I've nearly finished taking the car apart. Everything is off the firewall, front subframe is off, and interior is taken apart. I need to take out the passenger rear glass, take off the doors, and pull a few more interior bits out. Then, it's just the rear end and glass.
I'm still debating next steps. Obviously it needs a floor pan. It also needs inner and outer wheel wells and some portion of quarter panels, amongst other repairs or replacements. Even so, I'm leaning towards doing a chemical dip and e-coat dip before starting in on the metal.
I looked into that chemical dip, eCoat place in Michigan. yep - 2500 for the bare body. I believe - and I could be wrong - they said do all the metal work before bringing them the car. Just a thought...
Long time and no updates. Work got crazy and is just starting to normalize. Anyway, car is fully disassembled. Quarters are partially removed. MIG welder is here. Car is just temporarily braced. Full bracing should be in place in the next week or 2. Since I'm new to bodywork, I'm struggling with a game plan. While the quarters are off, I'm going to do the mini tubs. After that, I'm kind of stumped. Should I replace the quarter before removing the floorpan? Should I buy the trunk lid first and use for quarter fitment? There are a few dents with creases in the roof. Should I replace that while I'm at it? What about shaving the window gutters? I guess that's the fun part about the first time.
Anyway, based on the recent Art Morrison video, I'm thinking about going full AME chassis (triangulated 4- bar rear). I was always planning on their front clip, so not too much of a change. I love the new Dakota Digital VHX Analog gauges. Those will be going into the Anvil dash. Remaining dash will be wrapped in CF vinyl and black leather. Transmission is still up in the air. Since I work for ZF, I'm going to see if I can get a 2nd gen 6HP or maybe even an 8HP in their. The 6HP in my previous car shifted so fast I think it would better fit my intentions as a uber high performance driver. We'll see. T56 is not a bad fall back plan. Good news is I don't think I'll need a new trunk floor pan. Bad news is I probably need a new cowl.
As for final color - I'm between two. Since I'm planning to do CF hood and trunklid, I would love for some to show through. I think pearl white with Scuderia style stripes would look awesome. Otherwise, I'll probably go midnight metallic blue like I did on my last 'Bird. Always loved the color. That's a long way off, so I'm likely to change my mind several times before I actually get it painted.
My goals are as follows:
1.) Metalwork done over winter (except AME rear fab work).
2.) Chem dip with e-coat done late winter / early spring.
3.) Buy AME chassis (at least rear but hopefully front as well) late spring
4.) Finish bodywork / paint next winter
5.) Purchase engine / transmission (next spring)
6.) Finished (fall 2012)
Given that I have about 30-40k miles of flying planned by end of year, we'll see what happens.
Any input / feedback / thoughts would be appreciated.
So I'm plugging along as I get time. Most panel removal is complete. The problem is that the more I pull off, the more I want to replace. Ugh. Drip rails weren't that concerning, but now I think I'm going to replace the trunk pan. It's solid, but pitted way more than I expected. I went at it with a rust remover pad on my grinder, made a big mess, but not much progress on the rust. The main problem is that I want to do a AME rear suspension and am starting to worry about getting the panels lined back up. Especially as I keep pulling off panels! Anyone have any experience with this? Any input would be much appreciated.
As I'm doing my car, I'm trying to fix one area at a time. This way, the rest of the car is still there to support and align things.
Because most of yours is apart, I recomment a lot of cleckos and sheet metal screws to temporarily put it back together before you weld everything up. The current and last month's issue of Car Craft covers a shop rebodying a 68 mustang coupe into a fast back. Many of the technical "how to" may be of help for you.
Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
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