Wanted: enough sense to wear Personal Protective Gear

I was stalled for a week or so. Life is like that sometimes - too many obligations or chores or just opportunties for distraction. So I went a whole week without touching the car. In my head, I had planned to borrow the hoist & stand from Doug a week ago, and that was what I was going to do next. But even though other stuff kept getting in the way of that objective, I just didn't go to the next things on my list.

A couple of nice things did happen to me in the middle of the week. My friend John offered to do some 3D modelling for some of the trim parts. Namely the 'after burner' tail lenses. He sent me one of his models and I printed the shell just to see. They are so cool !! If you want to nit pick, they have lots of things that can and probably will be adjusted before I resin cast an actual part, but I think it is super neat to be able to design, print and test fit a prototype.

Additionally Dave dropped off some gifts for the project. He loaned me a very nice angle grinder (and some wire wheels for it) as well as giving me a fire extinguisher. I immediately unboxed the fire extinguisher and put it someplace easy to reach. Nothing worse that watching your garage burn down while you are fiddling with a cardboard lid.

That day I went around and tested the engine mount bolts to see that I could turn them off. There is one mount on each side. They have a single threaded shaft on the bottom that runs through the frame. That is snugged up with a nut on the bottom side of the cross member. Then there are 2 bolts through the mount into the engine. The mounts will be replaced, but I was able to use a breaker bar to move the nuts on the frame. The bolts attached to the engine are a bit harder to reach and I was unable to get them to move. I am sure I could but since the ones to the frame move I will undo the engine that way. It is far easier and neater to unbolt things than it is to cut things in half - so I am glad I won't have to do that.

On Saturday I made time to drive over to get the hoist & stand. On the way over, my janky 23 year old Dodge pickup started making gurgling noises and getting hot and then making more noise then cooling down a little but still staying warm. It is only about 10 miles / 20 minutes between us so I kept going. When I went to do a 3-point turn in his driveway, my oil pressure dropped to zero. We popped the hood and found a very unhappy cooling system. The truck was hissing and steaming and taking a leak all over the drive. We decided to leave it out of the way at his place for now. I am pretty sure the water pump died. I don't know what else is wrong or how that may be connected to the the oil pressue - when I started it to re-park, the oil pressure came and went (¿maybe depending on what gear I was in?). I will have to tow it from there either back home or to a shop.

The blessing in that came when Doug offered to drive me home and we loaded the hoist & lift in his truck. That meant I had someone to help me unload the beasts when we got to my house. I think the hoist weighs 180 lbs and the stand is probably a more reasonable 100 lbs. I was happy for the help in taking it out.

At this point I got suited up and set out to try Dave's 4-1/2 inch grinder with a wire wheel on some more rusty stuff. Ultimately I need to roll under the car and do the frame & floor pans, but I want some technique & practice before I am stuck under 2 tons of metal with a violently spinning wire brush. WOW that thing is a hoss. It got away from me several times before I found the correct angle of attack. I worked on the transmission cross member and the intake manifold. Here is a before and after on the cross member. I think I give myself a B-minus. The intake is more like C level work, so I didn't bother with a pic.

I noticed that using the grinder with a wire wheel instead of the drill resulted in a lot more sparks being thrown.  I also found that there were certain angles of attack that resulted in me being pelted with debris. When I went to sweep up, I saw lots of wire brush needles on the floor. They were also stuck to the legs of my coveralls.

I didn't think much of it. I was wearing gloves & goggles (no respirator this time), but I just chocked it up to part of the mess. Maybe I was running the grinder too fast. Whatever. That sentiment lasted until I went to take a shower. 

When I washed my face, I found this piece of wire sticking out of my cheek. If I had dimples when I smiled, that is where it was stabbed into me. The penny is just for reference - it was embedded in my body.

Next time I will wear a full face shield. We have several of them from the COVID masks we printed last year. I think I also need to make a working space out of plastic sheeting. Who knows where the other metal bits flew inside my garage, but I hate to injure some human or animal passing by.