Played hooky from work today and got dirty. Before I bore you with the details, here's a few 'before' pics. The first is obviously my avatar.
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Here's a shot of the nose.
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A little history: A buddy of mine bought the car in 2000 with the intent to restore it to factory original. It promptly sat in his driveway for six years until he decided to get rid of it. It was just about on the way to the scrapyard when I mentioned I wanted a project, to which he said, "Dude...if you tow it out of my driveway this weekend, it's yours." SOLD!!! Trucked it home and tried to get it running. Sadly, the original Olds 403 was (As are most Olds 403s) complete and utter poo. I actually got her to run for about thirty seconds (Wow, did the neighbors love the smoke show I put on...tried to make a noise like I was doing a smoky burnout but I don't think they bought it) when I realized the water pump was gushing antifreeze. Decided there and then to pull the motor. Also discovered that while the body itself was extremely sound, the floorpans were shot.
Realizing that now was as good a time as any to start a rebuild, I yanked the engine and tranny and pulled the entire front clip. When she was finally towed into my driveway last weekend, all that was left was the radiator support and headlight support. Yanked those before work last Tuesday.
So this Saturday, I set out with confidence (Oh, I just never learn) to the garage. My goal: Strip off both sets of A arms and free the subframe from the unibody. I started on the driver's side. I don't have a fancy spring compressor, so I ratchet strapped the spring to the lower A arm. I was able to easily unbolt the shock from the underside of that arm, but where it bolted to the frame...no good. In the end, it took quite a bit of force (Read: I smacked the crap out of it with a big hammer) to free the lower arm from the frame. Once that was done, I unbolted the upper and pulled the whole assembly out without launching a coil spring through my neighbor's bay window.
This took quite a bit of time given my ineptitude combined with 28 year-old parts, but I was ready and willing to move on to the second...which did not cooperate with me in the least. In the end, two wrenches went sailing across the garage leaving twin jaw marks in my drywall. They are not the first, nor will they be the last.
Today, I went outside with a better attitude and did indeed get the lower A arm disconnected. Problem: The bolts holding the bottom of the shock absorber to the A arm are spinning in place. After a bit of head scratching and experimentation, I gave up and said, "Screw it! I'll just pop the subframe off and get at it from underneath!" Well, three out of four subframe bolts came out easily. The fourth? Yup. Spinning in place. And of course, I can't get a wrench on the square nut that holds the body to the subframe. After another hour of experimentation, frustration and one flying ratchet, I broke out the grinder and said sayonara to the bolt. I was able to easily yank the subframe into the garage with the engine hoist. Here it sits:
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I still have to get that shock off to remove the A arms. Tried the Sawzall, but it bound part of the way through. Clearly, I'll be doing some welding on that A arm. Doh! But hey, it's off, and I've got all winter to sandblast and grind away on this puppy and get it in primer for the spring. Plus, now I have room to push the rest of the car into its new home and get at those floor pans.
Up next: Stripping and cleaning THIS mess!
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