This is the way to remove door and hood skins. Grind at right angles to the skin, grinding through the wrapped-around part. When the seam opens, the skin can be removed. This method leaves a clean panel.
Stripping the Car
Stripping the car is the hardest job during the construction process. It is often dirty and ugly, yet it still has to be done with care. If poorly done, the car will be heavier than it should. It could also have snag points, bits of glass, and tar-type body sealer, which will soon migrate to your new fire suit.
Start by putting the car on jackstands and removing the wheels. Next remove the engine and transmission unit. This will be necessary where rules allow locking of the rear...er, front differential.
At this point, you can inspect everything. If you have not worked on a FWD car before, now is the time to think through what will be done. You should obtain, read, and memorize the rule book for the track you will race. If the rules allow it, then do it. For example, if there is no weight rule, lighten the car to the greatest degree possible.
Removing glass is often one of the more difficult and messy parts of this project, therefore protect your hands with gloves (I cannot recommend using a hammer). At the rear, many of these cars have a hatchback. If this is the case, remove the whole unit. We were able to remove the windshield in about three pieces. Several glass-removal tools are available, but none worked well in our inexperienced hands. Nonetheless, we did the best we could. Once the glass is out, use a scraping tool, possibly tapping it gently with a small hammer, to peel out the tar and sealer. The area can then be washed with paint thinner (naphtha) to remove the residue.
Windshield removal is often a problem. Glass-removal tools are available, but we had little success with these. We broke the windshield into three pieces to get it out. Use gloves and eye protection, as glass explodes into tiny splinters during this process. After the glass was out, Dwight Bush used a scraper to peel out the tar like adhesive. Naphtha can be used to clean up the remainder.
In order to get a better price, we made a deal with the wrecking yard to return some of the items we wouldn't use. As a result, some things, air conditioning parts for example, couldn't be hacked out of the car. This made parts removal more time consuming, but it saved cash.
Stripping out doors is easy if you like grinding. Doors are made with all the window mechanicals and weight and hinges in one unit. The skin of the door is wrapped around the inner part. Grinding at a right angle around the edge will separate this seam. The hood works the same way except it will have glue dots spaced across the middle. Peel the backing off gently so as not to dimple the hood.
I tried not to throw away any parts (with the exception of fabric and plastic) until the car was finished. It is amazing how often a discarded part can do a job. Be careful with the wiring and the electronic boxes. If you are allowed to run fuel injection, it will be regulated by one of these little magic boxes, as will the ignition.
Because we haven't worked on many cars with metric bolts and nuts, and our miscellaneous bolt bin has mostly inch sizes, a cardboard box caught every fastener from both cars. This might be a good time to remind you to shop for a metric tool set. Many domestic cars as well as imports are filled with metric fasteners. Our toolbox even includes a metric crescent wrench-believe it.
This part of the project is a good place to find young helpers who want to work on race cars. Kids seem to revel in tearing up things.
Our Honda hull awaits the next step. A reciprocating saw stands ready to remove anything that doesn't look like a Honda race car. See you next month.
Next Month
Next month we will begin sawing out extra weight (sheetmetal) and putting parts back together. They won't go back in the way they came out. The chassis/cage in a unibody, sheetmetal car is quite different from a frame car. We will guide you through the process of building a safe, stiff chassis and share some interesting tidbits we discovered along the way.
Below are some parts and pieces we will use when building our racer.
Chassis:
* AFCO springs
* Speedway Motors Safety Racing seat
* M&R seatbelts, window net, and head net
* Stewart Warner gauges and shift light (this in lieu of a tach)
* A&A Manufacturing chassis and cage brackets
* JAZ 8-gallon fuel cell
* Paulsen Wheels
Engine:
* Holley two-barrel carb
* Colt Cams custom grind
* Clevite bearings
* Perfect Circle moly rings
* Victor-Rienz gaskets
* Airmass Header
* Perfect Circle pistons
* Performance Distributors HEI distributor
* Bosch spark plugs
* Howe radiator