1976 Swallowtail: Cinnabon by Nashty Rabbit

5 minute(s) of a 69 minute read

always got your hands in something don't ya... lol... and yes, i'll be driving one and am sure mike will trailer down the other bunny....


so spent the first week of the year in vegas with my girl, mike, and many more friends, next week a good friend from France came and stayed the week, then next week we went to Charlotte, then work got crazy.... point is been to slammed to do anything, but did finally get going two weeks ago and got some stuff done...

as for progress on this car i made a decision to hold off on any major restortation on this car becasue i really miss having an a1 to drive so everything i'm doing for the most part is temporary, unitil my other rabbit is complete.... having said that....

Rust. I know its popular, cool, culture, etc.... but my personal opinion of it is that it is rot! fortunately for the cars i own, i don't like rot and have no reason to start liking it now.... i can understand when a car is on its last leg with the cancer i call rot, but this car is far from that.... in fact the unibody is solid. so i decided to sand down the random superficial spots i found and spray them with primer, paint, and clear. i know the paint doesn't come close to matching the paint of the car, but i'm trying to preserve the car till when i get my other rabbit back and will then take this one down to a complete redo.... I also, got the underside and fender wells pressure washed (dear lord the amount of PNW dirt i cleaned out...), rolled the fenders, and i finally installed the suspension last night....

on with the pics...

before:



after:



i literally cleaned out about 20lbs of earth from the little bunny. seriously, what do you guys in the PNW drive on??? dirt?



and found this nice "clump" along with much more under driver's side fender where it met the apron...



after a half day of cleaning, next call of duty was fender rolling. for anyone thats ever used a roller like the eastwood fender roller, slow and steady. fortunately for me all the fenders had cracks or chips in the paint and two had superficial rust so i didn't go as slow as i should, cuase i was going to sand and paint the spots anyways...



before:



after:



not perfect, but again, stops the rust and gives me a few years to play with the car before i put it down....

the worst and only bad part of the car was the lower front driver apron and fender. the fender IS toast! i'd have to cut out all the rusted spot you see and downwards on the fender so easier to find a cabby front fender..... the lower front apron had some damage as well but can weld new metal there.... only problem was where the fender bolted to the apron went bye-bye when i pressure washed it so i had to drill a hole in the fender and zip tie that bad boy down... lol... i couldn't decide whether to use a white ziptie, black to match other parts of the car, or a cinnabrown color to match the interior so i went with a white... i also decided to leave the rusted through spots on the fender so we can kick through it at sowo...



and finally, had time last night to install the bushings, mounts, and coilovers i got from BFI.... thanks guys..






wheels should be here from england soon hopefully. going to get them mounted, adjust ride height, alignment, do some serious cleaning, then enjoy it for what it is....

take care,
nash