Starting to Rebuild

As all the rust is repaired with the exception of the drivers side front fender which is up in the attic, I am starting to put the car back together.  This is a long slow process that takes two steps forward and one step back.  This is because I have to install all off the exterior parts, like fenders, hood, trunk lid, doors, to make sure they all fit.  While ther are on the car I will sand them, put filler where dents are etc., getting them ready to paint.  This process takes several weeks/months.  I hope to get them all ready to paint by April.  Then the parts will all be removed as the car will be painted in parts.  This is necessary when changing colors so I will have access to all the door jams, trunk jams ect. to make them all look nice and uniform.  

I am also going to storage with my neighbor tomorrow to pickup the engine and transmission.  My plan for these are to setup in the garage and connect a battery and make sure the engine turns over like its supposed to.  I am concerned because after I finished rebuilding it it seems to be a little hare to turn over by hand and if I need to take it apart to check stuff I need to do it before it gets installed.  

If this all works out ok we will install the engine onto the frame Sunday.  Can't start the car for months but at least it will be in there and the transmission can be attached and then I will know what do do about the driveshaft.  Because its a different transmission the driveshaft will probably have to be shortened to fit and I want to get someone started on that so it will be ready when I  need it..

Once the engine is in I will drop the body back onto the frame and begin the sanding of the old paint.  I finished the undercoating yesterday so its all complete underneath.

This feels like progress.  Car looks a lot better with no rust now but it still has all the ugly old paint so I am anxious to get that paint off and then a couple coats of epoxy on it.  The process will be to sand the paint and ignore any needed body work.  Spray on the epoxy. Then spray on a high build urethane primer that can be sanded and filled to make the body smooth and ready to paint.  The primer will be applied and sanded several times before the surface is perfect.  When that is done the car will be all a uniform gray color and when Lee arrives in April we will scuff up the gray primer and apply two more coats and then apply the color coats which will be two or three coats of Daytona Blue and 3 coats of clear coat.  Then the cut and buff process will begin to smooth out the color coat.

If I get sick of sanding I will be able to begin adding parts to the engine, installing the exhaust or there will be many other projects to work on.

I'll post some pics this weekend of the engine installed if all goes well.