[1_Car_Guy]

Entry 8: 3/9/2022

Have a few things in motion worth mentioning.

Decided the next logical thing is to strip the car down to bare metal and have some metal work done I've been putting off.

Took a few weeks and lots of phone calls but I finally found the right shop relatively close to me for the job. They're booked up until late May/early June but I'm excited already.

Planning on getting the firewall smoothed and reinforced. Car will be getting a manual brake set up and I'll be thrashing it often. Need it built up a bit to feel comfortable.

Considered stripping the body by hand once early May hits (60ish degrees) with Aircraft stripper but with two kiddos aged under 3 and a dog...I don't think that's the best choice to save a few thousand so I'm passing that job off to the body shop as well. I've done it before but not at this point in my life.

Picked up an original 76 Core Support the other day from a wreck out in AZ.
It's impeccable and pricey. Also purchased the Ringbrother second gen door hinges. Other than that I have all the original sheet metal and shims.

Shop will reassemble , take care of the firewall, complete any (not expecting much) major rust repair issues that crop up along the way and properly align all panel gaps, spray in epoxy primer. Not doing any ding/dent repair, bondo, filler work at this point. Just getting it all back together first.

I'll have all that work done when it goes to paint (whenever that is).

That's all for now really. Just waiting until I can drag this thing away to the body guy. Progress is progress.

I also picked up all new wheel flares and the lower front spoiler (plastic ones, not the urethane ones). Having talked to the body guy, he said it's a good idea to buy them now and allow them to acclimate before they ever go on the car. Let them sit out in the sun, in the cold garage in the winter and allow them to go through their natural heating and cooling (expansion and contraction phase). I guess what happens, is people buy them and immediately mount them, prime and paint and they crack pretty quickly. I don't know how much of that can be avoided but I'll give it a shot I guess.