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I am sure I will solicit help from many of you over the next year or two as I tear down, rebuild, and reassemble this project. I still have to work a full time job so I won't be able to make quick progress!
Today I power blasted inside and out. There was dirt, spiders, and crud under and in the interior from sitting for 30 years. I Inventoried loose parts. Removed seats. Front seats are mint newly covered, and never installed and I have a new matching cover for the back seat they never installed. Dash and console are mint. Seat belts, carpet, door panels, headliner are bad, and all interior panels need recovering. Body analysis. Rust behind the window is the worse. I have a complete filler panel to replace it. Needs a new deck lid. Patches needed on passenger front fender and rear quarter, but looks like I don't need full quarters or fenders. Doors and rockers are excellent. Drivers sail panel and door gutter need work. Fiberglass hood needs a few small repairs. Roof has a few small dents but totally fixable. Needs trunk pan. And front footwell pans. Rest of the floorboards look good. Windshield cowl looks great other than one small hole that can be patched. I have repaired much worse. Core support by battery looks rough and may not be salvageable. Will know when I tear it down. Because the car was partially disassembled I will need a manual for sure. I have a 1969 442 so I can use it as a guide as I am sure many parts are similar. Stay tuned.
Diego, I presume you have one with the same color combo? If so post me a few pics or point me to a thread to inspire me. The beginning of a build is the toughest cause you can't see the end.
Diego, I presume you have one with the same color combo? If so post me a few pics or point me to a thread to inspire me. The beginning of a build is the toughest cause you can't see the end.
The pics don't do it justice. When clean, with low light (like after a storm), the blue really shines, almost looking like toothpaste gel. I've seen very few cars with blue stripes, but they seem to pop up on occasion (likely they're more popular than I believe, with the rate of attrition and repaints ruining the chances of seeing another one). Strangely, I think Azure Blue may be the most popular color I've seen with blue stripes, as Azure Blue doesn't seem to be the most performance-oriented color). Also have seen them with dark blue and silver cars, although I know they were available with a few other colors.
Interestingly, other brands were using the same color (or something close to it). I am guessing the paint companies were peddling what they thought was the trend at the time.
The pics don't do it justice. When clean, with low light (like after a storm), the blue really shines, almost looking like toothpaste gel. I've seen very few cars with blue stripes, but they seem to pop up on occasion (likely they're more popular than I believe, with the rate of attrition and repaints ruining the chances of seeing another one). Strangely, I think Azure Blue may be the most popular color I've seen with blue stripes, as Azure Blue doesn't seem to be the most performance-oriented color). Also have seen them with dark blue and silver cars, although I know they were available with a few other colors.
Interestingly, other brands were using the same color (or something close to it). I am guessing the paint companies were peddling what they thought was the trend at the time.
Thanks Diego for the picture. Nice! I did a little more cleaning and cataloging today. The rust is really not that bad on the fender and quarter behind the wheels and all 4 fender lips are excellent. And the doors and rockers are amazingly clean. I looked in the doors and there is zero rust at the seam. Crazy. Wonder why the doors are so clean. They are original doors. One of the pictures shows the spot in the door where the rubber plug is that I removed. Why did they have those plugs in the doors anyways? Got all the interior trim panels out and headliner. No data tags or build sheet. Bummer. Still have not dropped the gas tank yet though or pulled the bucket seat backs off.
Have spent the last few weekends disassembling and bagging and tagging parts. Got the front clip off. Passenger fender needs no metal work. Drivers fender needs just an outer patch behind the wheel, as the inner fender brace is fine. The fiberglass hood has a few small cracks that will attention and a little rust on the inner structure at the nose. The core support is pretty bad under the battery so a new one is probably in order. As I proceed to getting the rest disassembed I have a question for the experienced frame off resto guys as this is my first full frame off. I think I am going to send the body off to be worked while I do the chassis restoration. I can do the easy metal work on fenders and such, but the body straightening work is best left to the pros. What have others found to be the best process for this method? Send the body to the shop on a dolly for them to blast, straighten and work and then mate up the primered body to the finished chassis for final panel fit and paint? I want to do most of the reassembly and detail work but want the final body and paint work done by the pros. Also any recommendation for a shop in the south Louisiana area?
Project update. Got some time this weekend to do some of the metal work on the trunk. Fit and tacked in the new rear window channel, and new weatherstrip channel around three sides. Thanks for the parts oldspackrat! Just need my son to come and tig weld it all up. He lays a much prettier bead than me.
What would you do? The trunk lid I have is the original "flat" lid without the circles stamped into the inner structure. But......it has rust damage in the inner structure by the lock mechanism, and pop through rust at a few spots at the lower outer lid that can easily be cut out and replaced with new metal. The seams all around the lid are real nice, with only light surface rust elsewhere. I have been unable to locate a nice original lid and am trying to avoid using repro parts of possible. Would you buy a repop and use a part of the inner structure to repair this lid, or just use a repop lid and trash this one?
Progress update- patch welding and date code search
Progress in the last few weeks has been limited to finishing adding a few small patches to repair some rust in the rear window channel, and pulling the fuel tank to allow patching a few small spots in the trunk pan. Under the spare tire and by the front edge. No paperwork under the tank. There was not the usual anti squeak mat under the tank like I thought should be there.
I did get under and look for the date stamp on he w27 axle. It's not where Stefano showed me. The only stamp is a faint "L" on the left side shown in he picture below. Any ideas what that means?
I did get under and look for the date stamp on he w27 axle. It's not where Stefano showed me. The only stamp is a faint "L" on the left side shown in he picture below. Any ideas what that means?
WOW. that makes the car worth restoring no matter how bad the rest is. In my opinion that's the holy grail!
Have not posted in a while. Life gets in the way as everyone knows. I have all the major rust repair done except welding out the replacement front floor pans. I Will be mounting the body on a rotisseree shortly to finish the welding on the front floor pans and blast and finish the underside. This is the first A body I have done but I assume it will be ok to mount the body to the rotisseree using the front body to frame mounts in he front and the rear body to frame mounts in he back. Is this how others do this? The mounts are in great shape so I assume they are strong enough.
What did you wind up with regarding the engine and trans with this car? I read back through this and your other thread but I didn't notice. Forgive me if I overlooked it.
It’s not the original motor or trans. I knew that when I bought it. It has a Fa block right now. The original engine and trans were pulled when the car was stolen back in the 70’s from the original owner. I need to find a 70 date coded block for it. That’s as close as I can get unless some miracle drops the original block in my lap.
Originally Posted by 70-442-W30
What did you wind up with regarding the engine and trans with this car? I read back through this and your other thread but I didn't notice. Forgive me if I overlooked it.
Saw your window sticker and also your build date of 12A. Added them to my W-30 file. Yeah, it is tough not having the engine or trans. Still a great find with that W-27. Did you find any identifying marks on the inside of the fenders?
The only markings I found on the inner front fenders was this fainting marking which looks like a grease pencil mark. Hard to make it out. Didn’t they write w30 or W on the inner fender of many w30 builds? This picture kind of looks like it could it but tough to make it out. It is the original flat top 1970 fender.
Originally Posted by 70-442-W30
Saw your window sticker and also your build date of 12A. Added them to my W-30 file. Yeah, it is tough not having the engine or trans. Still a great find with that W-27. Did you find any identifying marks on the inside of the fenders?
The only markings I found on the inner front fenders was this fainting marking which looks like a grease pencil mark. Hard to make it out. Didn’t they write w30 or W on the inner fender of many w30 builds? This picture kind of looks like it could it but tough to make it out. It is the original flat top 1970 fender.
Go to this page below and look at Stefano's pictures. It was awesome to see those markings and I'm glad he shared them.
Finally got the body on the rotiseree and did some code searching. Found some great info to document. Found a great clean partial matching VIN stamped on the drivers side frame just in front of the rear tire. Found the AO Smith frame stamping in the drivers rear behind the rear wheels. 11 18 date for a 12A build car is about right. Also did some more wiping dirt off the inner front fender and found a W30 chalk mark near the emblem holes. Only thing I did not find is there is no date code on the W27 axle chunk. Kinda odd unless it was stamped real light. I guess a detailed search is in order when I get the axle on the bench. Will need someone to rebuild it for me either way
Inner fender mark On the rotiseree Frame manufacturer stamp Frame partial VIN
The car above is heading off to paint this week and looking for some help to be sure the painter gets the right paint for the Porcelain white, lite blue stripes and the darker blue interior paint for the dash and rear package/ window shelf, Does anyone have information like paint brand and code for the three different paints for me to cross check what the painter chooses to be sure he gets the right shades? Other cars I have painted it did not matter as much but this car is a bit more critical to get it the right shade.
Couple of cool body mount pics to document. Showing the body mount Paint color and the fabric tape that seemed to maybe used to hold a mount in place as the frame traveled down the factory line. Ever seen this before? It was on several mounts.
The color transfer is pretty common. The colors on yours match what I found on mine pretty closely. These colors can be duplicated pretty closely by paint off the shelf from Lowes, Home Depot, etc. The tape is a bit of a different story. I seem to recall that Eric (Jensenracing77) found the same thing on one of his builds. I've never seen it on my cars.
The color transfer is pretty common. The colors on yours match what I found on mine pretty closely. These colors can be duplicated pretty closely by paint off the shelf from Lowes, Home Depot, etc. The tape is a bit of a different story. I seem to recall that Eric (Jensenracing77) found the same thing on one of his builds. I've never seen it on my cars.
Eric do you know if they used the tape to hold the body washer in place or something like that. It was not on all of them
I don't know what the reason for it was. I thought maybe it was to hold the bushing to the frame but can't say that is correct. Every bushing on my 70 W-30 I restored had the tape on it so I am not sure what other reason it would have the tape on it for. I can't really see the bushings falling off going down the line but again, Anything I come up with is only guessing.
Nice!
