Mav's Lifted 1985 Eagle Wagon Limited/Sport Stroker - Picture Heavy! - 04/09/10

[IowaEagle]

I think Mav needs some cats in his shop.

[ScottD961]

Ya & that is something I could help him with because Tuxedo (our resident kitty) loves to play Rambo with them. Or anything else that moves.Could ship em out to ya

[Mavericke]

Nah, I've got plenty of mousers out here... just started befriending the wild kitties... I've got three of them coming up for food every monring, but only one of them is friendly... they're getting closer by the day though. I had to start feeding them to keep them out of the trash.... a week before I move into the shop, I'm going to starve them for a couple days and then lock'em inside, LOL!!!

nah, I couldn't really starve them... but I'll seriously lock them in the shop for a week ven if I have to set up live traps to catch them first. Bet me, LOL!

So if your outside kitty comes up missing this spring... don't worry, I'll make sure he's fine.

[ScottD961]

Ok will do but trust me this little guy isn't going anywhere on his own . He's spoiled rotten here.

[83Eagle!]

Dude, Davenport is like 45m away... might as well come on in. But again up to you man - Im open for whatever. I replied about the weather and stuff on the other thread. Double check the GPS with a map man... sometimes they're screwy. Rock on!

The GPS unit was dead on accurate.  Suprised me really.  When I pulled off to get gas at one point it started to yell at me that I was going the wrong way.  It was interesting.

So, the new project is officiallt underway. Four days wasted on a car that was too badly rotted to be saved... On day five we drug in the 85 Limited... and by the end of day 6, she is almost completely stripped down. The interior is being replaced and updated, she's getting prepped for paint, and we are currently pulling the engine which has proven to be a rather difficult task. We've almost got her though.

Once the engine comes out, we have some frame rot/cancer to repair - then we will be coating the engine back and underboday with primer and rolled on Herculiner.

Here are the current pics...

Fender damage... not sure what happened here.

I have seen two other Eagles with almost identical dents in the same fender.  Strange.

[IowaEagle]

Are you there yet Brandon?   The fenders are real "springy" in that area.  Looks like it did not spring back.  Maybe when you get the fender off you can repair it, easily.

[Mavericke]

I'm hoping to repair it was well... beisdes the dent, the fender is near perfect... the other has no dents, but is rotted... go figure.

And yes, Brandon is here... he made it about a quarter till 11am. We started right away... he helped me clean out my garage, hang some shelves and organize all the extra parts from the 80 and 85 so that we had more adequate work space. Once we finished, we had a small lunch and we've been going ever since... going to break for pizza soon, then back at it for awhile. Going smooth although... Brandon's poor poor fragile lil' hands are getting awfully banged up. I think she (my Eagle) likes him. LOL!

Stay tuned!

[Mavericke]

Here are the only two pics I got from Brandon's visit, lol... I'm sure he'll post all the cool ones he got. He's kind of injury prone with a ratchet and torque bit, LOL!

[IowaEagle]

Only two???   Have a safe trip home Brandon.

[Mavericke]

Yeah, we stayed pretty busy.... he kept trying to get me to take more pics, and I kept saying I would and before I knew it - the day was over.

We didn't even get out to the barn... he literally pulled up and we started working. We came in a couple times for food, but mostly just cranked away on organizing the garage and ripping out the interior of the Eagle.

As for update on the Eagle... I'll post some pics in a bit.

[83Eagle!]

Yeah Chas only got two pictures.  e was busy organizing and wrenching and managing. 

Chas, I do have a number of good shots.  I will ge busy downloading them after I get everyone to bed.  Thank you for having me and thank you for the parts.  I love what you are doing with the place and I cannot wait t see it when you are finished.  I think the organization of the garage turned out well.  I am sorry we did not make more progress on the wagon.  But we did get a few things done.  Good luck figuring out the sandblaster. 

It was good to see you again my friend.  I enjoyed meeting your family.  That is quite the crew you have there. 

I got a number of good shots, I think.  They are all in my email right now.  Once I get everyone to bed I will get them downloaded to the desktop and get them posted.  I think I want to do an "Eagle Santuary Pilgrimage" Thread in the road trips.  I will link it here and post appropriate pictures in this thread too. 

Thanks again.  I wish I could have gotten those tires out to you.  I I had only known right?  Maybe we'll figure something out.

Later,

Brandon

[Mavericke]

Hey Brandon, glad you made it man. Good times for sure. And don't worry about progress... when I realized the 80' was going to have to be sent to the crusher.... I let go of the notion that I'd have this done under any sort of timeline, lol! Still, the help with getting the extra crap out of the way in the garage and you getting that interior out... big help man.

We did get the sanblaster working pretty good last night... it still needs some adjustments, but mostly I think I need a bigger air compressor. It's actually a pretty good sized tank, but the CFM rating isn't as high as it should be for thenew v blaster. It's working well enough right now though... the entire garage is covered in black sand, LOL!

Get those pictures posted! I'm real curious!

Oh yeah, and my valve cover showed up today from collin's bros! Awesome! I went with the black one this time... it just looks awesome!

[eaglebeek]

Here are the current pics...

Fender damage... not sure what happened here.


[/quote]

I have seen two other Eagles with almost identical dents in the same fender.  Strange.
[/quote]

The dent almost looks like the result of someone laying a beam across the fenders to support the rear of the engine while the transmission was out.

[Mavericke]

January 25th, 2009

Ok, time to make this thread official and remove the "White Castle Queen" from the title... I'll post this and then go back and clean up the thread. So, as of now the Eagle is sitting with no tranny or transfer case. We tried pulling the engine with them attached and it was a "no-go". The we tried disconnecting just the tranfser case... still, we couldn't get the engine unwedged. So, then we disconnected the tranny - which was a huge hassle... Dusty forgot to drain the tranny first so everything dumped out on us and all over the floor. I'm all out of quick-dry too... so it was messy.

So after the tranny was out, we thought it'd be smooth sailing.... LOL... what a joke that was. The exhaust is now in the way. We busted out the sawzaw when the transfer case was still attached and we cut the exhaust off, but it looks like it's actually going to have to be unbolted from the manifold... well, the bolts are so rusted that there almost really isn't a bolt there... you'd that'd be good right? No bolt - no exhaust pipe.... wrong. It's all fused together!

Sooooo.... I've just started disconnecting the intake and exhaust manifolds off the head so that we can pull the exhaust out in one piece. After that.... she should, theoretically, slide right out. I've already removed everything in the way; radiator, condensor, washer and overfill bottles. And everything is disconnected.

I'll post more as it happens. Unfortunately, it's time to go back to work... my week off is now over. Joy. So it'll be a couple a hours a day until it's done.

We finally got the sandblaster working... here are a couple shots of it's work. We haven't really used it much though.


Here's the 3" lift kit I bought for it... not sure what I'm going to do about the sagging rear leaf springs just yet. Leaning towards add-a-leaf, but I haven't gotten any deffinitive answers/info yet to help me make up my mind. The lift says 3" for the front, but I hear you only get 1 or w inches out of it... I'm betting though that with new coil springs and those spacers... I'll get at least 3". Same with the rear.


Here are a couple concept pictures.... the visor fits perfectly. It was for my 02' Chevy Blazer. It'll take some very minor trimming with the dremel and of course some drilling for mounting holes and wiring for the lights, it's going to look pretty cool. The bumper concept is impossible... well not impossible, but not worth the $100 for the bumper cover and all the cutting that would be involved. The problem is the cover is about 3" too wide... when I pull the old wrecked cover off of Shelly's 00' Jeep Cherokee Laredo, I'll toy with the idea some more and do some actual cutting. My idea is to cut off the corners and use the the original Eagle bumper caps. Or... cut off the corners... trim off a couple inches on each side and then reattach the corners. No matter what is done, the grill will not work. It takes up too much room to fit the orginal headlights in, and if you convert (like I'm doing) to the cherokee headlights - they will stick out too far and not fit in the fender well. So either way, you won't be using a Jeep grill - sorry. But who knows... once I start cutting, anything could happen.

[83Eagle!]

Hey Brandon, glad you made it man. Good times for sure. And don't worry about progress... when I realized the 80' was going to have to be sent to the crusher.... I let go of the notion that I'd have this done under any sort of timeline, lol! Still, the help with getting the extra crap out of the way in the garage and you getting that interior out... big help man.

We did get the sanblaster working pretty good last night... it still needs some adjustments, but mostly I think I need a bigger air compressor. It's actually a pretty good sized tank, but the CFM rating isn't as high as it should be for thenew v blaster. It's working well enough right now though... the entire garage is covered in black sand, LOL!

Get those pictures posted! I'm real curious!

Oh yeah, and my valve cover showed up today from collin's bros! Awesome! I went with the black one this time... it just looks awesome!

Glad you got the media blaster working well enough to make some progress.  That is exciting.  I got all of the pictures posted to photobucket last night, but I wasn't able to get them posted.  I need a break from school work, so I will work on that right now.