I’m back!  

I know I haven’t posted for a while, but there was and still are very good personal reasons why. So far it has taken me a few days to create this post on and off, that’s when I can even get round to doing it. Rest assured though, I am still here and I will continue updating my little ol’ blog as and when I can, hopefully things will slowly get back to normal then I should be posting more regularly and then back normal. Thanks to those of you that have kindly taken time to email me to ask how things are, I apologise for not posting sooner and disappearing without any warning, but the circumstances prevented me from do so, it was all rather sudden to say the least.

I could have named this post “New Shell” as the car is at a point now where she is ready to go to the paint shop within the next week or so. Compared to the original rusty or distorted metal work, this could almost be classed as a new shell. The Mustang Maniac guys have been keeping me fully updated while I haven’t been able to get down there to do my duties and help out. Thanks very much guys for the updates.

The last piece of work I had done was the hood which took an age to complete. The guys assembled the front of the car and the hood was re-fitted up. Now there was a problem, the leading edge of the hood had been bent down and was hitting the headlight buckets preventing the correct alignment and closure. The hood was adjusted but the fenders and cowling looked very strange regarding the gaps. The hood was taken off and the guys tried to straighten out the bend with partial success, and on the odd occasion it was quite brutally adjusted to align it all back up. But the hood was now sitting to high and it turned out to be quite obvious that the hood was distorted beyond an economical repair. When you are at this high level of restoration you want it to look right especially on such a large panel of metal that you will be looking at all the time you are driving. So a difficult decision was made – it was a new hood to be fitted, it’s a shame the original couldn’t be used. But I fully understand that these things happen during classic car restorations, the guys did try to rescue the hood before it was replaced.  Yes I could have kept the original that sort of fitted and I doubt that many would have noticed, but it would have played on my mind knowing that it didn’t fit 100% correctly with the gaps, I just knew I wouldn’t be happy with it. Like the driver door, it was an awful lot of hard work, but at least I am happy nothing more could have been done to make it fit perfectly. Come to think of it I have seen the odd restored car with worse looking alignments, I dare say some other restorers would have been happy with it. I now have a rather large bare metal piece of scrap.

However, on the plus side it means that my car is now ready to go to the paint shop with new metal that has already been protected from rust. Adam is now just waiting for the paint shop slot to become free in order for my car to go in and be transformed over the next month or six weeks before I see her back. Such an exciting time. I have potentially got the last set of pictures of the car in bare metal before she gets her new colour scheme.

As the car stands the filler work is pretty good, but has been left in a state where the body shop can see what has been done and what needs a final filler coat. Standard practice for the Mustang Maniac guys who seem to do just that little bit more to make sure all the gaps were correct. When the car is back from the paint shop I will then Red Oxide the inside parts that need doing over the black floor pans and the rear chassis legs before the work starts in earnest to put her back together again. I seriously just can’t wait to see her in the new colour.

Photo Menu:

I have tidied up the photo menus to group them together in order to make it more logical to find stuff.

I have added the following these large photo step by steps under the Photo Menu – Bodywork Section:

• Rear Quarter Panel restoration work, click here for the quick link. (A very detailed step by step)
• Hood Restoration Work, click here for the quick link
• Trunk & Tail Light Restoration, click here for the quick link (A very detailed step by step)

I have also updated the Fender Work sections under a single heading to bring it all right back back up to date.

Reviews:

I have added a review of a Neilsen Slide hammer tool, or click here for the quick link.