Bleeeghhh. SOOOO close now, or at least it feels like I am. Today I dug the bondo out of the trim lines, and drilled out the bondo from the trim snap holes. I also started working on the the floor pans or... I should say "floor pans" given that they're nowhere close to the originals. Someone has screwed and welded pieces of sheet metal as a new floor.

Ok, so it's not original but it'll have to work for the time being until perhaps one day I have the money and welder to replace the floor 'em (the floor pans that is).

Anyways, I ground out as much rust as I could out of the passenger floor and put down two coats of truck bed liner to hopefully avert future deep rust problems.

Tomorrow I'll grind out the driver side and go buy some more truck bed liner to finish it out.

Then after that...

I really hope that I don't have to sand all the rustoleum off to use the Sherwin Williams primer. Either way I'm very close to paint. Although I still haven't decided on a color...

Ok. So on the 24th I finished most of the list!

Here's the original list, and the stuff with a check next to it is what I finished:

Straighten the hood


Bondo the dent in the top left corner of the hood √
Sand the engine compartment seams √
Grind down the rocker panel welds√
Sand down the trunk seams√
Sand the door sides and handle areas
Strip and sand the rear apron √
Remove the taillights √
Dig the bondo out of the trim lines in the front fenders
Remove the hood and the trunk

I don't really have any pictures of the finished work because I was working until 10 PM. By that point the light had all but disappeared and no picture... of anything would have come out.

I took the 25th off to recover a bit. I was getting extremely grumpy at night and just needed a bit of a break from the car. I can definitely feel that I'm ready to start reassembling things. I'm ready to see the car going back together and turning into a driver as opposed to a disassembled mess in the driveway and upstairs of our house.

But there is good news! Got the paint sprayer and compressor from Dennis. The gun is a DeVilbiss and the compressor is better than I could have imagined! I also found a Sherwin Williams auto paint store in Raleigh that can help me get what I need for the paint system.

Of course now I'm having second thoughts on the color... for some reason yellow (in little miss sunshine fashion) seems really appealing to me! I still like both, but we'll see. I'll get my dad to go to the paint store and we'll see! Wicked excited.

If you're reading this and have any opinions...

Painting is now in sight. I've been able to condense what is left into a shortish (two post-its) list. Stuff like sanding out all of the hard to reach areas, the door jambs, etc.

I took the windshield off tonight (oh lord) and took the vinyl dash covering off. I found the original color of the car (under the vinyl that is)! As was suspected, it was red. It's kinda cool to think about how old that paint is. Just a little memento I masked off two small areas of it so if down the road someone else goes to uncover the dash, they'll find the original color just as I did. Filled in a couple of rust pits, primed the area. Finally, I sanded and primed the door well area.

I found out that Dennis has a spray gun and compressor that I'll be able to use to do the painting, so that saves a ton of money.

Lastly, maybe I'll type the list up later tonight and post it here, that way I can keep it updated step by step! It's getting close now!

Major milestone tonight: I finished all of the major body work! I patched up over the new welds and my dad patched up the door cracks of dooms. I pounded the new front apron out a bit, stripped and sanded it, and finally wrestled it onto the car. I've also made the decision to do the priming/sanding/painting myself. As I said on the forum, the opportunity to have done everything myself was too exciting to pass up!

The next step is to finish all the tiny little minor stuff: straighten the hood, sand the door jambs and other hard to reach areas, grind down the rocker panel welds, etc. It's maybe a couple of days of work. In that time though I'm going to start the research on how to do automotive paint, find a spray gun, what type of primer and all that fun stuff.

Things are starting to get exciting! Hopefully painting the car myself will free up some funds for other areas of the car as well. The pictures I have are a bit low quality, but hopefully I get some nicer ones tomorrow in bright sunlight.

Went over to Tim Peck's and welded the final patch/rocker panels on. It's not a professional job, but it'll do. Also got the new front apron from Monte. Even if it's not the right year it looks good. Can't thank that guy enough for that. It easily shaved a day off of the body work. Excellent.

Went over to Tim Peck's and welded the final patch/rocker panels on. It's not a professional job, but it'll do. Also got the new front apron from Monte. Even if it's not the right year it looks good. Can't thank that guy enough for that. It easily shaved a day off of the body work. Excellent.