Restomod Body

Some of this project started about 8 years ago. I tried to give the car away to one of the local schools, but to my surprise, no one wanted it ( school certainly isn't what it was when I went ). It was either wait for the car to finish rusting to the ground and sweep it away or rebuild it. I choose the more expensive route.

The car was mostly damaged by a leaking windshield that let the car fill up with water during heavy rains. The front floors got it the worst and were rotted out. Only part of the passenger side in the rear had to be replaced.

Making the first cut into the floor was the hardest part. After that it wasn't too bad.

So that was about 8 years ago. In 2008 I decided to take another direction. I put in a 5 speed and reworked the engine. I drove it for a while that way, then at the end of summer 2008 I started the last phase of the restoration.

Here's what it looked like pre tear down. The passenger rear quarter is in bad shape and gets replaced as a full quarter panel. The rest of the body panels I learned after stripping were in really good shape.

Starting the stripping process. Anything that could be taken off the car was sent to be blasted.

Now I'm missing a bunch of pics I took so we fast forward to August 2010 when I spray epoxy on the car to do the final body work.

Here the new quarter panel is in. The roof gets blended into the quarter. The factory used lead. I'm using fiberglass reinforced filler. A few dings also get addressed.

The quarter panel took a little work to fit in the rear, not too bad though. The deck lid needs to be skimmed and leveled. The rear flares are rolled up. I was still hitting the flares with the tires on big bumps. I pushed the flares out about 1/2 inch on both sides. I think I have good clearance now.

The drivers side rear quarter wasn't bad. Rusted at the top of the flare. Here I decided to cut part of the flare off and weld in a new piece.

So now the car is just waiting for me to finish up the body work and off it goes to get painted.

While I'm at it, I stripped the front end for all new suspension parts.

Towed the car home from the painter. Some touchup things to do and the deck lid is a little wavy. We'll see how it all looks in a couple weeks after I align all the body panels and color sand it. At the moment I'm installing the coil over front suspension. In the mean time here are some pictures of it with the new paint job.