Well we took her down to the bare metal and discovered some interesting things. I have had the car since 1986 and there has been no body work done in the last 20 years, but there was some done we are guessing in the 70's. The issue is in the 70s they brazed the metal together. Apparently, painting over brazing may not be so reliable (i.e. might last a year or 10), so we are going to replace every panel that had brazing done. Estimated cost to do the bodywork to get it ready to paint $7,000 to $10,000.
The above picture is the front right headlight. The gold things are the brazing.
This is a picture from underneath the car. This bracket connects the body to the frame, obviously we will be replacing these as well as the whole floor pan.
We decided to media blast the frame as well
These pictures (above and below) show exactly what the car looked like after it was media blasted week of Thanksgiving. It is interested how you can tell a history of a car when you strip it to the bare metal.
4 comments:
WTF big guy? Times tough? Gotta drive a used car?
Dude when I am done with this it will not be used..it will be new old skool
We have a 61 T-bird all original...Keep plugging away and don't get discouraged! It waill be so worth it someday!!
Maybe I will do a post on out T-Bird one of these days...or the conversion of The Church of the Great Oval bus....hmmm...thanks for the idea!!
Clance',
We will have this thing done in three months.
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