Refinishing the underside and rear end

(10/01/02) I finally got the car up on jackstands and the wheels off so that I could start working underneath. The poor thing is filthy from having sat so long waiting for attention.

Here's where we start with the underside of the car. Not the worst one I've ever seen, but not the best, either.

I cut the whole exhaust system out with a Sawzall, since it's gonna get replaced. It made quite a nice basket of snakes.

And here's the rear end ready for extraction. My oldest son gave me a kinda birthday present by helping me remove this guy. The help was REALLY appreciated. I might have been able to do it myself, but it was sure nice not to have to find out.

We removed the shocks, loosened the control arm nuts and bolts (I had a hell of a time finding an 18mm deep socket) and then I cut this brake line and plugged it with a couple of screws. I'll replace it with a new one when we put things back together.

Then a little creative work with the floor jack and...poof! No more rear end.

While we were in there, we removed the fuel tank so that I could pretty it up.

Then I spent the next week or so cleaning the rear end housing, including pulling the rear cover off and draining all the yucky-smelling gear lube. Yanno, my wife can tell when I've been working with rear gears and differentials. She doesn't have to see me...just gets a whiff and she says, "you pulled the rear end apart again, didn't you? Well, don't come near me until you shower." I don't think she likes the smell. Hehehe.

When the cleaning was all over, I had a nice clean rear end, freshly painted with Rustoleum gloss black. (Oh...and mine was nice and clean after the shower.)

And I installed a cast aluminum center cover with bearing carrier supports. From all the reports I've read and heard, these are supposed to increase the strength of the 7.625 rear ends greatly. The gears are 3.73 with factory positraction.

I also cleaned and painted the brake drums with flat black stove paint. We'll see how it holds up to the high temps. If it does, fine. If not...well, we'll have to think of something else.

Here are some of the parts that will be going back into it. This is the driveshaft from Denny's. They advertise it as being break and twist-proof. We'll see.

This is the dual hump crossmember from G-Force. It's a very nice hefty piece.

Here are the new shock absorbers from KYB. It came down to a decision between them and Konis. And I couldn't justify paying 4 times the price for the adjustability of the Konis and everyone I asked about the KYBs loved them. So we'll find out how they feel here pretty soon...I hope.

I'm replacing the lower control arms with tubular units from Global West with Del-Alum bushings at one end and spherical aircraft-type fittings at the other. These are highly recommended by people who have used them

And since I'm using the GW lower arms, I'm using stock (although brand new) upper arms. I'm having a plate welded to them to box them in and add some strength, though.

Then I started cleaning and painting. This was the color scheme I had in mind, but I started on the left rear wheelwell as a test. I wanted to see if the color scheme grew on me or grated on me. As it turns out, it's grown on me.

So I spent the next week scraping, spraying, wiping and generally cleaning the hell outta the underside. And when I got most of it down to the painted metal surface (I left some parts undercoated) I painted it with Safety Red Rustoleum.

Then I went back and painted the frame and crossmembers with gloss black Rustoleum. I think it's gonna turn out ok, especially since I'll be adding the other items like the rear end, the driveshaft, a dual 3 inch exhaust and this tranny...

...which was built by Wade Austin. He's just about the favorite tranny builder on the Nova mailing list and has done transmissions for numerous people there. And the price was great. It should be delivered here to my house within the next couple of weeks.

And here it is. Wade delivered it to my house free of charge since he was driving from Arizona to North Dakota and came through Utah on his way. We had a nice visit and he got back on the road. He wouldn't even take any money for gas. Bless his heart.

Next page: Underside work continues.

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