Welcome to Wakanda

There is a scene at the begining of the third act of "Avengers: Infinity War" where Captain America, Natasha, and Black Panther go over to the magic shield around Wakanda and talk with the purple lady with the horn head & the big dark guy with the grabber weapon. I don't remember what she says (the dark bad guy only grunts), but Black Panther's response is - [You are in Wakanda now. You will have nothing but dust and blood.]

I think Black Panther had recently found a car that had been parked in somebody's garage for 37 years. I suspect Tchalla was a AMC man.

Today I went to work on the brakes - at least the fronts where I don't have to pull the axles to remove them. I spun off the lug nuts and jacked up the car. That was pretty much where my efforts to expose brakes came to a halt (pun intended). I could not figure out how to get the drum to move off the hub. I did not heat it with the torch, but I gave it a severe beating with a mallet - even that didn't help. The instructions say "pull the drum away" ... but I think the authors of the service manual left out "LOL".

So I decided to clean up the front spindles & suspension pieces so at least I could see what I was doing. I chiseled away with my scrapers and a wire brush. I used a wire wheel and cup brush on my drill. I swept and sucked up rust, dirt, and grease. I discovered several grease zerks which I could not have told you were there before. I discovered some castle nuts with cotter pins. I found some more suspension rubber which was in pretty good shape, and several pieces that were toast. I probably collected 6 liters of detritus from the floor - there was another 2 liters that I actually managed to catch in the pan + cardboard I put down.

It seems restoring this car is kind of like this. Do some interesting technical mechanical work followed by 10x more work just cleaning up nasty parts.

Comments

  1. Tractor BoyDecember 20, 2021 at 7:21 AM

    Be sure to wear a good dust mask so you are not breathing the dust, grime, grit and or particles. None of it can be good for aspiration although some might tend toward inspiration. Somewhere along this perilous journey will be waypoints of success either tiny or substantial. Perhaps this is modern Pilgrim's Progress.

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