1969 Stoner Ambulance

[John ED Renstrom]

THE JOY OF A COOLER SHOP. the mall AC unit can drop the tep. about 10 deg from outside temps. it helps. finished getting the trim off today I have no Ida what I am putting the trim back on with broke a lot of the one-way push on clips. we'll figure it out. the hardest one is the script on the back door and front fenders. got the trim off the steel cover in one piece the vinal conditioner did the trick. we have one molding damaged and one l reflector broken. the grill shell has minor damage. other than rust it a good body

 

[John ED Renstrom]

looks like we lost Satterday's instalment so let's redo that. the ac unit drops the temp right at 10 deg. makes it easier to work in the building. the conditioner did its job, I was able to peel off the stamped without tearing it. now to lay it flat some were safe. got the rest of the door opening striped out. and the trim off. found the left rear trim damaged and the reflector on the left side broken. the hardest time to get off was the chevy script on the rear door. got the nuts off but could only fish out two with the magnet.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

we ran out to do something figured the pulling the rear load light would be fast "not". one thing about stoner is there have zippers in the headliner. the first screw came out in two pieces. still had to wrench out the 4 nuts and stubes of the screws the rust had them stuck in place. the light was one bump away for dangling by the wire and it not in good shape. not some one was into the door before me and left the cover off

 

[John ED Renstrom]

got the right fender off and a good look at it. the front corner is gone as the battery sits over it, but the problem I see is heavy rust on top. it into the joint between the mounting frame and the fender at the spot weld. only had a problem with two one broke the nut off the clip and the other I rounded the head on and ended up grinding it down to get it off. found a nos fender to hood bumper in the hinge pocket. had to have been there since final assembly. as we are painting white and that seam will blead right threw. the radiator support is just about gone from the center to the right end on the bottom. but you get under the rig it just surface rust on the poor painting factory black. the thing is and mostly clean anywhere it has been painted on the bottom. the rust is upper surfaces down. I know we opened the right doors putting stuff in and thew worked smooth. when I got home the bottom of the center door is overlapping the front on the bottom. thought I would jack it up if it moved, I would tighten the bolts. great plan got the easy one but on the hard one I ended up dropping the socket and extension in the void and they went down into the rocker. that is why the rockers are rotted threw; condensation could settle down in them. good thing I need to replace them I would hate to cut open a good one to get the tools back. I had to air up the tires 22 lb just didn't look right.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

ran out of room on the small chip. I get up the big city, I will get a larger one. went around and did the trick a man in the junk yard showed me you soften up the rubber gromets around the glass with wd-40. don't spar it, use the hook to lift the lip and shoot it in inside and out. it will take the hardest of rubber and soften it down where you can save the gromet and get the laminated glass out in one piece. it does work. you'll never guess where I finely found my flashlight. left it up in that rear headliner. spent half of yesterday looking for it. decided to cut my socket out that's it laying in the void. the hole is curved and I can't get the magnet to grab it and pull it out.so we will try to cut it out. the door is still down gut getting to the hinge bolts is not easy. we gave it a try moved oi a little but got to looking why the problem and discover someone had done the 2x4 adjustment and bent in the door edge. we can fix that later. mover it enough that it doesn't pop now. you can see how much the drop the striker .

 

[John ED Renstrom]

been taking thing apart so it's time to get something done. let's start on top and see if we can get it cleaned up. we'll remove the peeling paint off down to the base color and work out any problems there. you will notice there are two different shades of white here the original and the respray. the respray is standard gm truck white. you notice how blue it looks agents the yellow white. we'll check the paint code and see what it was from the factory. as we get around to the front, we see a number of problems with rust threw the roof and in the gutters. we can't take the roof off so we cant use heat around it as it will burn. cleaning up the rust is the problem as we need bare clean steel for any of the products to work. when they did the repaint, these places got coated in seam sealer that is now loose as the rust grew under it. the big hole by the gutter is the big problem you can't get to it from underneath. so let's dig out what we can and grind things down a little to see if we can clean thing up while we sand the top. there is some chops on the topthey were hit with the spray bomb to cover them up.

 

[Philip Scanio]

ED, the date stamp on your photos is a month ahead.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

Shows how fast I am. Had to go up to the big city to see a dermatologist. They always make you leave pieces of yourself with them. While i was up there i found the stuff i needed to repair the holes on the roof. A little spendy but if it works it's just right.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

got the headlight switch for the 64 in so took the time to replace it and do a few other things we noticed on out trip before putting it away. one the cover goes on who know when it will move again. sure, runs better scene the trip. with that done it see if we can't plug the holes in the roof. using a product called quick bond to fill. them. it a super glue and rosin filler large gap glue that you can sand and bonds to any surface. so first let's clean off the inside to revile anything we might have missed on top. we did find one more the tape the bottom of the holes and fill they with the rosin. it cooks off when it dries so we will need to do this twice to fill the holes. do this over clean metal no rust. when it sets "overnight" we can sand and use some filler to smooth things up. and pretend we welded the holes closed. then back to sanding. found one more mystery holed over the rear door. that one we can fix in a normal manner i hope.
hope

 

[John ED Renstrom]

it's Saturday visited with my wife and my other 72 olds. there might be hope I get it back soon. as for the 69 stoner it a yes, no thing I don't know how much time we can by for it. but we'll do all can it has been leaking a long time we'll pour some converter in the top rails and hope to get the rust killed or at least slowed way down. but they are a double wall. had just enough to get the front edge of the top coated. today and that will let us get the filler on the rough places. now just to prove I still could I brazed in the rust hole over the driver's door and got the pin hole I uncovered striping the top. notice the black spot to the right in the picture of the hole. it was rust that had allmost come threw went down a bought me a new step latter needed one more step to get to the center of the top. safety first you know.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

more fun today we got to do yoga today at the VA. every Monday at 0930 unless and unless has been hitting in July. man, that felt good. stopped down to the auto store. this is what we are up agents bought 2 products today needed both for this car. spent 150 bucks over 200 retail. 3 years ago, this would have been 50 bucks. every time you go it's a higher price. but we need it. the aluminon power and rosin with stick to the steel and the fiberglass and will not absorb water. we need it to seal the top. the phosphoric acid and water will control the rust already formed. help to make this job last longer. we can spray it into those top rails where the water has been running through that big hole in the left drip rail. so got our repair on top coater with the all-metal and shoved it under the tope where the rust had lifted it. forming a watertight seal that will bond with both products. this will hopefully stop the lifting and keep it sealed. it is at least the best bet I could think of. you get it too thick will crack in the cold, so it has it's limitations. but doubt if this truck will see sub 0 weather. and we are not vary thick here. finished out the day sanding on the top. we are almost around it. then the center to go. some chips we'll need to fill but nothing really bad except the paint.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

this is as exciting as it gets grinding off the old finish. leveled out the filler and reapplied a layer to take up for the shrink and the undercut. use up the filler on the chiped in the glass topused the 3 inch cut off tool to clean out the seam sealer caught in the seam of the drip rail. the rust flew again. we need to remove as much as we can to allow the acid to seep into the seams. that is of course were the rust is hiding. the reason for the rust build up was the seam sealer put into the cab drip rail. it shrunk; water got under it and the law of nature took over. none of the drip rail in the cargo side connected to the cab has any rust build up in it. we will finish cleaning it out with some rough roll locks. got as much as I can do on the sides of the top with the DA. started on the center. it will be finger around the tunnel lights in front. in the meantime I had to r&r a tire on the dodge. first flat I have had other than the blow out on the trailer in I can't remember when. got the elm tree trimmed out some on my lot. one more 100 deg day. they're starting to drag.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

we are getting there still cleaning up rust off the top around the pinch weld in the gutter. we can kill it with the acid, but it will leave a bump. so, knock as much off as we can with a stared disk. tried cleaning out the top screws with a small bit it almost worked. with brake out of everything made of plastic young guys today will never know how handy those free wood paint sticks are. wrap it with sandpaper it makes a good file for those tight places. still SANDING away on the top but getting there. the goal is to get it cleaned off and repaired so we can prime it before the repair panels get here. the dust in the shop is getting thick.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

tired of sanding so let's bite the Bullitt and see if we can get the windshield out. it still kind of stiff so we worked in a little knocker loose penetrant oil to lube and soften thing up some more. I was able to wrestle the molding out of the grommet to give us a little more movement and finale get it to slid up to where we could pull it out. surprised every time I get an old glass out without breaking it but now were to put it. since we won't be needing to get back here for a while. and we only want the glass out long enough to get the frame repaired and painted, let's just lay it on the floor in back. surprising there is very little damage. you can see were the water ran down the rail and finally rusted enough under the seam sealer to run out and down the rubber out the bottom seam. then onto the cowl where it ate threw the thin metal of the cowl. then we finished up on the top got all the blue paint off. now remember the object here is to repair things ever if it doesn't look like it

 

[John ED Renstrom]

it comes a time you must do it and today was the day. blew the top of the suburban out the door. man, it was getting thick on the floor. knew I needed to get the headliner all the way-out, no since it in getting paint on it. after my semiannual visit to the VA and getting a plan to address some minor acks and pains. we crawled up in the front and got it out. now we can get the pillars painted and the top of the dash before putting the glass back in.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

got to get back at it today. I thought July was hot August said bring your own beer. 110 today. we brazed up the spots around the windshield opening anyway. I thought I had cleaned out all the leaves, wrong! had mw a bond fire going for a bit. that squirt bottle I got on the cart came in handy. other than that no surprises. that hole on the right was a drill hole? it would have been under the seam sealer GM used to level things out on that joint. it's closed now. got most of the holes on the cowl filled in. some pin holes we'll seal up. you always run out of gas if it a weekend. then striper the old finish off. we sprayed into the top rails with the converter. put it into the drip rail also. it needs to sit at least 24 hr to work. so we'll give it that long

 

[John ED Renstrom]

the rest of them

 

[John ED Renstrom]

how come it is when you order a bunch of parts from a place the first things you get are the last you need

 

[John ED Renstrom]

enough procrastination. I'm home lets get something done. now this rust converter has had a week to do it thing. so time to wash it od yes good old water as anyplace that is not rusty it leaves a stickie residue over it. so, it's sponge water on then towel it dry it and blow it dry. to keep the flash rust from forming. GM used a seam sealer type filler on the joints around he windshield. we'll use the Aluma lead. it will not allow water to pass. while it's setting up, we can work on the top some more. got interrupted with more parts being dropped off. got them checked over and stowed away. hat those staples closing up the boxes. always cut my self unloading the box. Got the glass opening shaped up for this go round. I always need two to get everything. just never got on to wadding it on and carving it out. our goal at this stage is to get the roof in primer the windshield frame and top of the dash painted and the glass back in place. so that is what we are working on.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

had to make a choice how to get the paint off from and around the front tunnel lights. we dabbed some stripper on them as it's just too tight to get anything power in there. still ended up working them by hand but at least it's easier to break up now. there is a ring of rust were the can meets the fiber glass and the trim right fits. so we dubbed some of the rust mort on them after we cleaned the finish off. then poured the remaining in the lid down re air pillars from the top drip rail. it looks broken up there, but it's not tried to tape that lip down and its solid. after priming we will use some sealer on the joint. to seal things up. then we got another layer of filler on the joints