M718A1 restoration

[Hambone]

Must be the lighting, no wear or rust to speak of, less than 20,000 miles.

[Hambone]

Back on my project after 3 months of recovering from snow damage. After further inspection of the engine, I am finding black paint under the green, now I'm thinking they sprayed the engine when they put the carc paint on it, so I'm going back with black. Also found a broken exhaust bolt, time to try my hand at screw extraction.

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[rickf]

Rusty bolt means at least it is a steel bolt and not galled stainless. Small flange means light duty head so be careful. Easy outs are designed to make the stuck bolt tighter! Just look at the design and think about what a wedge does. Drill the bolt out with a left hand bit after plenty of soaking with juice. It will usually unscrew itself as you are drilling. Finding left hand bits anymore can be a challenge.

[Surveyor]

Last place I got some lefties was at Lowes and they came in a blue tin. I would not recommend those.

[rickf]

I usually just start with a 1/8 inch bit and drill all the way through as straight through the center as possible and progressively go bigger on the drills. Once you just start touching the threads stop and with a small punch or chisel carefully knock the edge that is left into the hole. Once you get about a third of it done the rest usually breaks out quickly. Patience is the name of the game here. If you absolutely have to use an easy then get the splined dive in type, They do not wedge the bolt tighter as much as the tapered twist type. They are substantially more money but there is a reason for that. Once you break off a hardened easy out in the broken bolt you are screwed! You had better hope there is enough sticking out to be able to weld a nut onto and even then you are still trying to turn the easy out so at that point you try to back the easy out out of the bolt. then go back to drilling.

https://www.amazon.com/RIDGID-35585-Ext ... 9801&psc=1

[Hambone]

Got my broken exhaust bolt removed, getting a few things painted up, hard to get motivated with the paint and sanding when it's 100 degrees outside, excuse the shop, it needs a good cleaning.

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[lpcoating]

Looking good Buddy!

Guy

[Lou]

Nice to see some progress on the project! After 18 years of off roading, was time for a cosmetic restoration. Here is some of the stuff we painted.

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[Hambone]

Lou
That looks good, Is that gloss or satin, I've been using satin.

[Hambone]

Looking good Buddy!

Guy

Thanks Guy, these projects seem to take a long time, glad I'm not replacing panels, you probably know what I mean.

[Lou]

Lou
That looks good, Is that gloss or satin, I've been using satin.

Rust oleum satin. Gloss is too shiny. But will admit we did paint the entire underbody in gloss so the mud will wash off easier. We got to test that last week when we got stuck in a mud hole. All the mud washed off without scrubbing.
https://youtu.be/vIxKK0E-DhY

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[Hambone]

That is true, though I like the look of flat, you just can't clean it, we used Pam cooking spray back in the wheeler days, it helped with the mud. You need to hook up with Rick and get a set of those lockers.

[Lou]

That is true, though I like the look of flat, you just can't clean it, we used Pam cooking spray back in the wheeler days, it helped with the mud. You need to hook up with Rick and get a set of those lockers.

Your right about the lockers! If you watched the video, pretty sure lockers would have pulled us through the first time. We sunk so deep in the front the bumper was down in the mud!

[Hambone]

Well I'm back in black, painted it with a high heat satin, painting was the easy part. Cleaning consisted of scraping the oily parts, hand wire brush, wire brush on drill, wire brush on Dremel tool, spraying down with degreaser and power washing twice which took about 6 hours.

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[Lou]

Looks Great!