weaselkeeper
Silver Level Sponsor
Well, Been a while since I worried about posting, but my bride just isn't excited as I am. After months (okay nearly 3 years) of seemingly negative progress, I'm about finished with replacing nearly all horizontal surfaces from rust to new metal. That's all four floor sections, inner sills, trunk floor and luggage shelf/battery box area replaced with shiny new steel. The V6 mod parts are welded in, trans hump moved and just two days ago, I sent the shell off to the blaster. I should get it back next week in etching primer. I know of other areas the blaster will uncover that I'll have to replace metal, but surely not the extent that I already have. Ladies, and Gents....I am the poster child for insuring a sound rust free body is purchased. No small amount of cash, and WAY more than 100 hours of labor, just to get to a starting point of building a car.
Although, nearly three years have passed, I have to subtract two deployments to Southwest Asia in that time frame that have taken up nearly a year of that time. If you add preparation time, about half the time was spent away from home, so I still am pleased with progress made.
All that said, when my wife drove into the garage yesterday, her response was something like how nice it was to have all that open space with the body shell and rotiserie gone. buzzkill. so I come here for mutual support of those who have lived through this pain.....I'm having a blast learning some better weldling skills, solving fabrication challenges and I get to buy new tools all the time. what's not to like?
I just located some '74 heads for the 2.8. Just have to retrieve them. They are a couple hundred miles away. That's just one more excuse to fly somewhere as soon as the icing conditions subside in this part of the country.
Plan when the body gets back is to replace the problems areas the blaster uncovers and then weld all the unneeded holes in the firewall closed to clean it up. Then the hard work starts.
I just share this, because LIFE IS GOOD.
Thanks for all the great info this forum provides. I likely would have moved to a more pedestrian project long ago, had this resource not been available. Hope the pics made it through.
Safe and happy holidays to all. Pete