First day of cleaning

Another day of rain but since I have the day off, might as well do what I can in the tight confines of the garage.

I vacuumed out the interior a bit but until the seats can be removed, it will be impossible to get it really clean inside. The trash and droppings from the rat which once lived here were piled high. Just getting the bulk of it out made a big difference.

I cleaned the trunk fairly well and boy did it need it. The trunk lips around the gasket were packed with leaves and dirt which was wet. Had I left it in there, it would eventually rust through. The trunk floor has far more rust than I had expected. We checked the car fairly well before purchase but with so many spare parts in the trunk, it was hard to be thorough. I scraped away the thicker areas of rust and removed some of the body chalking which was curling up. Despite the rust, the floor is still solid.

The bottom line, the main center area of the trunk floor has the biggest rust issues. If any part of the trunk floor needs replacement, it will be that area. At some point, I hope to have the body bead blasted. If the trunk floor is still solid, I will look into skim coating it rather than cutting it out. This will be one of those issues I need to consult an expert on. I'd like to do it right the first time but I really don't want to do any extra work or take on extra expense if it's not necessary.

I fired up the engine and let it run a good long time. It was already in perfect tune and needed no adjustments what so ever. It would not overheat and sounded great at idle. Not sure if the flapper valve on the exhaust manifold is working right so I'll have to check that later.

I cleaned the engine entirely and it looks like new. I replaced the partial air cleaner wih the old one from my Super Bee and it looks like the day it came from the factory. I did notice though that the flappers on the air cleaner don't appear to work right so that's another thing for me to check out.

On another note, I discovered that the clutch petal doesn't seem to return properly and may have binding issues. Once the interior is disinfected and bare, I can look into that problem. Hopefully it's something simple and not a sign of pressure plate or clutch fork problems. The tranny does shift through all gears but it seems kinda stiff to me so I guess that's another thing for me to look into.