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

15 minute(s) of a 308 minute read

Progress update...

After work during the week ive been busy with a few different things. First i was able to mask off the reflector side that was already painted on my front turn signal lamps and paint the backs of them.



Then my hood hinges and front bumper brackets were painted as well.



Next up was to polish all of my tail lights including the chrome rings. And to also polish the front turn signals as well.



Then onto both front and rear bumpers, They were both polished to a nice shine and coated with a little car wax for protection.



And then to my grille, It was originally silver and kind of drab looking, So i painted it satin black, it looked better but still needed something more. So it was cleaned and sanded down one more time. Then with a bright silver I painted all of the front edges of the grille. I let it dry for a good couple of days. Them i used 3M striping tape to cover the front edges of the grille and painted it satin black once agian. I read this in another thread from this site but cant remember who the member was to give them credit for the idea. (Good Idea buy the way)
Heres the grille painted just satin black.



This is after painted bright silver and taped off.





And then the finished grille on and off of the car.





I like it much better with the silver rather than all black. Not to bad of progress with only have an hour or two a night after work. Thanks for stopping bye. Rob

5-28-2011

Well no show on my bodyman today..... No phone call no nothin i might have to go a different route, I will give him the benefit of the doubt until i speak with him. Anyhow some progress needed to be made so i dove into my greasy transmission.



After a few hours of degreasing and scrubing i finally had all of the grime removed.



While i had it hanging i pulled the pan drained the fluid pulled the filter, then ran to the auto store to pick up a front seal. rear seal .filter kit and a new modulator. Then these parts were installed. The tranny was cleaned one last time and painted.





I also cleaned and painted the dip stick tube, and just cleaned the shift cable brackets and installed them as well along with the detent cable.



I also got around to painting the inside of my tail lamp housings, They were white from the factory so they were painted a bright white.



Next up was to straighten the bent cooling fins and paint my A/C condensor.





Then it was Time for a cold beer  and time for some dinner. Stay tuned more progress to come. Rob

6-2-2011

How about an Update...

First off was to repair a few holes in the evaporator case. They look like battle scars from a previous motor swap.I split the case removed the evap core and one of the vent doors to gain enough access for the repair. Fiberglass will be used for these repairs. But i was out of mek (hardner) so i will need to pick some up.





So then imoved on too the heater box, The heater core was removed and to my surprise it looks like it was just installed. So once the box is cleaned up i will reinstall the core and that piece is good to go.



Then to the cowl area of the car, I needed to do a little more painting down in the cowl area below the windshield. So the dash and front end of the car was masked off.



While that paint was drying i removed the front end sheet metal. Then installed both fender skirts, and all bumper brackets. This is to make sure everything lines up with this after market core support. Looks like all but one hole for a bumper bracket line up. Not to bad easy fix.





The A/C condensor and accum. were next to go in, then the fenders and upper and lower valance were put back on. The fresh air vent assy was installed in the cowl along with the wiper transmission. The wiper motor was cleaned and painted once dry it was also installed. Oh almost forgot the hood hinges were slapped onto the fenders as well.









As seen in the pics not all of the bolts are in the header panel, and it is not lined up yet. Should have a little bodywork going on this weekend, First thing will be getting the doors gaps real nice and work foward, so the front end metal will probably be comming off agian.
Thanks for checking out my progress Rob

6-5-2011

Body Work Has Started>>>>>

Ok my body man started on my car this Saturday. He wanted to get everything aligned, and all gaps good on all panels. I helped with this work as he spent all day adjusting sheet metal. We used my stock hood for now until i get a 2" cowl hood, just to make sure the front was square. There are two issues he wants to correct, on my 1/4 skins where they turn into the B pillar the gap closes up some towards the top of the pass. side door to 1/4 gap. And at the bottom of the Drivers side door to 1/4 gap. I tried to take pics of the gaps but it might be hard to see what im talking about. We also had some issues with the repop core support aligning the front end sheet metal. He is a very good bodyman and he was even scratchin his head working on the front end sheetmetal with this core support. All went well all panels are good to go, next saturday he will be starting the bodywork and fixing the 2 door gap issues. So in a way this was the test for all of the welding i have done to this car over the last 17 months. I guess i did good he didnt have any issues with my work, just the way the skins were bent into the b pillar.
A BIG sy of relief on my part.......

6-12-2011

Just inching along...

I started out cleaning and putting the heater core back into its box, i cut a few thin strips of rubber to insulate the brackets from the heater core itself before installation.



Then i noticed a broken plastic clip hooked to a vac. cylinder, this is used to open and shut the vent doors. To fix this the area, it was cleaned and epoxied the broken clip to the door.





Next up was to clean prime and paint my wire guards, headliner bows and retainers and the front bumper impact bar.







While i was was working on these parts my body man Alex and his partner were working on my car. They started off opening up the body gap between the L/S door and quater at the bottom. I told him to leave the pass. side gap alone, I didnt feel it was bad enough to do any cutting on that side. Here is a pic after a slice was made and welded up.



Heres a few pics of the ongoing bodywork.

I was able to do a little glass work to my evap case this weekend as well. The areas needing glass work were ground and cleaned off.



A few mixing sticks were cut and glued to make a backer on the outside of the holes, the sticks were lined with wax paper to prevent the resin from sticking.



The fiberglass was laid inside first building up the the thicknes and filling the holes.



Once the first glass set up the backer sticks were removed and a thin layer of mat was laid on the outside of the case.



When dry it was given a quick grind inside and out and painted with a light coat of satin black.



While working on this case i came across a rotted out metal support that holds the seal and the evap. It was removed and cleaned. I cut off the rusty section fabbbed up a new piece and welded it together. the weld was then ground smooth, then primed painted and riveted back onto the case and the weatherstrip glued back on.





And last heres a few pics of the body work that was done on my quaters. The dark paint is just temp primer to cover a little bare metal until i have enough area to prime to make it worth dirtying the paint gun.

1-23-2011

To all following my thread. There hasnt been anything pic worthy the last week or so. Progress is being made on the bodywork but with only one day a week i still have a good month or so before its ready for some color. However i did recieve my AMD hood yesterday  But we removed one door and both fenders last Saturday so i cant even put it on the car.  I will post a few pics once its put on. Looks like its made very well. My plan is to hopefully have the bodywork finished and in paint before Sept 02. I have two weeks vacation starting on the 2nd. I have just about everything cleaned and ready to reassemble so progress should move right along if everthing goes according to plan. No lost interest here... I want to work on it more than ever getting closer to the finished product, But progress is out of my hands at this point. I do help as much as possible to keep the foward motion so even if you dont see me update this thread dont think for a minute that work has haulted on my car. Rob