Gerahead's 71 Dart
It sure has been a long time since my last post. I have been plugging away, but pretty mundane stuff. Now that the winter has come and gone, I was able to get back at it. While digging through my storage shed, I found that some of our indigenous rodents had taken up residence in a couple of boxes of parts. First order of business was to eradicate and rebox the parts in plastic tubes. Fortunately the little bastards didn't destroy much; glove box liner and kick panels that I wasn't going to reuse anyway. Grrrr.
Dug out and cleaned up some of the hardware that I will need to hang the sheet metal back on the shell. Some before and after shots of the door latch mechanism and the hood latch and linkage.
Outside of elbow grease and 0000 steel wool, I found that real low pressure in my blast cabinet with glass beads works really well to clean up plated parts as well as plastic (door latch linkage retainers) and rubber pieces (door and hood bumpers).
I started on the body work with the doors. The passenger side was in much worse shape than the driver's side. Got the preliminary coats of filler on them and then reprimed.
I intend to do the finish work with the sheet metal hung on the car. Working by myself without special jigs, this seems like an easier approach. The workstands dance all over the floor while I sand and I just can't get at some areas from the angle I want this way. Doors had small dents, but didn't need much hammer/dolly work to get them pretty nice. I realized pretty quickly that I made the same mistake with the filler that many DIY'ers make with sheet rock mud . . . put it on too heavily! It's a lot easier to put it on than to take it off!! LOL! L8r
Jim
It sure has been a long time since my last post. I have been plugging away, but pretty mundane stuff. Now that the winter has come and gone, I was able to get back at it. While digging through my storage shed, I found that some of our indigenous rodents had taken up residence in a couple of boxes of parts. First order of business was to eradicate and rebox the parts in plastic tubes. Fortunately the little bastards didn't destroy much; glove box liner and kick panels that I wasn't going to reuse anyway. Grrrr.
Dug out and cleaned up some of the hardware that I will need to hang the sheet metal back on the shell. Some before and after shots of the door latch mechanism and the hood latch and linkage.
Outside of elbow grease and 0000 steel wool, I found that real low pressure in my blast cabinet with glass beads works really well to clean up plated parts as well as plastic (door latch linkage retainers) and rubber pieces (door and hood bumpers).
I started on the body work with the doors. The passenger side was in much worse shape than the driver's side. Got the preliminary coats of filler on them and then reprimed.
I intend to do the finish work with the sheet metal hung on the car. Working by myself without special jigs, this seems like an easier approach. The workstands dance all over the floor while I sand and I just can't get at some areas from the angle I want this way. Doors had small dents, but didn't need much hammer/dolly work to get them pretty nice. I realized pretty quickly that I made the same mistake with the filler that many DIY'ers make with sheet rock mud . . . put it on too heavily! It's a lot easier to put it on than to take it off!! LOL! L8r
Jim