This weekend I took off the front left wing and door. The left wing is also in good shape although I have not started stripping it yet, so there may be something hiding under there.
I also took the entire interior out including the dash and the heater/air control ducting except for what’s left of the headliner and trim pieces. This was a real pain, but it sure will make the interior much easier to work on. Some things I found:
1) More rust, of course. The right side front floorboard under the dish and part of the firewall is totally shot! I will need to weld in new metal here, since there is very little metal left!
2) Rust around the left front floorboard and transmission tunnel. More sheet metal here will be good.
3) Someone must have jacked the car up using the floorboard instead of the jacking point (a real no-no!) because there was 2” gap where the left floorboard had been torn away from the firewall. The seam was totally split and this whole area was just open to the elements! This may have been a good thing since no water could collect there when the car was sitting, so it saved a lot of the metal from rusting away.
4) The car was equipped with air conditioning at some time, which I suspected. It made pulling the air ducting out a real pain because the inlet/outlet pipes run through the firewall!
5) The heater core was leaking, thus the fogged up windshield when I tried to use the heater!
6) The wiring harness is in amazingly good shape, although I found a relay (not sure which one yet) that had a terminal completely corroded off!
7) Lots of rust on the under side of the dash/firewall. This was once covered in fabric that was really good at holding the water against the metal causing it to rust. Plus, with the windscreen leaking, there was plenty of opportunity for water to get in there.
So, what’s next?
1) Finish stripping the right side door and front wing, and start the left side.
2) Remove the headliner and upper trim pieces (all that is left of the interior)
3) Cut out the bad metal all around the car (I just bought an angle grinder this weekend! New tools! Cool!)
4) Clean the interior to remove all the old glue/horse hair padding and flaking rust.
5) Start fabricating the missing sheet metal.
6) Buy a Mig welder (anyone know somebody selling one?)
7) Weld the sheet metal inside
8) Treat the entire interior in rust recovery paints
9) Paint the interior.
10) Open a bottle of champagne!
