Yup. Half my cowl came out with my windshield.

Oddly enough...I have never seen this before. LMAO

Greg...I'll be happy when she's just working full time again. Anything to get her out of the house.

It's not bad. Still...when you're all sleepy eyed, just waking up and sipping your morning cup of coffee, pictures like this get your attention pretty quick.

Finally a little progress on the car and it looks like things will move forward steadily from here on out. Yeah right....

We just got the car back from the stripper. So much for a repaint. Like everyone else that's done this, I had hope that the body would be fairly solid and I was happy to see that the floors and trunk pan looked good. HOWEVER....there's some rust in some strange places and the drip rails are trashed. It can all be fixed with just a little more $$....right!

http://www.smugmug.com/photos/i-BPqH...-BPqHVxX-L.jpg

Probably not going to work as advertised.
http://www.smugmug.com/photos/i-c49F...-c49Frbj-L.jpg

The roof is pitted pretty bad. Thinking is that a blanket or something was stored on top of the car.
http://www.smugmug.com/photos/i-ngvx...-ngvx3Gb-L.jpg

I would still consider that fairly solid.

This was the big surprise for me. Never would have guessed this was lurking beneath the paint.

http://www.smugmug.com/photos/i-Sjd4...-Sjd4k7H-L.jpg

Seriously...who does this?
http://www.smugmug.com/photos/i-G783...-G783hKh-L.jpg

http://www.smugmug.com/photos/i-XW4M...-XW4MRhR-L.jpg

Always best to end things on a good note...right? Hopefully the body will catch up to this level before long.
http://www.smugmug.com/photos/i-gg3C...-gg3C8GF-L.jpg

I was just going to delete the front bumper and leave the holes....apparently that's not allowed. :twak:
http://www.smugmug.com/photos/i-Ln6P...-Ln6PLwb-L.jpg

Agreed. Just rusted in strange places compared to a lot of what we see. I can't wait to see it all smoothed out and purdy before paint.

The plan is to smooth the firewall and tighten up a few areas on the body. I want to keep a somewhat stock/factory look, but just a bit nicer/cleaner/smoother.

To do that we will smooth the firewall, shave the door and trunk locks and remove a few seams. Nothing to crazy.....well for this crowd. The guys at work all look at me like I am insane.

http://www.smugmug.com/photos/i-k6DZ...-k6DZgJB-L.jpg

http://www.smugmug.com/photos/i-wRSK...-wRSKWft-L.jpg

http://www.smugmug.com/photos/i-rh89...-rh89QJf-L.jpg

http://www.smugmug.com/photos/i-nQ2L...-nQ2Lwcf-L.jpg

Based on trunk inspections I'd bet money my car is very similar to this.......possibly worse. As it doesn't affect the way it drives, I'll just continue to play ostrich and consider the bondo traction ballast. :sieg:

You work?? :lol:

Just a thought - be careful with that upper trunk panel seam. It's a flex area and I've seen success and failure there on painted cars.

:cheers:

awesome to see some updates, keep them coming.