The Re-Assembly Begins...

With the dust settled on painting it's time to start putting it all back together. Even though all parts and pieces were cataloged during disassembly there is still a lot of searching for the right nut, bolt, washer or widget that takes a lot more time than just grabbing it and putting it together.  Along with that there is still a lot of restoration to do.  Small parts that were just thrown in a bag as the car was coming apart need to be cleaned up, reconditioned and inspected to make sure they will still work.  There is a lot of work ahead...

The brake drums for this car are available, but very expensive and need to be shipped from Europe.  I did some sleuthing on the internet and found that the brake drum from a 1996 Ford Ranger Pickup should fit if the center hole is machined out.  Worth a shot since the price difference is about $200 a drum.

Here's the old drum removed from the hub

Here's the hub, freed from it's old brake drum

Test fitting the Ranger drum (left) compared to the old set up.

Ready to brake!

Putting the front suspension back together took a long time - Almost of month of evenings and weekends.  Lots and lots of worn out parts that did not fit together and a lot of restoration required

Old fashioned Kingpin front suspension arm being fitted and reamed with new pins and bushings

More parts painting - At least it's nice out and this can be done outside

On the other hand the rear suspension took only a few hours to put in

Edmonton Motor Show

Look what we saw in the Volvo booth at the Edmonton Motor Show.

Did a bit of a double take, then took a bunch of photos

Finally - Painting

While the car was still up on it's side I sprayed the underside with the new "Old English White" body color.  Despite the tarping and a really powerful barn ventilation fan, the overspray in the garage was pretty bad.  Not recommended

For painting the rest of the car I decided to up my game a bit and build a spray booth inside the garage.  The furnace filters along the top draw filtered air in, while the heavy duty barn fan was set inside a plenum box I built with cardboard and scrap lumber.  It worked beautifully as a negative pressure enclosure, and kept overspray and fumes to a  minimum.  It's hard to get photos of the booth because it took up a large portion of the garage.

Once the body was painted, I partially disassembled the booth and rolled the car outside of the booth so I could tackle all the other panels and parts

Overall I'm very pleased with how the paint job turned out.  As a first time painter, in a home made booth I made some mistakes.  Any pro or car judge will see them instantly, but my goal is to have a "showable driver" car.  I think with some color sanding and buffing the car will get there.