Day 361 - The car is at the sandblating shop

So an update is needed. As of right now the car has been re-stripped of it's suspension and is floating on a forklift at http://www.youblast.us/ (Plastic Media LLC in furlong).

There it will be completely sandblasted and coated with a self etching epoxy primer. From there it will be shipped down to Jesse's shop in media where we complete the body work by replacing the cowl panels, finishing the welds on the floor pans and rear torque boxes, fixing some holes in the trunk, and installing 67-68 front torque boxes in (66 didn't have them, but the 67-68 fit and they strengthen the front greatly by connecting the rockers to the frame rails). Once that's done we'll smooth it all out, spray it with a sealing polyurethane primer, and then send it over to the paint shop for base and clear coats!

To get there I had to get all of the body metal parts that need to be blasted and primed fully taken apart. I didn't realize that I was kind of far off.

1. The first thing we did was the hood:

There were 7 bolts that hold on the front piece of chrome strip, and the 4 FORD letters that had to be popped out from behind. I broke the pegs for them of course, but i have new replacements for them. There are also rubber bumpers for the hood that have to be pried out.

2. Next was the Trunk Lid:

Here the toughest thing is the lock mechanism.

There are 2 bolts on the latch that you remove, the latch pulls off in one piece.

Under that there's a peg that comes out and around that peg is a big nut and washer, remove that.

After that there's this thing that's a tube with a slit down the middle, slide that off the cylinder and remove the entire thing.

There's also 4 bumpers, one for each corner, and a glued on weather strip that we obviously destroyed (I have a replacement).

3. Next we removed the emblems from the fenders and all the assorted clips from the valances.

4. Next we removed the grill from the grill assembly.

5. Finally we had to take apart the doors. I plan on coming back and writing this out but for now here are just the pictures as a placeholder:

 

After the doors were apart we called the tow truck who came and took the car to the sandblasting shop! Just as he showed up it started POURING like crazy. We wrapped the car in a tarp and took it anyway, nothings stopping us now.