Thoughts running through my head

I couldn’t get any sleep last night, so I wrote this to help myself fall asleep. There’s some rambling. But you could technically call it an update.

I’m at a complete impasse on what to do about the floorpan. See, the right rear floorpan has a lot of little holes in it. It’s pretty bad, so I bought a replacement floorpan. The problem is, 1) I don’t know how to weld, and 2) I’m afraid that if I have it welded in by someone, we will find a lot worse stuff in the frame rail underneath. We might not. But if we do, then we are talking about a LOT more work.

So I’ve come to the question of: do I paint over it with Silver POR15 and live with a feeling of regret, knowing that I took the sorry-approach of “just covering it up,” or do I take the expensive approach of doing it right? Regarding fixing it later – let’s be honest, it’s a lot more time to take everything back out of the interior, remove the floorpan, weld in a new one, re-seal everything, re-prime, and re-paint.

The holes themselves aren’t that big, and the floor is actually pretty strong, but there are a lot of them. Another option is the POR-Mesh crap I bought, which is just fiberglass cloth. I could apply that on top, but, it’s not really the “right” way to do it.

I feel like I’ll explode if I think about this anymore…so let’s move on to the other stuff.

I have said for a while, that, I’d at least like to get the car to a “roller” state by the end of the year, but it doesn’t look like that is going to happen. Scott Drake continues to have problems with their leaf spring vendor and the shipment isn’t expected until next January (yea, right).

One huge pitfall in getting the car to a “roller” standpoint is the rearend. The rearend has 2.79 gears, and I’d like to upgrade to 3.25:1 for the T5 swap. 3.25 gears may be in the budget, but the cost to install them sure isn’t. I’ll just have to wait until some more money comes my way, to do that (forecast: not good :-) ). So now the dilemma becomes clear, I hope. I could install the rear axle housing, with the backing plates bolted on and all, but the axles will have to go in after the 3rd member, and the 3rd member can’t go in until new gears are installed. Lifting that up, and installing it, should be a blast.

Other than that, everything has just been a whirlwind lately. The brake lines I ordered from CJ Pony Parts didn’t fit at all, so I’m going to have to mess with them and make some changes, which really hacks me off (they’re pre-bent…come on!). With that, all the brake components for the entire car have been purchased, with the exception of 1 extra 6” steel line from the MC to the Distribution block (about $5).

The T5 is still at a standstill, and will stay that way, until I get the engine bay painted.

Ah dangit, I just remembered, I need to go get a new radiator support piece. This thing is never going to be done.