Another trip to the Sand Blasters

Friday morning Mike dropped off some more parts at the Sand Blasters. It is nice being able to drop them off in the morning and pick them up in the evening. It always blows my mind seeing something so dirty come back so clean! A good case in point would be the differential. It was caked with grease, dirt, and rust(see the "before" picture in previous post). Now look at how pretty it is!!
It is hard to tell what you are looking at here, but basically the trunk lid, two doors, and quarter panels that go on either side of the back seat of the car.

This would be a the quarter panels again, along with the hood and passenger side fender. The driver side fender was also sand blasted but didn't make it in the picture.

We are getting closer to the painting stage. We just have to finish a little more welding and grinding.... and then off it goes to be painted. I am excited!!

Day 47 - More Welding

The driver side rear fender got all welded in tonight.

The floor was laid down in the car as well. It is all ready to be welded in. As Mike put it, the floor is not coming out of the car again. It will sit there and then get welded in after all the other welding is completed. That will be exciting seeing the floor welded in the car.

I was laying in bed last night and the reality of everything set in. The restoration is really happening, and this car will be completed within a year. I can only imagine how exciting it will be to see the car back from the painters... and to see it all put back together. Thinking about it got me really giddy. I can't believe that it is really happening now. I also cant believe that I have my dad's first car. Incredible!

Day 46 - Oops... no welding pictures

Yesterday there was a a lot of things going on. I was busy babysitting, and Mike managed to only get pictures of what he was working on. So sadly there are no pictures of the welding that took place, but Mikes dad worked on the passenger side rear fender and getting those spots welded. I will have to see if I can go out and get pictures of at least the finished project.

In the meantime, Mike worked on getting pieces of the car ready to go to the sandblasters on Friday. He took the brakes off of the rear differential to get it ready.

He also took the guts out of the passenger side door.

So Friday he will take the rear differential, the two doors, the two front fenders, and the trunk lid to be sand blasted. That way we will be ready for the car to go to the painters after all the welding and grinding is done.

On a sad note, it was deemed that my original hood is beyond repair. Mike took off the trim on the front of the hood to find it was all rusted out underneath it. So we already have a replacement hood but were hoping that we could fix the original. That is a negative. I am rather bummed the original hood wont go back on the car, but beyond the rust it was bent down on the front tip as well. We are still trying to be able to save any original parts possible, but some things are just too far gone to save.

Day 45 - Toe Boards

Day 45 was June 20th. The driver side and passenger side toe board pieces were welded in.
The next two pictures are the passenger side toe board.

This is the driver side toe board. Of course there will be some grinding to smooth out the welds still, but that will come later.

Day 44...making progress so fast I cant keep my blog up to date!

I did not realize how incredibly behind I got on my blogging. I have 4 days to blog about. So here it goes. Day 44 was June 19th. More work was done on the floor. Mikes dad welded on the different brackets that go on the floor. So the floor is good and ready to go in the car. That will be the last thing that gets welded in though.

Day 43 - It is really starting to come together...

Yesterday Mike and his dad spent the morning working on my car. I was working some overtime so I was not able to be there, but Mike took lots of pictures for me. I am honestly amazed at how good its turning out. It amazes me that once a piece has been welded in and smoothed out.... you honestly cannot tell where the new metal is at. Honestly, this car is going to look incredible when it's all done!

This is where the battery goes. There were two pieces to it. Last post showed the underside of it welded in. This is the top side of it.

Mike's dad welded in the missing piece from the radiator support. This is him smoothing it out after welding it.

It is amazing seeing it with the new metal all welded in and smoothed. It looks so much better without the big chunk missing out of it.

Mike was able to get the POR-15 painted onto the new floor where metal will overlap.

Mike's dad was also able to get the top layer of metal welded in on the fender aprons.

He used the spot welder to weld the top and bottom pieces together.He also got the bottom layer on the driver side toe board welded into place.

The welding seems to be happening so fast. It is crazy how fast things are moving on this restoration now. It is amazing the transformation my car is going through. I am lucky to have people in my life that can pull off this great of a restoration. They really have the knowledge and experience and know how to make things happen... as is evident from the Pace Car Mike's parents restored. I know my car is in good hands!

Day 42 - Officially Building the car back up

So today was the start of building the car back up. I said once it came back from the sand blasters that it had officially hit rock bottom. Well I was wrong. After all the pieces of rusted out metal were cut out... it had hit rock bottom. But today we move onto the welding phase where we are now starting to build the car back up. It is exciting seeing it go into the build-up stage!

This is all of the cut pieces of metal laid out. They all are fit and ready to be welded to the car.
Mike painted some of the pieces with POR-15. I did forget to post about him taking the pieces and sandblasting them in his sandblasting cabinet to get them ready. That was a couple days ago. So today he worked on getting them painted with POR-15.

He then went ahead and painted the frame rails and where the metal for the floor will overlap. He did this so that it will protect the metal from rusting where metal overlaps.. since moisture can get in there. It also stops any existing rust from getting worse.

Its hard to tell but this is looking towards the trunk of the car where he painted it around the edges and on the top of the frame rails.

Meanwhile, Mikes dad started welding. This is the frame rail where there were some holes. It still will need to be smoothed out where it was welded.

He got 4 of the pieces welded onto the fender aprons on the driver and passenger side. Mike then coated them with POR-15
This is the underside of the weld. There are still the top pieces that will be welded on here as well.

He also got one of the two pieces on the fender apron (where the battery tray goes) welded in place.

This is a view from the top. As you can see there is still one more piece to be welded on top.

Today was a very productive and exciting day! I LOVE seeing all the progress being made.

Day 41 - Final day of Cutting

Mikes dad came over and finished doing the final cutting on the car. He cut out the passenger side tail light and fit the new piece in.

The new piece fit and set in place.

Day 40 - Getting Closer to the Welding Stage

Ok.... now for day 40. So this is tonight's work. I was babysitting tonight so not many pictures were taken of tonight's work. All of the pieces are now fit for the driver side fender. There are three pieces that fit together for this. So the next two pictures are showing two different angles.

Mike worked on getting the piece ready for the back tail light. He worked with it in the sand blasting cabinet and got all the paint stripped from it.

We are getting closer to having all the new metal fit and ready to be welded. It is exciting that we are getting closer to the welding part. I am excited to see all the new metal welded and see the car go off to the painters. I can't believe how fast everything is happening now in the restoration. I LOVE it!

Day 38 and 39

Once again, I am behind in blogging. I have two days to blog about now. The pathetic part is that as I am blogging, Mike and his Dad are out in the garage working some more. So Day 40 will need to be blogged about as well either later tonight when they are done, or in the next few days.

So I am going to start with day 39 since I uploaded the pictures in the wrong order. Day 39 would have been Monday (Yesterday). They spent a few hours in the evening working on the car.

This would be the trunk drop on the driver side. So for those of us that really don't know what a trunk drop is... it would be the back side of the driver side fender.
Mike's dad grinding away on another piece that goes in that same area. This is more of the wheel well section. There is three pieces that go on the back driver fender. The trunk drop (which is the back piece) the wheel well piece, and the piece of the front part of the fender.

Meanwhile, Mike worked on grinding down some of the JB Weld. He also worked on some surface rust in a few areas.

Day 38 - Sunday

Sunday evening a bit of work got done on the car. Mike pulled out some JB Weld and took care of some of the pin holes in the car. This is the underside on the drivers side of the car. Mike put the blue tape on the bottom so the JB Weld wouldn't seep out.

This is the driver side tail light looking from within the trunk. You can see some of the JB Weld already put on.

Mikes dad managed to get a few more pieces of metal fit in. This would be the passenger side fender.

So that is the shortened version of the last couple of days. Hopefully I will be able to blog about today's progress later tonight.

Can't Keep Up! Day 36 and 37

I am not doing so well with keeping up on blogging. I am behind on my posts. So there are going to be two days together.

Day 36 which was Thursday evening. Mike continued working on the floor. He drilled some more holes for different brackets that will go on the floor.

Mike's dad continued cutting and fitting new pieces of metal for the cut out sections. This is the drivers side toe board all completed and ready to be welded in.
This is also the driver side toe board. Just showing another hole cut out and the replacement piece cut out and ready to be welded.

Now we move on to day 37... which was this morning. Mike continued getting the floor ready, and his Dad continued cutting and fitting replacement metal. This would be the battery tray.
This is the piece that was fabricated for the radiator support. This was a section cut out with a blow torch when the after-market AC was added to the car. Which we will not be putting AC in this car since it didn't originally come with it. We want to keep it as original as possible.

Mike got the brackets off my old floor, sandblasted them in the cabinet and got them all ready for the new floor.

The next two pictures are showing them placed where they go on the new floor and the drilled out holes for them.

The floor is getting close to being ready. All of the holes have been drilled for brackets and welding. Also there were some plug holes that had to be cut out so those are also done. The only thing left to do on the floor is to use metal prep, and then it will receive a coating of primer before being welded in.

Mike's dad has gotten all the replacement pieces of metal for the front half of the car cut and ready to be welded. That just leaves the back end needing to be fabricated and then comes the welding. The car is sure starting to make some major progress. It is exciting to see the progress. It is finally starting to set in that this car is going to get done and will be restored within a year. I cannot wait for the Tuacahn show to unveil it!