Aaron's 76 Type LT Project

3 minute(s) of a 383 minute read

And BTW, earlier this year I had NO intention of doing any body work myself. I was pretty much set on sending my car to the body shop, where it would have cost $10k+ (thinking at least $15k at this point) to do all the required work. I'd never welded anything in my life and certainly had never replaced entire body panels before. So I am the epitome of a novice when it comes to this stuff. I just read tons of threads here, asked tons of questions and decided to tackle it myself. Just depends on what your comfort level is. There are plenty of people like us who are not body shop pros, but with enough time it can be done. Having the right tools helps obviously, which might be out of reach for some. However, if anyone was thinking of getting extensive paint and body work done, then that means they have the funds to buy the right tools (which costs a fraction of what the P&B shop would charge) and you get to keep the tools! 

1-2-2011

Yesterday was sandblasting day for the metal under the 1/4 panel. Today I am going to topcoat the cleaned metal with some Eastwood rust encapulator. Ideally I'd like to epoxy prime it but I want to use up the rest of this Eastwood stuff and this is the perfect place to use it.

Before sandblasting



After sandblasting



Another look



Redneck steering linkage

So I brushed the coating on, nothing too exciting to see but it's a little more progress. I will be able t start test fitting the 1/4 panel really soon now.



Here are the two spots I mentioned in my other post. I think the spot in the first pic is OK as-is, it's just some pitting but the metal is still good.



This spot has some small holes, so my gut feeling is to cut this small spot out and weld in some clean metal. I should be able to use some sheet metal to form a small patch.