hihighost: Don't worry about living up here. I do too. I was the second one to post, if you are not familiar with my car allready. It is tough, but if you take care of it, you can have a car just as nice as any of them on here, it just takes more work.

When my car was stock I would drive it straight through winter, non stop. Hell the damn front GFX used to plow the road when we had blizards. The main thing I did to stop any damage from propogating was to park in a garadge. I even used a friends garadge sometimes when I couldn't use mine. (lived close by). The every saturday morning, I would put it up on jackstands, wash and wax the whole car, in the garadge with a bucket. I would then clean as much as I could from under the car. A garden hose goes a long way. Get that salt and grime off as soon as possible. And you are generally OK.

The motor I have in the car now, won't really let me drive it in the winter, but maybe someday when I get EFI and tame it down a bit, I will be out there, plowing my way down the road. Oh yeah, I also would have to put the heater back in the car, haha.

Clean stuff up and POR-15 it. The right way. And you will be just fine. The more carful you are, the longer things will last. Don't let New England hold you back...

 

you have a beater car right dennis? id hate to see anything happen to that car in the winter, you have put a lot of work into it

 

My car is michigan born n raised, seen 2 winters in its lifetime, faimly owned since 95 n then it had only 36k on the clock.. (now 108k) rear end is still black, some thigns gotta be a lil crusty but the stuff described is clean

 

here's mine now with the exhaust done

 

Nice. Stainless right? Looks good, but I kinda don't see how come you went next to the tranny on one side and then under the frame on the other? You are still gonna have that be your low spot.... Oh well either way, i am sure it will work out fine. I thought of going next to the tranny till I thought of the heat. Then I went under the x-member. Now looking back, I might want to try next to the tanny next time and use some good heat wrap.

 

Wow, the cars look great! I am right in the middle of a full restoration and I have just finished patching my rusty floor boards. I was going to under coat the car or use POR-15. What is the benefits of POR-15 over undercoating? The floor boards are rust free no (after hours of welding) and this car will not be driven in rain or snow.

 

Here's mine

 

POR-15 is an undercoating. There really is no difference. You paint it, or spray it on and then it gets really hard. Thats it. What undercoating were you considering? I really like POR-15 cuz it looks like paint, but coats like an undercoating.

 

here is mine never been painted as well of no rust.

 

wow really nice man!! what transmission pan do you have?

 

tci transmission pan. the only problem if you have bad ground clearence the transmission pan willl scrape every once in a while over speed bumps if you don't go slow enough. thanks but i think i want to paint the bottom of my car like 406tpi's car

 

yeah i wondered if it scrapes...i want one but may not get one just because of that

 

Did anyone have those plastic rails along the sides under the car? Mine does, I guess it's some sort of dust guard?

 

wow, talking about raising the dead, lol. This post is so old that most of those pics don't exist anymore, right when I wanted to see them, lol.

 

that's what I thought.

 

Theres a thread on the subject over in the history/restoration forum. Shame all the pics are gone

 

Well does anyone happen to have pictures of their underbody done up with the POR-15 that everyone has been talking about? That's really all that I have been wanting to see anyways.

 

POR15 won't stick properly unless you etch the bare metal, sandblast it or if it has rusted. It needs the rough texture to hold. POR is based on isocyanate sort of like super glue.

I used bedliner on mine, IMO it comes out much nicer than por and you don't have to prep anything apart from cleaning, degreasing and you can leave the original e coat in place. Just touch up surface rust with a little epoxy or whatever you want and then apply the bedliner (I disassembled everything so I could do the whole underside)

 

that is one great bottom you got there buddy the whold thing looks great and the bedliner not a bad idea imo

 

Did you spray that in? I have some bedliner that I still haven't used from Walmart but I have a roller set to put it on, would it be better to use a spray gun with it instead?

 

Yes, sprayed it on with a UBS gun.

 

What kind of rear suspention is that? Never seen it before.

 

Fays2 watts linkage

 

What is a UBS gun? Is that underbody spray gun?

 

Forgive me, I've never heard of it, what are the benefits to running that versus anything else?

 

It handles the axle's lateral orientation, something the panhard bar did originally.

 

LOL thanks, I understood that much, I was referring to how it did it so much better than say the Spohn boxed panhards. Why does the rear end look like it is bolted to the framework in one of those pictures? I'm not trying to be a pain, just want to understand it and use it if I might need it later on.

 

the normal panhard bar layout moves your rear axle side to side with suspension travel, a watts linkage has a z type linkage that allows the axle to move up and down with no lateral movement. What you think is bolted to the frame is actually where the side arm is bolted to the pivot with a heim joint. the axis of the center pivot is height adjustable on the multi hole section in the middle, it's on the top hole now but I need to adjust it after the full weight is on the suspension to get the arms level

 

So where the panhard makes a little movement laterally, this doesn't? Or is it just a lot less?

Either way, this would be really useful in a track car or a SOLO2 car where the car is thrown sideways quite often and a lot of stress put on the panhard.

Do I dare ask how much that cost?

 

no movement side to side

Cost was about 700 bones, 1300 when I got it and had paid intl. shipping and taxes

 

yeah, it's a german abbrevation for unterbodenschutz in the US simply known as schutz or bodyschutz.

 

Did the cost on the watts link include every bracket and link in the picture?

 

Yes, complete setup. For a 9 bolt you need to tweak the axle by removing the brake line clips and plugging the vent hole. I drilled and tapped the main case for a new vent

 

Damn, that is really interesting...but not right now, lol. The engine and transmission are more important right now, but maybe I'll spend that kind of money on one piece of suspension once I get to the point of really needing no movement in the rear end.