I've used that phrase on many occasions in my life.
-When I went surfing on the hood of a car to impress a girl...
-When I took a 6 months assignment in Madrid...
So back in December on my first day of vacation I washed my car. I knew I had some rust bubbling under the vinyl top, but on this day it really bothered me. So one thing led to another and ended up pulling up the vinyl for a look. Well one thing led to another and...
So the car is completely apart now. Upon inspection the rust bubbles were only surface rust in the area. I've seen much worse...
Thats the worst of it. The front windshield area is in really good condition as well.
As soon as I pulled up the vinyl I was expecting the front to be really bad as there was about a 1 1/2 inch gap between the windshield and the roof. Looks like whomever installed the windshield didn't prop it up to keep it from sliding back down.
Last year I had a 3 inch hole develop behind the door. Turns out there was about an inch of bondo covering holes. I applied patch panels and some quick bondo filler cover. Once I got back there I noticed that the area behind the tire was just as bad so I cut those out as well. Good thing too as there was about 2 inches of bondo covering the entire lower section of those areas.
Excuse the poorly applied bondo.... I hadn't gotten around to sanding smooth...
In addition to the bondo there was about 5 pounds of red dirt (car is originally from Oklahoma) between the panels. Looks like that dirt did its evil work... These may be beyond saving.
So digging deeper I also found
When I bought the car I posted a topic on how the previous owner covered the floor boards and made a tranny tunnel out of aluminium cans and resin. Looks like that also included some of the trunk floor.
Underneath the rotted trunk you find this... (which I knew about when I bought the car)
Yes, it looks like its braced with some partial I beams... Well, at least its metal and not aluminium cans. I have a safety cap section ready to get welded in to fix this.
Here are some more pics...
Now here is what I don't get. You have 2 nostrils which can be left open to provide air flow to the engine compartment, why the hell do you cut four 2 inch holes in the hood? To provide air to the top of the air cleaner?
I want to fill these in and open up the nostrils... I'm hoping he stuck to his policy of using aluminium cans to fill these.
In addition to all of this I also got rid of my 318 and purchased a 360 to go in. Today the car leaves to get bathed in sand. Everything should be blasted except the interior as it has a layer of almost impossible to remove dynamat. Before I put down the dynamat I had sanded most of it down so I'm not terribly worried about leaving it. But sandblasting has been known to show problems you haven't seen, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Next will be the painting and reassembly.
