73 on a slow road to recovery... by Done Yet?

9 minute(s) of a 308 minute read

Moving right along...

All of this work was completed during the week after work and over Sat and Sun. I didnt think i had enough of the black imron to finish the underside so i decided to buy one more quart and mix all of the blacks together before shooting any color under the car. I also picked up a bag of new J-nuts that hold the bolts for the front spring pearches and i just recieved my solid subframe mounts from PTFB. First i applied seam sealer to the underside of the car including any weld seems that were under the car.















Next up was to sand the bottom with 400 up to about the middle of the doors, clean and wipe down the surface with wax and grease remover and do a little masking to keep the bottom paint off the sides of the car.

Next the topcoat was applied up to the first crossmember under the front seats. I stopped here to use the support to help hide the paint seem, when the rest of the under side was shot with top coat. The few areas shown in the next pics was recoated to cover the light spots.

How about a 2 wheel roller LOL...

After the paint had 24 hr cure time and was dry to work around i was able to get a few extra hands to help install my rear end and springs. Being the were all painted i needed help with the install to prevent scraching all of the parts. Everything went smooth with the install here are a few pics.











When i went to mount my two rear wheels i couldnt get the lug nuts to thread properly. I thought becuase i changed rear ends that the thread size was different , but in turned out i had quite a build up of primer and paint on the threads that needed to be cleaned off to get the wheels on the car.
The car was rolled out from under the canopy and the rear axel tubes placed on jack stands. the front bar that i had made that bolted to the front subframe mounts was chained and hooked to an engine hoist to lift the car in the air. This gave me access to the rest of the underside that needed some work.









Once it was lifted up the rest of the bottom was sanded and wiped clean. Then masked off and the shot with the black topcoat.

As things were progressing along nicely i had my daughters boyfriend give me a hand installing the painted subframe with the new solid mounts from PTFB.





I was also able to mount my steering gear and the two rear front wheel house brackets, and the new radiator support with solid mounts.







And to finish off the weekend i installed both fenders, they are not adjusted yet but mounted to get them out of my shed. Thanks for stopping by to check out my work.

5-8-2011

How about an update....

I met with the first of 3 reputable body shops that turn out the quality of work I'm looking for. I have another estimate set up for Monday after work, and the third i havent called yet. Once all 3 prices are in for body work and paint i will post them. Once the body work talk was done it was time to get busy working on my car LOL. First thing on the list for this weekend was to hang some more front end sheetmetal. First the header and then the lower valance, after that the hood latch.









I spent a little bit of time lining up all of the panels from the fenders foward, once it looked pretty good i had to toss in the grille just for a pic. Once installed i noticed the chrome surround is pitted pretty bad so it was removed and the chrome was also removed from the grille and set aside for another day.

Next on the to-do List.... take apart and clean up the brake booster, master cyl. and prop valve.



Once cleaned each part was primed and painted. Once dry they were all installed on the car. I couldnt see spending money on new parts when these worked just fine before the tear down. I dont think they came out too bad.



I then moved on to my control arms removing the old bushings and ball joints, the first three went pretty smooth, i even was able to glass bead both uppers. But on the last bushing on the lower A-arm slid out half way and seems to have gotten stuck. Its being a real PITA. Anyhow i will resume work on that bushing tommorow after work. Its beer thirty and dinner time.