Spencer

@fuel is the resident Mitsi foamer if he is still checking OS.

LOOKS SHIT THOUGH.

You will regret making compromises with a people bus, there's so many shit ones. If you really have to get one then sell some shit and drop like 10k on a Odyssey or Estima thing. The odyssey is normal old 4 banger shit, (like a accord with a people mover stuck on the back) its easy to work on and look after, will have all the fruit and safety shit if you pony up the $$.

I use the Pentrite ten tenths 10-40W full synthetic as its available at almost all supercheap and repco stores (not cheap @ $60-70 for 5l) and it has 2200ppm zinc. From all oil articles I have read the original oils form when my car was built (1960's pushrod v8 design) the oils had something like 1500-2000 PPM back then so I am well within the safety margin. Cam looks like new so its working.

Lucas oil you mention has 2100PPM

It looks like the Valvoline has something like 1300PPM

Great research.

Seems like a saturated and low return market to try get into. Penrite seems to cater for all the niches of the oldschool crowd (high Zinc and mono-grades) already which isn't a growth market.

Happy to help in here all I can man, I helped on a few cars after the Buick and the methodology gets better as you make more fuck ups.

You are really in for a huge job once you start digging into fixing the body work on a car like that. Keeping it on the road while you do fix ups is a tough proposition. Kinda have to have a big shed and strip it and be prepared for 2 years of paint resto, you get the best results just doing it all. So much time and money though so yeah, tough.

So @AllTorque for a rust patch, brush on epoxy primer inside the repair area and on the back of the patch and let it set overnight, it holds out to welding heat better than anything else once its cured properly (couple days even better). Then hammer and grind it flat, finish dress it with sanding disc and epoxy prime a few coats with a brush and it will hold up until you get paint on it. I wouldn't drive around for a long time with just epoxy primer though, its a good seal but top coat urethane is way more durable to the elements (UV is harsh shit as is road grime)

Don't touch your classic car with rattle can paints for a long term fix IMO. Like seriously if you have a car you want to keep then only quality 2 part paints would be my choice, they will out last you if you get it right.

Epoxy primer can be brushed on for smaller jobs, it just goes on thick and lumpy (I brush it all over the back of rust patches and inside cavities). Filler if you read the data sheet is designed to adhere to clean white steel, it also will stick well to prepped epoxy primer. It will usually peel rattle can paint right off, it will peel most single stage primers off as it reacts and sets (learn this the hard way back in the day)

Seam sealer needs to be compatible with your paint system (test it). You can do it on the steel or on top of epoxy primer (again data sheets are your friend). If you have a compatible system (you can cobble together brands to make your paint "system") for a engine bay you can make some shortcuts and cut out 1 million of sanding. You can seam seal on the steel (a good 2 part sealer maybe), you can bog on the steel and spot prime until its flat and invisible. Then prep the steel one last time and we coat it in epoxy X 3-4 coats, then wet coat some good urethane on top x 3-4+ coats and its done with no intermediate sanding steps. Prep all your engine bay parts, hang them and do them all wet on wet at once if you are keen.

Yea so I would probably to all that by hand, sand it with 60/80 then rust kill (repeat that a few times), theres probably holes in there and doing it by hand will take way longer but much less mess if you aren't doing cutty-weldy. Hit with some filler and maybe get some 2 part epoxy primer and brush it on for longevity of the repair (can get 1L from a automotive paint shop) then try match with some cheap silver (probably brush on again). Good little weekend project, many ways to do it.

Go to bunnings and buy some rannex it’s phosphoic acid and is the simplest most effective product IMO (don’t trust those “primer” ones they have bad adhesion). Rub on with scotch brite and wash off with water. Poor mans version is white vinnager but it’s a less aggressive acid so takes more time and more applications usually. 

Its going to depend on the dizzy to do this. Generally you need to really be able to have a range of springs (how quick the timing comes in) and the ability to adjust the max timing (the stop). Then once you have done these mods or got a dizzy that can be modified you then need to tune it on the road. You can setup a knock sensor and some headphones with some kind of amplifier (laptop) and go nuts tuning spark till your ears bleed.

I did some of this on my car but I am lucky enough to have a murican V8 so a new adjustable dizzy is a off the shelf item. I tuned it pretty bleeding edge (its a donk so timing all in @ 2500rpm) and then when it was extra loaded (like 6-700kg) on a very hot day up a hill I got some knock as my cruise RPM was way up. So lesson learned on safety margin and tuning for conditions. Lucky you can just pull over and guess dial it back to keep going.

I probably wouldn't trust a shop to do anything apart from some machine work if possible to make the dizzy adjustable? after that I can't imagine a shop road tuning a carby car for you without many hours being spent and lots of $$. Seems a journey best traveled in DIY and learning shit.

Saying all that the car will work with the stock dizzy for now (which you seem to think it wont from above comments?) all you may want to do is limit max timing (mod the stops) so you can put more base timing in.

Or electronic control like above but that ads complexity.

Yup if you can spray I would use 2 part epoxy, it doesn't murder you (less/no isocyanates) as much as Urethane 2 part paint. The killer combo is 3-4 coats epoxy primer and then wet coat 2-3 coats of cheap industrial 2 part urethane. Por-15 is good enough, its a single part urethane that cures through moisture, if you nail the prep it works OK and is easy to apply but it does not adhere as well as epoxy to clean prepped metal, not even close. If you do the epoxy and urethane method you get the hardness of POR on top (probably harder) and the adhesion underneath so its doesn't scratch and flake easy. POR also has bad reactions with most silicone (sicaflex etc) seam sealers found on floors (it falls off when in contact with most sealers) where you can seal the floor and blast right over with epoxy.

For the mask as above bunnings has 3M masks that will keep the death out, do it outside and cover your skin and eyes fully (barrier cream on your face even). You will not die, the cyanide builds up slowly over long exposures so just don't make it your day job and don't get any lungs full or let the vapor on your eyes. Dane is still alive and he's a rebel with paint haha.

I did the floor on the Buick twice (did POR first and was not satisfied with how it sticks) and have done a few car floors and things for others since. A 4L tin of 2 part epoxy primer is like the car restoration 101 product, can brush it on everywhere and it holds out to heat better than any weld through primer in a can once its cured.

Personally unless I was selling a car i would not use any off the shelf single part paints for big coverage areas, its old technology and will fall off and fail many times faster than the above things mentioned.

/broken record

Yea used the EZ wire one or whatever it was called. Its built to go in GM shit to some degree as it plugs into the GM ignition box on the column and saves wiring up the key stuff. Otherwise its built to be generic as well, just takes some more work. Fuse box is nice and the wires were all labelled on the sheathing. Works out a bunch easier and tidier than most DIY build your own fuse block stuff I have seen, especially for me as it was designed with US cars in mind. There are smaller and more generic ones also, have a google.

Wat, why would you use thicker gauge than is already there? I am yet to meet a panel that is thicker than 0.9 (20 gauge?) only in door re-reinforcements and hinges etc. Its so much harder to form 1.2, like almost a whole order of magnitude harder to hammer haha.

Yes gearing for your application rather than motor control would be the way to go for sure.

/have you considered a powerglide?

Sounds like a winch with a expensive/decent stepper motor would be the go? I imagine this kind of control problem has been solved if you dive into the internet with the right words.

The steel you use makes a huge difference IMO, PC casing is real stiff and would be gay to shape (much like the zinc stuff). Not what you should be putting in your car. If you use some real stiff shit you will have slightly different hardness (not sure on technical terms I am a hack) metals on each side of your welds making it hard to work into shape after? When you use cold rolled and you tack right through the job you can grind and then sand the weld  down flat then work out the shrinkage with a hammer. Zinc doesn't play as nicely and makes this process way harder, I would put computer cases in that basket also? People whinge about mig welds not being workable but I think its the materials and methods used that make it so.

Out of all the consumables you use to fix a car a sheet of the steel that makes the job easy to do seems pretty reasonable? especially at $100-150 a sheet. Get your tin snips out and try it on zinc vs cold rolled, its night and day.

Hmmm 6 settings sounds not so good, I had a inverter mig and the fine tuning of settings made a real difference. A whole sheet of cold rolled here was around $100 so just bought the whole sheet, used around 1/6th of it then gave it away, was handy to have around.

I agree as most of the above, need to work in hot tacks that sit flat (they should almost look the same on both sides of the job). If you cant achieve this you need to ask why, its probably a combination of the big gaps and maybe how you are doing it. Get two of your clean new steel patches and practice big-fat hot tacks on it and get them perfect, then if these setting don't transfer to the job you need to think about why and make changes.

Also I recommend using normal cold rolled sheet over zinc coated, its at least 1 million times easier to work with and welds nicer. If you need corrosion resistance on the back paint it with epoxy primer before welding. I was told to use cold rolled by a guy who does restorations for a living and would never go back.

Yeah well the news flash is that sugars get converted to acid by bacteria and acid is corrosive. Its how we get fermented food and booze.

As the milk ferments and bacteria eats sugar they make acid, maybe this is some explanation? Acid is the go-to for dissolving/removing rust, just barrys never go that extra step and find causation. 

Yup its just the shop being dicks (unless there is some new law?), you can paint 2K epoxy on with a brush and its no where near as deadly as 2K urethane, I can't see why they would do it. Maybe they have been burned or just on their high horse, maybe protecting morans from themselves, who knows. There's always stories of various paint shops doing that, take your business elsewhere as there are many good automotive paint brands/re-sellers.

Seems pretty grot to put a towbar and tow with the 86, especially when you have a grot ute to do the job.

From the info we have and the pic of the exhaust with what looks like a narrow-band O2 sensor its a ex-injected 18R with carbs chucked on? Its a recipe for disaster when cunts have bunged things together and not engineered the solution properly, takes ages to dial in some foreign old carbs which no cunt ever actually does.

P-western LMVD to the rescue.

Just figure out a budget and buy the best new car you can afford. Really pays to learn the market place and what things are worth before commitment to the first "cheap" car that comes your way. Patience and learning will get you a lush modern whip that needs nothing done vs a POS money pit.

Yup buying newer shit with 300km is only OK if it was dirt cheap, you knew the history and it was well looked after. Otherwise its a grenade.

Usually to avoid warping you do small stitch welds on alternating parts of the job, let it cool in between. Try and clamp it to something solid that can help it stay in shape and sink some heat, big bit of steel or if you are lucky a slab of aluminum.