I got to the body shop early yesterday, my friend Mike met me there before 6;00. This was so we could repaint the deck lid and mirror heads that we weren't happy with. We got those parts re-painted and he was able to head home by 8:00 and meet his brother in law and nephew, the carpenters, to start working on his deck some more. I realized I did not take any pics of the deck lid and mirrors painted after Mike had already left and the paint shop building was all locked up and the alarm was set.
Over in the remote body/storage building where my car is, I began fiddling with some little stuff. I installed the trap door and the rear quarter trim panels. I previously had replaced the carpet on the trap door but I decided not to re-paint it. I thought that because it was original paint and pretty nice condition I would leave it original at least for now. The door can be removed rather easily, so if I decide it needs to be refinished, that could be a good middle-of-winter project.
I just laid the deck flooring section in to see how it will look. I will need to remove it when I install the folding seat and then I can screw that section down permanently. I may also need to remove the passenger trim panel if I cant slip the seat latch assembly (that I forgot at home, duh) in behind it.
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Other than that, I started to install the rear quarter windows but I did not bring all of the hardware that I needed. that ended the progress on that phase.
Now that the white paint portion of the project is done, I think I need to get the car back home. If I can get the windshield installed, I could drive the car home. I feel I could make much more process it it were at home, as it would be more convenient to work on. I wouldn't just have a few hours every Saturday, and have to pack up what I think I will need because all of my tools and all of the parts for the car are at home. I wouldn't have to stop working on something because I forgot something that I need to finish and it is 35 minutes away in my garage. I am leaning toward having the lower body wrapped rather than painting it, anyways, but even if I decide to paint the lower body, I can drive the car to the body shop. We could spray the black, when Mike's deck is done and he can be there and we get it into the spray booth on a Saturday,
I did get some other stuff done. I installed the trim panels on the ends of the dash panel, and the a-pillar moldings (also forgot to take pics). I installed the door speakers and the rubber accordion door-jamb wire conduits and ran the wires through them to the radio. I also installed the rear quarter marker lamps, but that was about it. Overall, a productive couple of hours from 6:00 am to 8:00 am and then a bunch of nothing really from 8:00 to 11:00 when I decided to call it. I wasn't really getting anything done by that point, and it had gotten really hot and sticky. I just locked up and headed home and jumped in the pool and cooled off. I did bring the door and quarter glass and all attaching parts home. I can work on getting that all ready to install here at home and install it when the car gets here.
Al least it is looking a little more completed than it did last week. It is funny to me that when the quarter trims are in place it looks like there is actually some structure to the rear wall. That is until you look from the trunk and see it is just those two thin bolt-in uprights framing the trap door.
I can't believe Ford thought that would be good enough, at least they realized pretty quickly more support was needed. The later '71's and all of the 72's and 73's have those larger panels welded in for added support. I thought about trying to add those panels for more strength, if I could even find some. After I looked at a few cars with them, I found the upper supporting sheet metal looked quite different also. I couldn't just add the panels with out also replacing some upper structure or at least modifying it. I decided that was a can of whoop-ass I wasn't looking to open up on myself, so I decided to keep it as Ford originally designed it. As they say it is what it is, LOL.
What do you think? If I just keep repeating "it is almost done", will that make it true? haha.
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