Sara's Dirty Saturday

Jonathan got called into work this morning, so unfortunately we did not get started on the car until noon.

These are the heat shields Jonathan removed yesterday.

This is where the heat shields were mounted.

The mounting points for the heat shields can be seen on the right side of this picture.

This is Jonathan with his new wire brush from Menards. He is wearing a new shower cap courtesy of Dollar Tree and his face shield. He is ready to start brushing the underbody.

I have a confession to make. I am a little claustrophobic. I was going to go under the car with Jonathan and help him brush the dirt off the underbody, but I chickened out and worked on brushing parts instead. This is a picture of the torque arm and the heat shields that need to be brushed off so they can be painted.

This is the control arm Dad said he was not done brushing yet. I decided to start by brushing the rest of the dirt off the control arm.

This is the control arm after I brushed it with a wire brush. Please compare it to the above picture. Do you see a difference? I do not. Dad does a really good job cleaning parts.

This is the torque arm after I spent 1 1/2 hours brushing on it with a wire brush.

While I was brushing those parts, Jonathan brushed the drive tunnel up until where the emergency brake is.

Here is the emergency brake assembly in the drive tunnel. Because the lower console in KITT renders the emergency brake handle non-functional, Jonathan will be removing this. The driver side brake cable has already been disconnected in this picture.

Here is the emergency brake cable in the inside of the car. I painted over it with POR-15.

It was a good thing I painted it with POR-15. Jonathan removed it today. Now there is another spot in the inside of KITT that has to be repainted with POR-15. Yeah.

OMG look at my shoes and my jeans. And all the dirt on the floor. I am finally finished brushing off the torque arm and the heat shields and I am absolutely filthy.

Since I am done brushing the parts off, and Jonathan is still working on brushing the underbody, I decided to conquer my claustrophobia and help him. Here I am modeling my pink flowered shower cap and my face shield. I mostly cleaned the seams and small openings in the frame with a pick. I did not last long though, and Jonathan ended up doing 97% of the underbody himself. 

While Jonathan finished brushing the underbody, I cleaned up the garage. I cleaned and put away all the tools and swept the floor. Then I put the parts I brushed today outside and took a picture of them. It was windy so I was hoping the wind would help blow some of the remaining dirt off of them. I do not know if this actually worked or not, but I did trap three leaves with my parts pile.

Here are all the parts I am going to clean tonight.

After Jonathan finished brushing the underbody, he used the air compressor to blow off any remaining dirt and to blow out the insides of the frame. Once he was done I swept the garage again. It was unbelievable what all came out of the frame. We did not take a picture though, so you are spared the grossness.

After he finished the underbody, Jonathan used the air compressor to blow the dust off all the parts I am going to clean.

Here is a result of Jonathan's hard work this afternoon! The underbody is brushed off to the back of the front seat wells. (That's the second hump on the underbody for all of us technical people.)

This is the passenger side Jonathan brushed today. Doesn't it look amazing?

This is the driver side Jonathan brushed. 

This is a picture of the drive well looking forward. In case you are wondering, yes, Jonathan took all these pictures of the underbody. He is hoping I can help him paint the underbody with POR-15. We will see. Maybe it won't be so bad if there is not dirt falling on me...

We put a tarp underneath the underbody in preparation of MarineClean and Prep and Ready. We used the cinder blocks like last time to form a bowl to catch the water.

Jonathan used his Hello KITTy tape to tape the holes on the inside of KITT in an attempt to keep water and cleaner out of the car.

This is Jonathan applying MarineClean to the underbody. He applied one coat of MarineClean and let it sit for about 10 minutes. Then he sprayed another coat of MarineClean and let it sit a little more. Then he scrubbed on the underbody with a scrub brush and rinsed everything off with hot water. Then he applied the Prep and Ready to the underbody, making sure to keep it wet for thirty minutes. After the thirty minutes were up he rinsed the underbody off with water and pulled out the tarp.

While Jonathan was cleaning the underbody I cleaned the parts using the exact same method. 

We finished just as the sun was setting. Here are the parts drying after I rinsed off the Prep and Ready.