In article <bd2936a4.3544af13(at)aol.com>, RobCarpent <RobCarpent(at)aol.com> wrote:
> I spent about 12 hours over Saturday and Sunday under the Alpine with my
> brushes. There are some real dirt traps down there. At the junction of the
> forward part of the rocker panel and the cross member there is a 3" square box
> with an oval hole in the bottom. One side was very full of silt like sand.
> Naturally there was grime under and over the plate at the intersection of the
> cross member.
I've spend several hours more than this, with a spray washer attacking
sand and clay, and lately with 80psi air through a straight nozzle
cleaning out bead-blast sand and anything dry that's left. Most likely
you only got a little of the encrusted crud trapped in the boxed
sections. This is the stuff that holds moisture against the inside of
these sections.
If you can get access to a compressor, get a nozzle with a long tip, and a
couple small stones to throw into the cavities so the air can throw them
around and loosen chunks. Use a vacuum cleaner with a crack nozzle at
opposing holes. The cross-member can be blown out from various holes, as
can the lower rear fenders. Use a hammer on the cross-member to loosen
things up.
Since I bead-blasted and had a slight case of "wind through my sills" I
also did things like blow through my inner sills (from each end :( ) and
down/up the front fenders under the windshield ends. Even down the holes
for the front bumper bolts. At times it sounded like the car would
crumble around me as a lump of hardened clay would lift up and bash
itself to bits inside the boxed section and then spit out somewhere else
as a cloud of sand and dust.
There is also a dish on the outer underside of each front floor pan that
catches stuff from the front wheels.
> Directly above the rear axel casing is a shelf about 8" wide [front to back of
> the car] and 24" long [side to side of the car]. It is attached to the back
Important note about this area: it's a good place to find a sample of
your original body colour, on earlier Series.
I have a mosaic of my post-washed underside at
http://www.tgx.com/bridge/sunbeam/image/tomato/600/974_u2.jpg
Remove the "600/" for a close-up.
Almost any phase of this job is so dirty that it's just better to laugh
at the sheer idiocy of the whole venture. And, wear some good gear.
With painter's mask, safety ear protectors, gloves and coveralls and an
all-over coating of dust and rust I looked pretty goofy, but avoided
blackened kleenexes and plugged ears. It's also kind of a chuckle when
you push the air nozzle into the hole of a boxed section to be
immediately fogged in by dust leaving (sometimes very quickly) every
available (and there are many) crack and gap. Splort, gurgle, clack
clack POOF!
--- J e r o m e Y u z y k | jerome(at)supernet.ab.ca - - BRIDGE Scientific Services | www.tgx.com/bridge - - Sunbeam Alpine Series II #9118636 | www.tgx.com/bridge/sunbeam -
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