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Preping the right front wheel house for final paint. Most of the time was spent cleaning and hand preping the pinch seam area Where the front fender and splash panel meet. you know that critical area where most rust out.
Many an hour spent in here getting the last bits of old tar and surface rust the media blaster had missed.
After a few hours of hand sanding it was back to silver metal again as far as I could see. I know there is still old rust way down in there where i could not reach but its the best I can do. There is no severe rust here however. A very rare luxury provided by a lifetime in the desert.
Corner ready for primer and paint. Once its painted I'm going to pack grease deep down in this crevis to slow down any rust I could not get to.
Finished removing the last bits of tar, surface rust and spots of our old undercoating job from '88 in this right side wheel house. Went ahead and got the inner panels into final paint.
With all of my oil line mounts in place and my cooler set up I felt comfortable enough to put this area into final paint. I'm loving the look of this painted underside. Its going to be easy to detail and keep clean. The glossy paint highlights everything however. Can't hide any sin or short comings in the metal work like you can with a nice thick dull coating of rocker shootz. You can see exactly what kind of shape this car is in structurely with this finish.
The last modification I have to do for the oil lines are the two holes at the bottom of the splash pan.
Again this shinny paint highlights the fact that the forward upper closing wall and side battery wall are still tweaked and hair-lipped from that old accident. On a more positive note it also clearly shows how all of this old deformation is ahead of the suspension and that this damage is strictly cosmetic. While doing the major metal repairs to this fender (page ) last year I thought about pounding that upper wall back out a bit. But on second thought the hood gap and elevation in this area are fine and I did not want to risk disturbing these lines trying to chase that tweak in the wall out. I thought it best to just let this sleeping dog lay. Besides its really not that bad.
Old damage from'69 again.
I've been messing with this car off and on for 20 years and never gave that tiny hole above the tie-rod porthole a second thought. Once I began detailing this front underside for paint I realized what it was few months ago. Its a bullet hole! Looks like a 22 round to be exact. You can see where the slug punched a dome-shaped dent on the inner left wall just above the brake line bracket in this photo. Its old! The dent is rust pitted where the tar was knocked off many years ago by the force. Being in such an obscure place I decided to just leave it alone. I thought it would be a funny reminder of a time in the 60's when this was just an obscure, worthless little foriegn car in an American wrecking yard and that someone thought it an appropriate target to shoot at.
At long last! Right front wheel house is complete and in final paint. This old damaged fender was one of the major metal repair challnges on this car. took many an hour and some great expertise and help from my good friends Jason and his father Ludy to get it here. But it is finally here.
more section closer to getting this shell off of the rotisserie. This one was a biggy for me!
Faint traces of old damage and repair can still be detected; like the flat spots in the wire rolled edge from my father beating on it 40 years ago but its the best I could do short of full replacement. Oh, well gives this car more character.
This feels like a lifetime ago.
So happy! one more underside compartment in shiny silver paint! I'm getting sick of looking at primer and surface rust under here. Thanks for looking at this! Justin
Many an hour spent in here getting the last bits of old tar and surface rust the media blaster had missed.
After a few hours of hand sanding it was back to silver metal again as far as I could see. I know there is still old rust way down in there where i could not reach but its the best I can do. There is no severe rust here however. A very rare luxury provided by a lifetime in the desert.
Corner ready for primer and paint. Once its painted I'm going to pack grease deep down in this crevis to slow down any rust I could not get to.
Finished removing the last bits of tar, surface rust and spots of our old undercoating job from '88 in this right side wheel house. Went ahead and got the inner panels into final paint.
With all of my oil line mounts in place and my cooler set up I felt comfortable enough to put this area into final paint. I'm loving the look of this painted underside. Its going to be easy to detail and keep clean. The glossy paint highlights everything however. Can't hide any sin or short comings in the metal work like you can with a nice thick dull coating of rocker shootz. You can see exactly what kind of shape this car is in structurely with this finish.
The last modification I have to do for the oil lines are the two holes at the bottom of the splash pan.
Again this shinny paint highlights the fact that the forward upper closing wall and side battery wall are still tweaked and hair-lipped from that old accident. On a more positive note it also clearly shows how all of this old deformation is ahead of the suspension and that this damage is strictly cosmetic. While doing the major metal repairs to this fender (page ) last year I thought about pounding that upper wall back out a bit. But on second thought the hood gap and elevation in this area are fine and I did not want to risk disturbing these lines trying to chase that tweak in the wall out. I thought it best to just let this sleeping dog lay. Besides its really not that bad.
Old damage from'69 again.
I've been messing with this car off and on for 20 years and never gave that tiny hole above the tie-rod porthole a second thought. Once I began detailing this front underside for paint I realized what it was few months ago. Its a bullet hole! Looks like a 22 round to be exact. You can see where the slug punched a dome-shaped dent on the inner left wall just above the brake line bracket in this photo. Its old! The dent is rust pitted where the tar was knocked off many years ago by the force. Being in such an obscure place I decided to just leave it alone. I thought it would be a funny reminder of a time in the 60's when this was just an obscure, worthless little foriegn car in an American wrecking yard and that someone thought it an appropriate target to shoot at.
At long last! Right front wheel house is complete and in final paint. This old damaged fender was one of the major metal repair challnges on this car. took many an hour and some great expertise and help from my good friends Jason and his father Ludy to get it here. But it is finally here.
more section closer to getting this shell off of the rotisserie. This one was a biggy for me!
Faint traces of old damage and repair can still be detected; like the flat spots in the wire rolled edge from my father beating on it 40 years ago but its the best I could do short of full replacement. Oh, well gives this car more character.
This feels like a lifetime ago.
So happy! one more underside compartment in shiny silver paint! I'm getting sick of looking at primer and surface rust under here. Thanks for looking at this! Justin
Thank you for taking your time to post your project up here! Knowing that its not just me talking to myself really helps to keep me going so thank you again!
Its a pretty nice original. It has a wanker on the lower left corner and a pretty good sized dent under that left mounting strap which gives it loads of character! The most important thing is that the original lead liner is beautiful with zero rust issues! Its a scary proposition to reseal one of these tanks because of the internal baffling. Too many corners and joints where moisture could penetrate the sealer and start to corrode. Anyway I'm glad I don't have to worry about that I'll take the dents! 
I'm still trying to pick my jaw up off the floor!
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