Hey Guys, I’m finally getting started on the bodywork and paint on my 70 Cuda. This will be a long and slow process but at least I am finally getting started.
So a little background is in order. I have owned the car since November of 2001 and it is a 1970 340 4-speed car. The orginal 340 and 4-speed tranny are long gone but another 340 and 4-speed came with the car when I bought it. It is an LA built car that lived in California (CA) until around 1996 or 1997. From the research I have done the car was owned by at least 5 people before me (two of them car flippers). I have traced the owners back to 1988 in CA and the trail goes cold from there.
When I bought the car it did not run and had been stored in a barn for 3 years. The owner told me that it had not been started in 3 years and had not been driven on the road in 6 years. I found an insurance card in the glove box that showed the car being registered in 1995, this was the last time the car was driven, this was in the LA area.
After I bought the car I realized it was a bigger project then I had thought (I bought the car on ebay and did not inspect it in person before I bought the car). When I got the car home I just stored it in a buddy’s garage and thought I over paid for the car and that I should just sell it and recoupe my money. Honestly I was sick to my stomach and just did not want to deal with it. The funny part is now that I look back on it what I paid for the car was a good deal. I paid $6K for the car which was a real 1970 340 4-speed Cuda (originally lemon twist paint), that was basically all there minus a few original parts and had minimal rust.
Well my buddy was more excited about the car then I was so he took the initiative to get the motor running. I remember him calling me to tell me he got the motor running and I was like that is great but I really don’t want to see that bucket of bolts. Nevertheless we took it out for a drive and it was kinda fun but we needed to get it road worthy. Once we refreshe all the brakes, ect. we took it out for a long drive and we heard a knock in the motor so we then parked it at my in-laws house due to I had to get it out of his garage. It was at that point I was really sick to my stomach because I had to put in another couple of grand to get the engine rebuilt. I figured I could get more money for the car when I sold it if it was running.
Well after I got the engine rebuilt I started to drive the car and decided that maybe I will keep it for a little while before I sell it. I’m sure you can figure out that after I had a running driving car I could enjoy I started to remember why I want a Cuda in the first place. I keep the car running for about 7 years and then started to get board with it. I could not afford to do the paint and body work and really did not want to take the car off the road for many months while that was getting done. So instead I decided to redo the motor, I stroked it 417ci add a lopey cam, headers, gears, etc. Once I did that the car was a lot more fun to drive!
After 12 years of owning this car I am really sick of looking at the crappy, faded, dinged, chipped paint job on this car so I have decided it is time to do something about it. Over the years I have watched how others have gotten their body work and paint done and I have found that it does not have to be done all at the same time. Also two years ago we moved to a new home and it turns out that my neighorbor owns a classic car restoration shop. He said he would work with me on doing the car in stages so I could continue to drive it the car for as long as I could before we had to take it off the road to finish the body work and paint it.
And so here we are… it begins!
The process will be slow but the good news is that I can continue to drive the car for a while so hopefully I will avoid the “lose interest” phase that people go thru when there car has been off the road awhile. The goal is to minimize the down time while the body work is being done.
I will add periodic updates as I make progress. I am starting by stripping off the first coat of paint. This car has been painted at least 3 times!
I have included pictures of what the car currently looks like as well as the first areas I have started to strip the paint off of. My stripping process consists of using a razor blade to strip off the top coat of paint and then use a wire wheel to take the rest of the paint off down to metal. I’m hoping that taking the top coat of paint off with the razor will help minimize the dust mess when I wire wheel the rest of it off.
For those of you who are skeptical that you can remove paint with a razor blade I have included a video of how I removed the top coat of paint off the header panel. It comes off really easy and cleans up with a vacuum. The header panel comes from different car and I have had the same success stripping it as I have the front fender of the car. If you have good technic you can remove the top coat of paint and the primer underneath that is left is as smooth as before it was painted over with the top coat. Now I’m not recommending that this is how every car should be stripped but for me this is a good approach for stripping the paint off the car.
Here are some pictures of the car as it's current state.
