1967 Boomerang Resto-Mod - Utah

[UTBirdMan]

Two weeks later and only a little progress on the roadster. In November an older family car was stolen so my college son bought an '03 Avalon with 226k miles, we spent much of the holiday break giving it the "love" (neutral sensor switch rebuild, wheel lug replaced, swollen lug nuts replaced, power steering leak fixed, dash lights replaced, oil change, brake bleed, air/cabin/oil filters replaced, lots of vacuuming and scrubbing, still need to replace master brake cylinder and a door and trunk actuator) . Another son returned from overseas for knee surgery, while our youngest son left home again after knee surgery. But this isn't a personal journal, just my excuses for not making much progress. Life sometimes get in the way.

I had planned on taking the body off the frame, but determined it would be unwise to try to take it down the steep hill to our backyard basement door, and also unwise to take up my wife's parking spot in the garage. Winter has hit Utah with a good snow storm and the next 10+ days are forecast to not go above freezing. So what can I do? Time to focus on the brakes, suspension and steering.

Limited progress has the springs and shocks removed, calipers removed, one rotor removed. A Spriso 300zx brake conversion is ready to be installed, but prior to putting things on the car, I'm still taking things off. VTO wheels showed up, happy with them, 15x6, 4x4.5, +15mm 76mm bore Classic 8. Will mount the Kumho's sometime in the next few weeks, but still a few months before mounting the wheels on the car.

It is always a good day when boxes like these arrive

VTO Boxes.jpg

All the wheels on my couch

VTO Group Photo.jpg

Close up

image278.jpg

Basement staging area - Tires are not for the Roadster

Basement.jpg

[UTBirdMan]

The cold, wet winter in Utah can be a bit depressing for those who don't ski. Even more so for those who ride motorcycles. In my case, I've been heating up my garage with a combination electric space heater and propane, depending on the temperatures. I was able to get the entire suspension and brake system out, but the steering was giving me fits. I just couldn't get those tie rods to separate. One or two came out with a somewhat gentle hammer, but the rest were not budging. On top of that, there are some threads I need to re-tap due to my failed efforts at convincing the tie rods to listen to me. This morning I gave up on brute force and borrowed a tool from AutoZone. In a matter of minutes, all the obstinate tie rods were disconnected and I was able to completely remove the steering components from the front. Over the next few weeks I'll be cleaning it all up, prepping my Spriso front brakes, and eventually getting to the rear to do the same. Photos below:

AutoZone Import Tie Rod Puller - The right tool for the job

Tie Rod Puller.jpg

Front end with nothing left

Front End Empty.jpg

Closeup of the drivers side brakes and suspension

Brakes Suspension-1.jpg

This is pretty much everything

All Apart-1.jpg

From another angle

All Apart-2.jpg

[Gregs672000]

Yep, sometimes it just does come down to using the right tool! I've used such "rentals" many times. Most recently I borrowed a cylinder hone to break the glaze and seat my new rings after a piston pin repair. I accidently dropped the damn thing and broke a stone... I felt so bad! But they didn't care and said "that's just part of a rental" and sent me over to the next closest store to get another one so I could finish the job...

Coming along! Keep warm! I may decide to come visit the red rocks area this spring/summer... never been to Utah. I'd like some canyon scenery and some stars at night.

[UTBirdMan]

The old cotter pins were a real challenge, some took upwards of an hour to get out. I broke one small (cheap) pair of pliers and damaged two others just trying to get those darn pins removed. I'm not planning on re-using the old bolts if I can help it, the cost of new ones isn't that great and many of the bolts are rusty and nasty.

Utah is an amazing state to visit, bring your roadster, an RV, or a motorcycle and enjoy it when it isn't that cold. I used to work for a company out of Renton and flew into SeaTac many times. Road my bike through the middle of Washington coming back from Alaska in 2022, I can see why most of the population in Washington is closer to the coast. I'm in Provo, don't be a stranger should you come this way.

[Gregs672000]

Thanks for the invite! Yes, Eastern WA is much different from the West side, something my wife and I enjoy when we do a "circumnavigate" Mt Rainier drive (long version, about 6hrs). It's really cool to see how the geology and environment changes... from Douglas fir and lots of ground cover to reddish barked pine trees, open ground and clearly volcanic rock. The middle of WA shows signs of a gigantic flood at the end of the last ice age where Dry Falls was many many times larger than Niagara and the Pothole lakes were drilled into the ground by the rapidly flowing flood waters swirling vortices. When you know some about how the "scab lands" were made it makes the visual a bit more interesting! Nothing beats a convertible for such drives.

We saw a show about the Red Rocks and that looks like a very cool place to drive! I hope we can pull it off this year.

[UTBirdMan]

To think I had hoped to give weekly updates. Life happens and I'm glad to get an update in every two weeks. Winter has not been as cold lately, but other than a couple of days around 50 degrees, painting is still not really an option. I have been scrubbing the steering and suspension components and prepping a list of items to order. I've been swapping favors with a neighbor of mine and even gave him the Optima deep cycle battery that came with the car, so I didn't mind asking for some help from his better setup garage shop for the calipers. We spent about two hours pressing the bushings out, re-drilling them, and re-inserting them for the Spriso brake upgrade. After we figured out our method, it went pretty quick. Basically it came down to a large bench vice, a 30mm socket and a smaller socket to push the bushing out. A simple heavy hammer to put it in on the front side, and a proper bit on a massive old drill to clean it out. A few days later I went about cleaning and prepping the calipers for paint.

Originally I had planned on keeping them stock, as they looked quite good. I picked up the calipers off eBay from a junk yard that showed the donor car. It was an immaculate 1990 300zx NA that had about 90,000 miles on it. The interior was fresh, the exterior was clean, even the engine bay was clean. The previous owner had taken very good care of it and could have even been the original owner. It had been T-Boned and totaled.... The car's condition gave me a lot of confidence in the calipers, and I was not disappointed. Other than some of the clear coat yellowing and flaking off the raised lettering, the calipers looked amazing. However. It is my car. I like red calipers. And the clear was not that good on the raised lettering.

I am very wary of painting. I have improved over the years, but I never quite seem to do it all right. Some of the problems is the prep, some is in my lack of patience, but it never quite goes as I wish. This was no exception. I did sand down the lettering and removed almost all of the relief that was in the NISSAN. I even lightly sanded the SUMITOMO wording. I then put a light layer of chapstick over the area I wanted to clean off after painting. The temperature was in the low 60's in the garage, I did three coats of red rustoleum caliper paint at ten minute intervals. Thirty-six hours later I cleaned off the lettering and inspected my work. There were some flaws, a patch or two where the paint didn't quite stick and areas where the paint was light. I'll have to hit it one more time before applying a high heat clear, but it was passable. Temperatures should be cold again over the next few weeks, so I'll continue to focus on the parts I need and cleaning things up.

Pre-Paint Caliper.jpg

Caliper lettering before cleaning or polishing

Polished Caliper.jpg

Polished caliper lettering, almost done

Post-Paint Caliper.jpg

Painted calipers, look good from a distance.

[S Allen]

They look great. Nice work.

S

[UTBirdMan]

The last two months have been slow. I won't bore you with personal issues, but time has opened up and the project is finally moving to the next stage. Over the last two months I did get the wheels mounted to my rims, took care of a few smaller issues as well. Much of the work I did in February will need to be re-done, including the painting of the rotors, but none of that matters today.

Earlier this week my son and I built the body rack. I later added heavy duty lockable casters to the bottom to give me a bit more mobility, but otherwise it is pretty much true to design.

Building Cradle.jpg

Finished Cradle.jpg

This morning I had six able-body men show up to help lift the body off the frame. At first attempt, it was very, very heavy. Some digging around showed that I had missed two bolts in front of the rear wheel-well. One of those bolts proved to be stubborn and about twenty minutes was spent with six guys watching me try and get it out. Good times. On the second attempt, there was one parking brake cable that needed to be removed. That one went a lot quicker. The third attempt, and the deed was done. The body and frame are now resting in the garage, I'll be able to move the body over the frame when needed. The cradle design has worked well so far.

My wife did a good job recording the historic occasion.

Preparing to Lift 1.jpg

Attempted Lift 1.jpg

In Garage 1.jpg

In Garage 2.jpg

[S Allen]

Congratulations. Major milestone met.

S

[Gregs672000]

AWESOME! I have pictures of my cars' body hanging from the beams in my sisters garage after I pulled it off the frame by the roll bar using a chain fall... can't believe I did that.
Onward!

[TobyMan]

Now that's a picture I'd like to see

[Gregs672000]

Now that's a picture I'd like to see

It's in a what us ancients used to call a "photo album", a long forgotten place to put these images that don't exist on a computer server in Nebraska... I'll see if I can take a pic of this "photograph"...

[funkaholik]

The third attempt, and the deed was done.

So the third time really WAS the charm. Nice progress. It's an exciting feeling splitting your car in two, and even more so when you reunite the two halves later.

[notoptoy]

Looking good, pretty amazing backdrop of the mountains there!

[UTBirdMan]

Spring and Fall in Utah are amazing along the Wasatch front. We live near the mouth of Provo Canyon, on what is called the lower bench, at about 4800' in elevation. Less than a mile away from where these majestic 11000' mountains rise up from the valley floor. Weather this week will be in the 60's with a bit of rain in the valley's, with white snow capped mountains all around. I think I read somewhere that the cities of Utah are the largest populated areas next to mountains that have such a relief against the valley floors. That makes it even more dramatic. Unfortunately the secret that Utah was is out, population is booming, farmland is all but gone and housing prices are through the roof. We are fortunate to have a small orchard with a stubborn owner next to us and close enough to the mountains to restrict much additional growth nearby, but the whole region is experiencing growing pains.

That being said, there are some amazing mountain roads that the little roadster will be blessed with traversing in the next few years, I am very much looking forward to that.