January 6-7, 2023

Back from holiday travels and back to work.  I’ve finished pulling everything off the frame so it can be media blasted. I did a lot of scraping and pressure washing with Purple Power.  I’ve seen a lot worst caked on crud on other vehicles.  I’m still thinking the frame looks good.  I’m thinking of getting a tumbler/shaker to clean nuts and bolts.  A lot of them are fine thread and may be harder to find new. While the frame is off getting blasted I’ll finish cleaning the engine and transmission and start refurbishing other parts.  I will cover the exposed part of the swivel for the blasting process but these the hubs and brakes one; they will be completely taken apart and rebuilt later anyway. Need new shocks and limiter straps and if I can find factory style springs I’ll replace these and refurbish the old ones at later date.  I pulled the wiring harness out of the frame making sure to feed a pull wire through the frame to use when I pull it back through.  I left the brake lines on as they are mostly bad and in any case not too hard to replace/build on a SWB (not the job it was on the 109!).

This is the frame, cleaned and everything off, and ready to blast.  Below are pics of other part I took off the frame.  The shocks will be replaced and the drive shafts rebuilt.

Every thing that has rust been covered with Ospho (rust converter) after I clean and degrease the part. After a day or so with the Ospho on that part I clean it with water. This will stop rust until I can get to that part later.  When I get to that part again in the build it will be wire brushed, or blasted in my cabinet before being primed and painted.  

The large electrical cables are encased in a steel flex tube.  It’s a cools set-up but that stuff is a nightmare to clean all the years of grease and sludge out of.  I put it in the parts washer then had to go inch by inch with a wire brush and it still didn’t get it all because of the way it flexes, “accordioning” on itself.  I did the best I could then cleaned more under running water.  After it dried I put Ospho on it for the rust.  Later I will run it on the wire wheel and hopefully that will get it clean.

When I pulled the harness out of the frame I noticed a lot of damage to the wrapping and some damage to the wires.  There was also a rats nest up in that frame tube which might explain some of it.  So how do you get a rats nest and other debris out of a closed box chassis tube that only has a couple 1.5” holes?  You got me, but I stuck a vacuum one in one hole and the air hose in the other.  I also got some of it with “finger tongs”? 

I have all the nuts a bolts that I removed bagged and tagged, and now sitting it container of Evaporust.  First time using that; we’ll see how well it works to salvage this old hardware.