This was a tough weekend as far as making progress on the car. I'm starting to feel like I'm going backwards.
First off, the roof that I just stripped a couple of weeks ago to get rid of some nasty surface rust is already rusting through the primer again. Working outside sucks, but it's the only thing I have right now.
Then I tried fixing the joint between the roof and the rear quarter (where the seam is leaded) by stripping it down then filling over the seam. But for some reason the filler wouldn't stick to the lead -- it just kept peeling off every time I tried to sand it down. I tried about 3 times thinking it might have been because I was working in the sun or something, but each time it would just peel off of the lead. So now I have filler that's nicely feathered on either side, with a section down the middle where the filler is torn out.
Then I tried to make some progress on straightening out the passenger door. After sanding it down, I found a dent that was filled in with about 3/8" of bondo. Perfect opportunity to try out my new cheapo stud welder. It worked pretty well -- only problem is the metal is so stretched that it popped out too far, then when I tried to tap down the high spot it collapsed back in to where it started. And I can't get at it from inside because of the door beam. So it seems like I'm left with filling it back in with a God-awful amount of plastic, or pulling it out again and living with a high spot.
I'm feeling like I'm never going to get there. I know the easiest thing to do is just run through a quick hack job that will get me through a year or two with a 20/20 car (looks good from 20 feet away going 20 miles an hour) until it starts rusting again. But then I feel like if I'm going to go to all this trouble I might as well do it right and get it over with. Then I have a weekend like this one and I get frustrated. After all, if it's not fun why do it, right?
Anyone care to check in with some encouraging words, horror stories of your own, etc? This weekend I'm going to scope it out and decide if I should just do a "slap it together and take it to Maaco" so I can drive it and get some fun out of it (I haven't driven it in the 5 years I've owned it.) Then in a few years when I (hopefully) have a better place to work on it,I'll take my time and do a better job. Does that really happen? Or is it like the "I'm only going to take a year off then I'll go back to college" thing? One thing I'm sure of: I'm not going to get rid of it. Anytime I get really discouraged I just fire it up and that obnoxious V8 sound reminds me of why I bought it
Sorry for the whine, I'm just in one of those "long project that's not going smoothly" ruts...
