Body work

This page will cover all body and paint work check in for updates.


Here is the car just after unloading




Now I'll start stripping the remaining pats off and begin stripping paint.


I found a bunch of lead body filler in the left front corner must of been a couple pounds of the stuff on there, what you can see is a small part of it there is a big pile of lead droppings on the floor.
I hope to get it pulled out so it only needs a little filler.

Front floor pans had been installed when I got the car I will clean up the install some later, it's not bad but not up to my standards for this car.



Going to need a new rear seat pan and parcel shelf to rusty to save



here is the battery box it was so rusted i just pulled it out all the welds were rusted away, guess I'll be making one of these too.



At this point the front and rear subframes have been removed the boot lid, hood and doors, so i could tip the car on its side to work on the underside. Some guys build a rotissery and mount the body to it I found it just as easy to tip the car on its side, it sits on the body seem at the bottom and a jack stand at the roof corners on the rain gutters. Seems to work fine and does not hurt the car at all no body panels come touch the floor when tipping and one guy can do it pretty easy. Might be safer with two gotta have the jack stands placed right by your self.

Next are pics of the under side after I stripped the battery cable, fuel line, brake line, and also cut out the rusty seat pan.



I ordered a sheet of 20 gauge sheet metal to make the parts with.



The old next to what will become the new battey box it was hard to get the size from that ole' rusty thing.




Seat pan

Now I needed  a way to bend the metal I had always wanted a simple sheet metal brake for stuff like this.
So I decided to build one out of some scrap metal I had laying outside.

Here are the main parts cut to length and the corners notched out for the hindge pins.


Here it is welded up


And some test bends




Now onto making some parts fist the seat pan

Then onto the battery box


Also needed to replace a secton next to the battery box


On to the install





Then I made a new rear parcel shelf

As you can see i have also been working on stripping the old paint from the car here are some more detailed pics of the stripping process, the roof was pretty rusty so I sand blasted it did the door jambs at the same time.

Roof after blasting







Floor pan install clean up there was some over lapping metal in places, just a rust trap so removed it, and fully welded the pans in.



I did not take any more pics of the stripped body but as you can see its all going bare metal and is mostly stripped in the pics. Next after some final sanding expoxy primer was sprayed inside and out.