TOOLS
Apart from the usual wrenches, drills, brushes and the like I have used some tools I especially made or bought.
If you have any questions please send a message
Rotisserie.
Perhaps the handiest tool I constructed has been the body rotisserie. It enabled me to work at a comfortable height as well as the best angle.
Welding studs in window channel.
During replacement of the window channels I was forced to weld in some 20 new studs for the moldings. I used the heads of ordinary timbering nails. To hold them in place I made this simple tool.
Trunk lid torsion bars
I have made a very simple tool to overcome the tension of the torsion bars in the trunk
Top dead center
I have modified an old plug te help me determine top dead center. I removed as much of the insulation of the center elctrode as possible and mounted a short sping on it. With an ohmmeter I can determine the citcuit closing when the pistion reached the spring. I had to make sure that the piston can travel through TDC without hitting the spring to much.
Media Blasting
Please wear something to protect your eyes. I have been real lucky. At some moment the feed stopped (happened all the time) and for some stupid reason I was looking at the nozzle when I squeezed the trigger by accident. The media went right along my left eye, which was luckily protected by reading spectacles. Nothing bad happened, but ....
The gun I used was some hobby tool with suction feed. The nozzle can be replaced. I have used 12 in total. The hole in a new nozzle is 4 - 5 mm., worn out this hole will be some 8 - 10 mm. A dear friend of mine made the nozzle out of some tough kind of steel and hardened them.
I have blasted with media from Karcher (0.8 - 1.2 mm.). It comes in 25 kg. buckets. I have used some 10 buckets for the entire car, inside and out. I sieved the media time and time again, in order to reuse it as long as I could.
I started out with 1 (and later on 3 in parallel) hobby compressor 1.5 HP, maximum 120 PSI, 15 gallon tank each. Somewhere half way a long the line I was able to buy a second hand 7.5 HP professional compressor with a 60 gallon tank. Highest pressure 180 PSI. A real joy . It worked 3 times faster than the previous 3 together. I did not have to wait for the tanks to fill anymore. I wished I had it from scratch.
With this method of blasting there is no chance on warping your objects. They do not get warm at all. You can not remove tar, like underbody coating. It is too "soft" to be touched by the media, despite the high pressure. You can remove the small residue, after cleaning up the tar with a painters heat gun and some lacquer thinner.
Protractor
In order to measure the drive angles I fabricated a simple home made protractor. I used brass pieces that I soldered together. The scale has been setup using printout from a AutoCAD drawing with the cricle quarter on hand. The size of this paper gives an acceptabel distance per degree. Glued on top of the protractor is a magnet that has just the right size to fit on top of the U-joint cap, after the clip has been removed. A simple wire with a something heavy at the end uses gravity the indicate the angle. This gives an acurate indication of that side of the u-joint.
Pressing bushings
For most bushings I have used a press I bought at a swap meet. I believe it was made for the Russian army or something like that. I paid some 125 dollars and it really was worth the money. I could not have done this without it.
For pressing in the bushings on the rear axle I used some pieces of gas pipe, flat iron and a threaded rod with nuts. A bit of oil on the outside of the bushing will help sliding. (Perhaps a night in the freezer could be of help to you. I used this for the repair bearings in the rear axle.)
To press them out I also used a piece of solid iron (made by the same friend) with an outside diameter just a bit smaller than the bushing hole in the axle.
Spray gun
For priming I have used some cheap gun from Electra Beckum. It is a gravity feed type with a 1.5 mm. spray opening. I have sprayed normal paint as well, mainly on the inside panels.
For shooting the final paint I have bought a Devilbiss GTI gun. Gravity feed, spray opening 1.4 mm. Easy to clean. It sprays very good at some 20 psi (at the gun), but in my opinion still has a fair amount of overspray.
