Unpainting (?) the engine bay.  I started by knocking off some of the rust scale with a wire brush, which did a great job on the thick stuff.  I brought out my friend's soda blaster and began to take off the paint.  All I can tell you about the soda blaster I used was that it convinced me to invest in a sand blaster, ha ha.  The tip of the pickup tube in the blaster got clogged about every two minutes.  To unclog the tip, the whole unit must be disassembled.  So, as you can see from the pictures, I didn't get as far as I would have liked to.



So, soda blasting makes a bit of a mess...

Here is the amount of good metal that I uncovered in about an hour and a half of blasting, unclogging and repeating.

Happy to see that there is good metal around the rust hole, however, its bothersome that the hole/holes go down into the corner...

I started to strip the engine bay to get ready to repaint it, fix some rust, pull the motor and start the re-wire.  It went pretty well, until I got to the heater haha.  Those things are really in there, especially if our little brown friend rust invites himself to the party. 

I got the carb and the intake off easily, yet I have been working on getting the exhaust manifold out for a long time.  Everything else came out without a fight. 

Here are a few shots of whats been happening...

Gutted, with the radiator still intact.

 I was quite surprised to see that this seems to be the only rust that will have to be cut out and the panel rebuilt!!

 Now, to start cleaning the parts up.  I plan to paint certain parts to accent the engine color, the body of the carb, air cleaner cover and fan will be painted orange to match.  The valve cover will be painted orange (a stencil of the logo from the steering wheel added) then shot with silver to leave the logo in orange to show through.  The heater, steering box and the timing cover will be painted silver.

Some things I have done....

Here are a few pics of some of the repairs and mods I made to the engine.

Not much has been done yet, but there will be much more to come...

So, I decided to strip the interior and the trunk of upholstry and what-not, hmmmm....


Original ("Custom") Interior...

Stripped the trunk, cleaned and sealed...

Started to remove the seats and carpet...

Look what I found!!  Nice!!

Needless to say I will have to wait to start putting the Painless kit in...

Most of the floor pan was pretty good, there are a couple of spots that will need to be patched, but most need the surface rust cleaned up and sealed to prevent further, well...fun.



-Brad

Alright, so I figured that it would be easier just to start a blog dealing with my 122s rebuild rather than clogging many many forum pages with "hey look at me" threads.  I acquired a 1967 122s in December 2011.  The vehicle would barely start and the tires would not hold air, even though I remember the add saying something about being driven often.  Since the purchase, I have made the following mods/repairs:

New fuel sending unit (gauge actually works)
Hot Spark magnetic ignition
Silicone vacuum lines and fuel lines
Ipd performance plug wires
New battery (although I take issue with Autozone for not honoring their own warranty)
New fuel pump/filter
15X7 Torque thrust 2's with Falken tires
Rubber valve cover gasket

As soon as the Hot Spark was installed, the car cranked every time, until the battery died.  With that replaced, the car started well...kind of.  Now,, if sitting for a couple days, it cranks within about 3 seconds of turning the key.  After driving, it takes longer and longer to start, with adequate time in holding the accelerator to the floor. 

I have a new Intake/Exhaust gasket to go on, a set of progressive rate lowering springs (3" rear and 2" front) courtesy of John Parker with Vintage Performance Developments (http://www.v-performance.com/about.html) an 8 circuit Painless Wiring kit and several other small projects as well.

So, on the the plan.  I am planning to do the following over the coming months:

Strip the interior, and trunk (and repair the rust holes that I discovered)
Repaint the engine (original orange, with painted carb body and steering box to match)
Paint and seal the engine bay
Re-wire the entire car
Replace all lights minus the headlamps with LED's
Clean and repair the suspension
Repair a large rust hole in the frame I found
Full (home-custom) custom interior and trunk
Stripping, straightening and repainting the body
Custom V-Performance exhaust

So, that is the plan so far, not counting anything that may just come up while I am trudging through my tasks.  I have to send many thank yous out to folks at Swedespeed (http://www.swedespeed.com/) including George Dill for providing me, a first timer that wants more than anything to preserve a piece of motoring history, a font of information and guidance.  Thanks guys.

Check back every once in a while, as I will update the blog as I start/complete projects.

-Brad

Here are a few pics of what has been done so far...

A few days after picking the car up, with the wheels that came with...not my favorites



A couple shots with the Torque Thrusts