We started the weekend out by working on the the wheel wells. It was my intention to get both of the rear wheel wells and the underbody prepped for POR-15 by Sunday. The picture below shows what the wheel well looked like when I started. I chose to try the heat gun method of softening the rubber coating and then scraping it off. This worked to an extent, but I felt it was taking longer than it took me with the front wells.
I decided that although I hate using POR-Strip it just plain works better than anything else I have tried. The two pictures below are after I spent about 45 minutes with the heat gun and putty knife and then sprayed it with POR-Strip.
I wanted to coat the passenger side right away too, but I ran out of POR-Strip before I was able to spray enough on to do anything. :( Back to the drawing board. I am not going to buy another can of POR-Strip just to finish this.
I decided to let the POR-Strip penetrate for a bit so I started working on removing the sway bar from the rear end.
I hit both of the passenger side nuts and bolts with PB Blaster and then used the impact driver to remove the front nut.
The impact driver rounded out the rear nut. I see a hack saw in this bolt's future.
I sprayed both of the driver side nuts and bolts with PB Blaster and decided to try the socket wrench instead of the impact driver. I really did not want a repeat performance.
I was able to remove the front nut quite easily.
The rear nut had obviously not heard that resistance is futile. Can you say Snapo?
With both nuts removed the driver side bracket fell to the ground.
Here is the problem nut on the passenger side.
It is nothing a hacksaw cannot fix!
Not quite the same effect as Snapo, but I guess it will have to do. ;)
We went back to work on the fender and scraped as much of the rubber coating off as we could. Unfortunately without a second application the POR-Strip is not very effective.
We rinsed off the the POR-Strip with water to deactivate it.
Sara and I took a break and ran to Menard's for a couple of wire brushes. I think wire brushing the wheel wells may be the easiest way to remove the undercoating.
Our next project was to remove the Panhard/track bar. We used PB Blaster to thoroughly soak the bolt. Then we used the impact driver to see if we could loosen the bolt. It was not budging. I decided to hit it with PB Blaster again and let it soak in.
While that was soaking, we removed the brake shields, starting with the driver side.
Driver side brake shield is off.
On to removing the passenger side brake shield...
Passenger side brake shield is off.
We put the differential cover back on and secured it with five bolts. This should help keep the debris out of the it while we are cleaning the rear end.
This brake line clip needed to be removed. There was only one bolt holding it on.
Brake line clip has been removed.
I attempted to use the impact driver to loosen the bolt but did not have any luck. I tried the heat gun on a setting of 1250 degrees for about five minutes. I could smell the rubber heating up on the bushing. I tried the impact driver again - no luck. So, I got out my 1/2-inch socket wrench and the cheater bar.
With Sara holding down the rear end, I was able to snap the bolt off. Not really the way I had intended to remove the bolt, but I will not be reusing this Panhard/track bar anyway.
I measured the rear sway bar end links. They have three inch spacers. I am going to buy some universal polyurethane end links. They are adjustable.
Since the end links are rusted solid I am cutting them off.
One end link down.
On to cutting the other side.
Even though I cut this one in half, the sleeve was still rusted solid to the end link and I could not pull it out of the bracket. I used PB Blaster to break up the rust. Once it had soaked into the sleeve, we used two vise grips with both of us twisting and pulling to separate it.
Everything is now separated from the sway bar!
Sara gathered up all the freezables in the garage in preparation for winter. She put them in a basket so they are easy to transport back and forth.
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