Patcon

Very pretty. Might be nice if you could engrave the choke symbol on it...

What technique did you use to clean the lockset? It turned out good...

The rear hatch is a hard panel to fix right. The metal is really thin and you have to have a light touch to shape it properly. It is also easily damaged. Once that metal gets stretched it is hard to get it to shrink up properly. Shrinking disc or torch maybe, but you have to be really careful to not make it worse...

Zed Your first two images both show springs on both sides of the valve. So you would think it would self center, but as gunky as these can get, who knows. I have never disabled one...

My wife loves that stuff! Use it on the stainless cookware all the time...

I like that chrome powder coat. That seems to work pretty good...

Don't tell @Diseazdthat! Go ahead and try to get the title straight now, it may take some time. I took me 3 years to get a clear title on a car I bought out of NY. If you can great. If you can't you know it's a parts car for sure. It gets harder every year to get these kind of issues straightened out at the DMV. They would really prefer these vehicles weren't on the road at all, I believe...

What is the deal with the shifter? Is it automatic? It doesn't seem like it has a shift pattern just up or down...

I agree with rturbo 930 The best you can do is locate a car with a similar VIN and see if the engine installed in each has a similar number. Even that is not conclusive because the engines weren't installed sequentially...

You too, Jai and to the rest of you too... Be careful and enjoy your family...

This is called title washing. It is getting harder to do and could be illegal in many areas. I find it unethical to "wash" a salvage titled car once it is branded, but it doesn't bother me to have a clear title on a car that has crash damage. Salvage cars don't scare me for some of the same reasons gnosez posted above. Just about any damaged car can be made right if you spend the time and effort. Just my perspective...

No offense taken. We may work on it some today after it warms up a little...

The check valve may be missing but I still suspect the booster is bad...

You have your work cut out for you now. All of that paint has to come off if it peels that easily...

I would not apply for a salvage title. If I could get a clear title I would. In many states some cars that are total loss still carry clear titles and I have come across cars, including my present project, that could have been totaled but weren't. There are a number of states that have really harsh rules for wrecked cars, Florida being one of them. In my state there are no "rebuilt" titles, only salvage titles which means the car went back to the insurance company and they got a salvage title from the state. There is no reason to brand the car if you don't need to...

Don't you love being able to do it that way?!

I thought that was incorrect...

Hadn't spotted that yet...

I agree this car isn't a rusty as your latest but at that point I'm not sure it's a car. It might be a bunch of spare parts held together with rust... I noticed that there looks to be a good bit of filler in the rear hatch area where they normally rust. I guess it's possible they replaced the whole rear end with a 260z rear section. I will have to get underneath at some point to see if I can see what kind of signs I can find of welding

Yes, just got here last week. Many times these cars will start and run once they dry out and you change the fluids... Probably, if you look at the drivers door picture the yellow line near the door handle is the water line... Even if all the electrical were bad I have all of that here in spare parts. The rust is the bigger issue for me. I don't really want another big body and paint project...

If you want to avoid rust don't run it when there is salt on the roads. When you look at the underside of the car and how many of the seems are open for water intrusion it is very hard to seal them all up. Once the rust gets a foot hold inside the structure it is very hard to stop. If you have a nice clean rust free West coast car you should keep it that way by avoiding salt...

Here are some pictures of the "Rusty Pig". This car came out of Miami and has a salvage title. I was a flood vehicle so I assume it was in the process of being painted then they had a flood. I was hoping they wouldn't spend the time and paint to paint a "Rusty Pig" but I was mistaken I believe it's been lowered. Haven't looked to see how they did it yet.. Rockers look bad and would really need some work This is the part I hate most, the cowl area needs work... Early air cleaner I believe. I believe the engine has been replaced. Also shouldn't it have the early valve cover... Some new door seals in the box... Rear pan is wrong. The replacement from Zedd Findings is inside the car

Ok, I took another shot at the strut caps. I took pictures of the previous results. The first cap had some dull plate on it. So I added a 1/2 TBspn of brightener to the tank (3 1/2 gallons) . Then continued plating. It was sort of an experiment to see if I could brighten the plate part way through the process. The answer is ...no. The one on the right side of my hand is the second cap I plated. It was much brighter and plated out pretty good. There were a few sections that I would have liked to be shinier and that may be from the leaving them in the pickle too long. I may try skipping the pickle and see what kind of results I can get. It was interesting that the backside of both of them plated pretty good. I wonder if this has something to do with the shadowing effect making the plating finer I also experimented with the way I tied them because of the issues I had the time before this one. I found no difference this time. In actuality the one I plated with the wire through the hole did better but probably because I added brightener. I also used a fresh piece of copper wire. So it was either bad prep or a contaminate on the wire. So on this last past, I took the dull cap and started over.. I also switched away from the wire wheel I have been using. I was concerned about contaminants on the wire wheel. So I switched to a 3M ceramic brush. The yellow brush I am using is 80 grit, which doesn't give me the finish I want. It really needs to be finer. I am still working on that. I have the green one too but it is 50 grit. I had problems with my chromate tanks being too cold last time. This time, I had moved them into my shop, then I put them on heating pads to heat them up, which didn't work. I am going to use some larger tubs and use a hot water bath to get them to a decent temperature. When they are too cold the reaction seems to really slow down. I also bought a quart of brightener, so won't run short anytime soon. If you need some PM me, we can work something out. The 4oz seemed too small and the next size up was the quart. So a quart it was... Blasted it and brushed it. Tried to pickle it until the bubbling stopped but 10 minutes later it was still bubbling This picture is part way through the plating. Are any of you other platers getting brighter plate than this right out of the tank? This is after the blue chromate These are after yellow chromate They are not awful but they could be more evenly shiny. I did notice when I dried them that seemed to get a lot or red sheen to them. I don't know if that was accidental or some issue of my technique. I am going to continue to work on the details...It's all in the details!!!

@carnutatthebeach

I would hope there is some documentation for this somewhere. Not the previous owner told me...