Well, well, hell!
Those nice and clean bumper absorbers are in actuality, the devil.
I wasn't going to do anything tonight, nada, nothing......
I simply was going to slip them on to see how they looked when I got home....then in for a beer.....
Well, they both fit in nicely, so I thought I might put in the retaining bolts. Driver's side
. Passenger side
.
The holes in the new rail were too small for the bolt to go through. I say, "were" because I had my reamer at home.
All I had to do was start up the compressor and ream those holes out. So I did that, but since the compressor was running already and I literally had the reamer in my hand I figured I would go ahead and take care of those welds I couldn't reach with the grinder. That got me going along the right strut tower.
There are a bunch of factory spot welds in that area and the reamer would clean those out easily, so I did that.
That got me looking at the strut tower, it sure looked yucky........and my compressor was running.......out comes the 3" DA and some 80 grit sandpaper. I stripped the strut tower.
Now I see some knicks and cuts that I want gone. Out comes the die grinder with 3" 50 grit discs. Got it all cleaned up. Since the die grinder is in hand why not go ahead and go over the whole strut tower and the rear of the frame rail....right?
Now that I've done that, what do you know.......the panel is prepped for bondo.......
.
So a little mixing of mud and I'm slinging.
Of course the best time to block bondo is before it completely hardens like a rock, out comes the 40 grit and a block to knock the edges, high spots and slag down. Shoot, that was easy, let's block with 80 grit now.......
God gave me a reprieve. He knew I wanted to do nothing tonight. So I forgot to bring home my clean up thinner can I took to work to get a refill. Wet bondo is a bit of a pain to clean up without thinner. That was enough for me to call it quits......almost......
So I have blocked bondo sitting there exposed to our unusually humid air. It needed a couple coats of primer to protect it, so out comes the etch primer.
To end this one, here are those offending bumper absorbers that started all this crap tonight.
So, maybe tomorrow night I'll spread another coat of bondo on the strut tower to finish it off, assuming of course my head isn't lodged in my ass and I remember my laquer thinner.