NickJ's Lada Niva TwinCam

[NickJ]

Last time I had to remove bitumen sound deadening I had access to near unlimited amounts of liquid Nitrogen, the whole Datsun was done in minutes, this time not so, two days later and I settled on a working but painful method.

Heatgun the bulk, wire wheel, vacuum, acetone, repeat.

The wire wheel removes a little but also smears it around making clean up with acetone much easier (big thanks to @smokin'joe for the big bag of towel rags)

The Ryobi die grinder has eart a place in my collection of favourite tools, GHFWII, most often seen with a 50mm roloc disc.

After all the pain and huffing a litre of Acetone, ive got the floor stripped back, gave it a good run over with the knot brush of doom and a strip disc and is now pickling under a good coat of Phosphoric acid.

Best part, only about 100x100mm of the floor needs replacing, its actually pretty good (for a Lada)

Hope for a few good days of work coming up, just hit full send on an order from LadaPower in Estonia, this will be the bulk of the bits needed to get it back to wof status.

 

[NickJ]

Oooohweee, a new page!

Hacked out the worst of the rot and through USSR's pleasant use of 1mm steel found useable meat in close proximity, carved out a patch and in it went

Currently searching rapid rust pitting methods to make the new metal blend in a bit more

While groveling around on the floors I found a few familiar holes...

After this event roughly 20 years ago I soon learnt there were no bungs in the floor that emptied out directly, they all go into the chassis rails, to assist water exit and not having a shotgun at hand, I used a hammer and nail to creat suitable 'drains' These since constantly block but always allowed water/mud in, likely assisting the previous mentioned rust. (Always use a shotgun)

Gave the engine bay a once over and deleted all the unused holes, various brackets and mounts that are no longer used with the twincam etc. Now to start the always painful cleanup and preparation for paint......

[NickJ]

One of those slow days when every task seemingly takes forever.

Positively, i'm ready to paint.

Negatively, I cracked the windscreen while removing it.

Brought a cheapo party tent from Bunnings along with some tarps for a makeshift spraybooth, wouldn't want to get any car paint on my floor paint!

[NickJ]

Flicked some paint around, managed to get primer and colour in the engine bay and interior. Colour felt a bit dark going on, but really happy after a few coats.

(Must resist the urge to respray everything)

Finished off the day with first coat on the suspension using the same paint as the Datsun, asking the supplier why it took so long to harden and that I wanted something more fuel/oil resistant they told me a few drops of fancy hardener could be added for exactly that. Ah, cool, best I grab a bottle of that too...

\

Pretty happy with the Bunnings spraybooth, using the CNC extractor to maintain negative pressure is keeping the fumes down and outside the environment, if not for 30+deg outside, this would almost be enjoyable.

[NickJ]

While propping the car up with the nearest length of timber to work on the underside is a traditional practice, this was a first for me.

If not for the last half cup of fuel spilling out it would have been uneventful and productive evening, note to future me, don't tip to the drivers side.

Thats the underbody coating done and with 45kg of bits and pieces due to turn up in the coming weeks, reassembly is sneaking that much closer.

[NickJ]

And now for the fun bit, reassembly

Except its not that fun, many fasteners to find, clean, then decide to just go buy new ones only to realise the bolt heads are not the same size.

At least the weather is encouraging shuffling bolts through the ultrasonic bath

Installed new rubber to the rear arms, too busy to turn a cone at work, 3d printer to the rescue!

Lower arms in to get them off the bench and not scratched, rattle can rebuild of the shocks which are surprisingly good condition for their age, still waiting on spring perches and uper arm pivots to finish off, should have them back from the sandblaster this week.

One last spot to tidy up, took a fair amount of bashing to get to here, only a thin skim of bog to get flat, will see how motivated I am if it gets any more of a tap.

Can also see the lovely new grill I had delivered, really impressive the post managed to smash it in the same spot as the one I took off  

[NickJ]

Another batch of bits from the sandblaster including a few front suspension bits that have been holding up progress

Everything will get a coat of the same metallic grey 2 pack enamel except the wheels, they were originally white but still not fully decided, could use some leftover white from the Datsun or go completely different, too many choices!

Back on assembly and the front upper wishbones are slightly difficult to assembly as there is a sequence to follow, as usual the universal stack of large sockets got me through.

Semi rebuilt the front brakes, i've never serviced them but they've had all the abuse so assumed they would need seals and pistons, strip down was very surprising, both cleaned up like new, only really need new dust boots that I damaged removing. Interestingly, they are a two piece design, pressed them apart, blast and paint on the cast iron and ultrasonic bath for the aluminium body.

If you haven't got a 3d printer in your workshop, do try it, blanking caps are quick which makes masking for blast and paint easy, no tape!

From this

To this

between blanking caps and custom press tools, its paying for itself in time/sanity saved at a rapid rate.

Found full parts catalogue online so printed out a copy to sit alongside the workshop manual, the exploded diagrams beautifully compliment my terrible labelling of ziplock bags.

The big plan of having it running by the end of this month has all but disappeared, a large parcel of important parts is currently tracked as in NZ but stuck between Customs who say they have no interest in it, pre-cleared entry and NZPost who say Customs have it, Being that they both operate out of the same building its quite disappointing, not to mention how 25kg of car parts just vanishes.

[NickJ]

My shipments of parts eventually turned up, back with the supplier in Estonia. They were nice enough to slap another label on and after a few months of waiting I had everything.

Rust patch panels are helpful but still took a big day messing about to get fitting right.

Rust cut allowed a pretty good downhill run on the paint, even better the tent is out of the shed now making it feel much more open.

Next up, axles, diffs etc and wheels!

Ordered a new windscreen too, definitely a suspenseful phone call when the supplier put me on hold for ages, was expecting him to say NLA but the good news is I should be picking that up next week.