justbrewing

Spending a few hours stripping off the paint proved to be a challenging exercise. Went through two gallons of inexpensive stripper, both purchased for $20, one from Walmart and one from Autozone. Will need to find a better quality stripper for the final round.

After the second over all application, it became apparent that the work is pure elbow grease and will just require more time. For the next round I decided to pull a Tom Sawyer and invite some friends to help by luring them with steaks and home brew.

Progress

The car looks pretty good but up close needs some pretty serious work. The engine and transmission were both in dire need of a full rebuild. The interior needed new seats and some other serious upholstery attention and the body had filler in a number of spots and the color is not original. Been painted over at least once. These problems call for a bare metal restore if this is ever to be a regular weekend driver.

Next post will begin the paint removal and will dig up the engine rebuild pictures.

Here are the first few photos of the rebuild. This was a purchase from a couple years ago that I never started on so here we go. I set a target to be street ready by 7/2/2012. I will dig out some old pictures as well but will start with where I am today. Removed lights and some chrome and will be covering windows and pulling anything else that will come off prior to striping paint to bare metal to address any old body damage.

Still undecided as to what color to go with but will likely stay with cream color or get as close as I can to the original. Will get some engine pictures up in the next couple days.

I under estimated our group they were resilient in the rain and moved pretty good even after a few days in the clouds.

Goofing in the Inca tunnel

The whole crew, clearly we were not roughing it too much with support like these guys provided.

Finally made it to Machu Picchu, even covered in clouds this place is mystical.

I may get in another post in Peru but will have to see.

Not much is known about the great Inca civilization since there was not written history and the only documents that remain are from the Spanish during the conquest. I chose to hike the Inca trail for the challenge the history and the natural beauty of the Andes Mountains. Unfortunately as with most amazing places Peru is becoming more and more commercial each year. Now, after the trek, sitting in a small restaurant in Aguascalientes shows just how tourist oriented this part of Peru has become. Between the English signage and the constant barrage of offerings of everything from post cards and Internet to swedish massages I wish I would have stayed out on the trail just a couple more days. The town is very similar to Pokhara Nepal in that aspect. I will write a more complete post later but wanted to post some images from the first day of the trek even before making it back to a warm dry hotel.

My group, a couple of engineers from a small town outside Munich and a couple from Namibia. They all were great travel companions.

A couple horses just lazing around near the first archeological site admiring the view.

Our first site on the trail, Llactapata

I will never master the art of taking a picture with the timer.