Matthew Abate

Today's project time was spent at the DMV getting the title transferred. It only took 2.5 hours of line waiting, 15 minutes of standing there while my assigned bureaucrat talked to her colleague about how much her other colleagues suck at their jobs, and 5 minutes of actual processing. New record for me at that particular branch.

Yeah, I've been looking into soda blasting because of that.

Okay, I need some recommendations: Does anyone have a good northern NJ resource for welding in new floors and possibly rails? I want to start looking into places now, because I want to have the place selected by the time I'm ready for the work to happen. I have considered learning how to weld and doing it myself, but this is something I think I want a pro to do. Does anyone have any recommendations for body shops who can media blast, epoxy prime, and paint the car? I've been looking into soda blasting because of the thinness of the metal, so I'm also looking for feedback on what people have had success with in that area. I'm also looking into doing the blasting myself. Looks like Harbor Freight has a unit for < $100.

Yeah, I'm not mixing paint and spraying. Rattle can only in my garage. So the plan is sand the surface rust areas and spay self etching primer as I distmantle and hunt for cancer. Then get it media blasted, epoxy primed, and painted.

We've been having quite a discussion in this thread about engines and rust and stiffening. I'm encouraging everyone to move it over here so people get to follow what I'm thinking and make suggestions. Also, I printed out the FSM, put it in sheet protectors and a 3 ring binder today. So I did actually work on the project, such as it is. You would not believe how long that took, but it was a nice way to skim the contents.

The only rust I've found so far is in the floors. I had planned to do a self etching primer, but I'm also looking into the epoxy. What specifically should I be looking out for that is dangerous? Or are you talking about the application process and respirators and such? I suggest we move this particular discussion over to my build thread, by the way.

I won't be welding, but I plan to smooth it out and do the undercoat, which is why I thought I could get away with not media blasting it. Still working that out. I'm getting rust freckles, though, so I need to get on it. I didn't realize the braces weren't effective. Researching this is way higher priority than figuring out the drivetrain. I was really hoping to not cut or weld at all. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

1 hour a day is the minimum. My 14 hour days plus the 2 hour commute don't leave a lot of time for the kids, which take priority over the car, so the car consumes sleep time. Gotta make sure I sleep enough to not get fired. I think you're right about not being happy unless I get it media blasted. That's the goal right now, but I have to make sure I can't do the equivalent myself before I drop the cash. The absolute first thing I need to do to the body is fix the floors. I have metal riveted to them and bondo underneath. That's the priority right after getting it running (fuel leak and no battery ATM). Would you recommend replacing the frame rails even if they don't need to be? I knew these were flex, but I had assumed that I could solve that problem with bolt-in parts like sway bars and such. Gotta look into this.

No, I couldn't find one I could drive so I bit the bullet and bought one without. I plan to get it on the road in a couple of weeks (got some things to finish), so that will be my baseline. I'm taking it apart to have it painted. Haven't decided if I want to have it media blasted or just use sand paper and wire wheels, but I want to get to the metal to protect it from ever rusting. I hadn't planned to reinforce it, and that might force my hand on the power train. A minimum of 1 hour a day on the car is my rule. Might take a while, but it will be self motivated eventually. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I think I'm 90% certain that i'm not going to make any decisions in the short term. Maybe down the road, but not before I get the car stripped. I feel like the right time to do lock this down is when the car is totally dismantled, but right now I don't think I know enough about these cars to go down this road. I'll revisit the issue when the car is apart. Thanks for the informations guys! Feel free to highjack the thread now.

THAT was useful. Thanks. I think I'm doing all of this anyway, hence my earlier comment about putting money into one engine, and then doing it again. This is something I want more clarity on. I have found some comments about the wiring harnesses being incompatible, but I'm wondering if someone makes an aftermarket wiring harness specifically for this purpose. This seems to be a popular conversion, at least as popular as the RB26 conversion, so I'm curious if there are people making kits (like there are kits for rear disc breaks, for example), but I'll dig around on the HybridZ site for that.