements... and started on his own little woodwork project for me, and started sending me progress pictures:

 

 

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And i continued work on my side of things..... getting it ready for paint:

 

 

 

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Nice and slickkk!

 

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And today... he came round with the finished wood work... and we got it all put together:

 

 

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And that's the second project done and dusted!! 

 

 

now.... about that stove......

 

Its very very cold in the garage... much too cold to be working on zeds at night..... i needed some heating.

 

i needed heat... but im a idiot... so what does that mean?

 

No, don't do the sensible thing and go to bunnings and buy a electric heater for $30 and call it a day.

 

No.... go and buy a 80 year coal burning pot belly stove to restore.... which i did.......

 

 

and after about 6 hours work with a wire wheel:

 

 

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And then i got a interesting phone call a week after i bought the pot belly stove.....

From Perth......

So this old bloke rings me. He saw the advertisement on Gumtree, rang, was told the stove had sold to me, and he promptly asked for my number.

 

Turns out he is restoring a vintage 1930's Western Australia State rail caboose. Apparently this pot belly stove is actually out of a caboose. It is a van guards stove.

And he happened to offer me 8 times what i paid for it not 1 week after i got it. His sister lives in Sydney, and came and picked it up the following day, and my wife couldn't believe what the hell just happend! neither could i!

And i was left stoveless! but RICH!

 

So i hopped back on Gumtree again, and with 8x the cash i had out layed previously, i found myself another pot belly stove, a GRAND POTBELLY STOVE:

 

 

 

And I'm currently working on this little project.

I've milled down the un even mating surfaces, cut back all the rust with a wire wheel brush on a drill. Un-froze the front ash door and air control knob. Used a Oxy torch to remove all the snapped bolts that held it together (which was all of them)

 

Last thing to do is make a top hat and chimney spout out of some thick plate steel, and go buy a flue kit!

Once that project is done, and im nice and toasty warm in the garage, i might get back onto the zed. But i must admit, I have been having a blast building everything to deck out the garage!

Rudi.

 

[Enzo]

Rudi, I don't know you , but you are the man. What a brilliant shed. It's a piece of art in itself and I am jealous as hell. I can see that you will be spending too much time in there once completed.

        Keep up the good work and most of all, be proud of your achievement. It will look great once it has a Zed in residence.

Regards

David

[KatoKid]

Love it!

 

Well done.

[CroS13]

Update 10.9.17: Shed done!

So i reached a milestone last week. I have finally finished the shed... for now....

I celebrated by hanging some memorabilia i had lying around for the last few years, waiting for somewhere to put it.

The final piece was the old Japanese flag i have. I scored it from work when it was being replaced by a new one. It had been sitting under my computer desk for around 3 years, waiting for somewhere to go.
 

 

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As you can see, i also built a brick surround for my Pot belly stove. I also got a custom flue kit made for it, and installed that a few weekends ago.

So last week, on a cold Friday night, i celebrated and christened the garage, by cranking up a fire, cracking a few beers and getting some work done, replacing the brakes and coilovers on the silvia.

And boy, does the stove throw out some heat! i ended up being in a T shirt and having the windows open it was so hot in there!!

 

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And here is a photo i took today, with both cars finally resting in their new home:

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The only job left to do is re build the back of the carport. Once that's done, its back onto the zed!

Rudi.

Edited September 10, 2017 by CroS13

[potter260]

I'm in the same boat, spending way to much time building a place to work on the cars. But it sure does make it a more enjoyable environment to be in! Great workplace but That timber work is to nice for a workbench !!!

[daretobedifferent]

Your garage space is sick!

[Cozza]

Yes, very nice Rudi. Do you spend anytime in the lounge room these days?

 

I see a 2 post hoist in your future.

[Agno]

Hot diggity dog that looks good!

[CroS13]

That timber work is to nice for a workbench !!!

 

Tell me about it. I find myself laying down drop sheets over it when im working on cumbersome heavy parts!  I've been told many times... that belongs in the house, not the garage!

 

 

Yes, very nice Rudi. Do you spend anytime in the lounge room these days?

 

I see a 2 post hoist in your future.

 

Hehe yeah i can be found inside the house.... at dinner time!

 

And you would be correct, a hoist was always planned since the begining!

 

 

 

Hot diggity dog that looks good!

 

cheers! i got a lot of ideas and inspiration from the garage journal forums. It also depressed me, making me realise how poor i actually am! ha!

 

 

[PB260Z]

Hi Rudi

 

Very nice work indeed.

Love the toolbox bench, absolute first class effort there.

 

cheers

 

PB

[CroS13]

Update 6/10/17 - Building a V8 Forklift!!!!

 

Now for something a little different,  here is something out of left field i think you will all be mildly interested in.

For those that don't know, I'm a forklift mechanic. This project build started about 3 years ago when one of the managers at work decided they needed something new to promote the business.

 

What to do... shove a 450hp, 383 stroked Chev V8 into a forklift and use it as a promo vehicle!

I can't lay claim to doing much on this build, they pretty much lumped it on our fabricator and he had been chipping away at it very slowly over 2 years. a few hours here, a few hours there. 

They missed 2 deadline years for Bathurst and said right, this needs to be done this year, so our fabricator spent the better half of the last 4 months straight working on this.

383 stroker matched to the factory running gear through a custom adaptor plate. Rear end conversion to Disk brakes to make it do burnouts. 

My input on the project was getting underneath it and fitting the mast caps because no one else could squeeze under the chassis.   That's my pathetic claim to the job haha!
 

Engine: Blueprint engines 383 stroker - 420hp

 

 

 

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Getting close - this was about 2 weeks ago:

 

 

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And here it is unveiled at bathurst:

 

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I will have to make a video on this thing. Have to gather all the video's from all the boys during the build. Have a few clips of it ripping skids and nearly flipping on its first test run too!

Rudi.

 

[CroS13]

Update 26/10/17 - Video 5: garage build and more rust to fix!

 

 

So the majority of you will have already seen the beginning of this video, because in the first few minutes i just show around the garage and the projects I've been tackling over the last year not car related. Then i tackle some repairs in the rear end.

 

 

Rudi.

[CroS13]

Update 28/2/18 - Video 6:  Prepping the car for sandblasting.

 

 

So when my mate came over to look at my car, he instructed me to remove all the seam sealer from inside the cabin of the car, as the sandblaster would not be able to remove it because it was too soft. It honestly took me the better part of a month and then some to remove it all.

When i finally thought i had finished, In the beginning of the new year, I went down to the local sandblasters and had a chat. 

Funny that i initially got a quote from them over 2 years ago, and the price was only $50 more than the old quote, so that was nice!

The old boy informed me that i should remove all the under body stone guard / sound deadener. He said he can remove it, but it will be extremely labour intensive and slow, and would add ALOT more to the cost i was quoted.

So i went home and removed it all, which took me 2 months... what a prick of a job!

Anyway! here is the video:

I mentioned it briefly in the video, but i'm thinking of maybe stitch welding the underside of this thing while i got it flipped on its side. I mean, its already nice and clean, easily accessible, i might as well do it now. At the very least, i might do the frame rails.

Rudi.

[gav240z]

Surely there is a faster way to strip the underside? Hats off for your perseverance. 

[Promethium144]

im doing the exact same job at the moment on my 260z. i have been having good results with heat and a multitool scraper, i have done about 1/3 of the car over the past week of evenings after work. i have noticed that some parts have been tougher than others, like the left side of the car the pitch coating was maybe sprayed on hotter, or like a one bloke at the factory did the left side and a different bloke did the right. But i must agree its one hell of a job, congrats getting it done its looking good. 

[CroS13]

Surely there is a faster way to strip the underside? Hats off for your perseverance. 

 

 

im doing the exact same job at the moment on my 260z. i have been having good results with heat and a multitool scraper, i have done about 1/3 of the car over the past week of evenings after work. i have noticed that some parts have been tougher than others, like the left side of the car the pitch coating was maybe sprayed on hotter, or like a one bloke at the factory did the left side and a different bloke did the right. But i must agree its one hell of a job, congrats getting it done its looking good. 

 

 

To elaborate on what i said in my video, and to add some more information...

 

The first thing i wanted to try was dry ice. That worked really well for the sound deadener padding on the inside of the cabin. It was really thick, so when it froze it held its integrity and came off in sheets with a chisel and hammer.

 

The issue with the under body stone guard is that it was too thin. So when it froze with dry ice, it would just flake off.

 

I had high hopes for the multi-tool. I found that the blade on it was too flimsy, so it would bend off the sheet metal and not dig in. I even went back to Bunnings and bought a different blade but it had the same issue.

 

The rope wheel on the grinder did work reasonably well, however: It was vibrating badly which really hammered my wrists and hands after extended periods. Doing the wheel wells was tiresome as i was using it upside down. But the number one reason, which i mentioned in the video, is it makes a horrible mess. Now in my job, after laying under a forklift in the middle of a brick yard getting drenched in hydrolic oil on a 40°C day trying to repair burst hoses.... the last thing i want to do is get covered in melted rubber. The dust it would produce was extremely fine, it would get every where and take 2 showers to clean off. I got over it real fast.

 

Heat gun and scraper i found was on par with using paint stripper. I had 4L of paint stripper so i just stuck to that in the end. Apart from the fumes requiring me to wear the respirator, it was relatively mess free compared to the other methods so i just stuck with that. I could get home from work, have a shower and relax a bit, then go in the shed once it cooled down and not get too dirty again afterwards.

 

If someone has a better idea on something that could have worked i'm all ears for next time.

 

I got about 1/4 of the way through the job and realised the under body sealer was still in excellent condition. It was still soft and malleable in 90% of the areas.

 

The thing is i started initial scraping on the outside of the frame rails, the only place it was hard and brittle. So i assumed the rest of it would be the same, i was wrong, that was the only areas it was bad. But i had already done around 20% of it, and thought there is no point half arsing it. Not a spot of rust either, i could have easily re sprayed it black and it would have been fine. 

 

O well, job done now i guess 

 

Rudi.

[Promethium144]

i had the same idea with the dry ice .... well liquid nitrogen.... im a chemist nice info good for anyone else insane enough to do theirs. can't wait until mine is done and i can get onto to the metal work.

 

i look forward to mine looking as good as yours 

[C.A.R.]

Just get the shell media basted, Rudi...

[CroS13]

Just get the shell media basted, Rudi...

 

I know, i know! what makes it worse. Now I've essentially done 50% of the hard work anyway, it is getting to the point of being a waste of money getting it blasted because i have stripped so much off manually.

 

But I'll still get it blasted.

 

Bloody wog i am. I hear "very costly and labour intensive for us to remove it" and my arse hole just puckered up! "Not gonna stooge me mate!!!"

 

2 months later......... (i could have worked overtime instead, and been in a much better position mentally and financially!)

 

 

[C.A.R.]

I know, i know! what makes it worse. Now I've essentially done 50% of the hard work anyway, it is getting to the point of being a waste of money getting it blasted because i have stripped so much off manually.

 

But I'll still get it blasted.

 

Bloody wog i am. I hear "very costly and labour intensive for us to remove it" and my arse hole just puckered up! "Not gonna stooge me mate!!!"

 

2 months later......... (i could have worked overtime instead, and been in a much better position mentally and financially!)

 

 

[Brabham]

Who are you getting to do the blasting Rudi? It will come out well now you have removed all the seam sealer and deadening. Removing it manually is time intensive but will ensure a good job. I found manually scraping it and then wax and grease remover works best, takes hours but doesn't damage the metal/primer. Your floor is in good nick.

[CroS13]

Who are you getting to do the blasting Rudi? It will come out well now you have removed all the seam sealer and deadening. Removing it manually is time intensive but will ensure a good job. I found manually scraping it and then wax and grease remover works best, takes hours but doesn't damage the metal/primer. Your floor is in good nick.

 

I was initially going to go with a mob in Blacktown. They are very professional, and their price was reasonable. They assured me they would strip out all the under body sealer, but honestly i was a little sceptical. I was almost certain they wouldn't get it all off properly.

 

Anyway, It would have been $2200 done in a etch primer. I assumed that if i wanted it in epoxy, I'd just have to pay the difference in price for materials but no, they wanted a extra $1000 just to spray epoxy!! 

 

My painter mate thinks because of the price, they would be farming the epoxy out to a smash shop and not doing it themselves.

 

I am going to go with Stripco In Revesby. Their quote was only $50 more than what they quoted me 2 or 3 years ago when i did a initial inquiry. I know they do good work. It is around the same price, but with no primer, just done in and coated in a phosphoric etch? called kephos coating? Apparently its good to leave in that until its primed.

 

Anyway, once its stripped mate and i will epoxy the car in my shed.

 

Rudi. 

[CroS13]

Update 25/3/18 - seam welding done

 

Took the opportunity to seam weld or stitch weld the underside. Did the frame rails, little bit of the fire wall and the floor pans. That's enough for now.

Car is booked in to get blasted in 2 weeks time.

 

Here is the video of the work:

 

 

Rudi.

[CroS13]

Update 11.6.18 - Off to get blasted

 

 

Sim's metal gave me a good price for the shell... see ya later!

 

 

Edited June 11, 2018 by CroS13

[PB260Z]

Awesome work, that is a major milestone.

Guessing you “borrowed” a work truck ?