SM: Status of the body work

During summer 2006, I didn’t work so much on the car but I did a lot of thinking and I took an important decision!

Because there are some defects on the body, I decided to give it to a professional body shop. The important decision is that while having the body in a shop, I’ll took the opportunity to launch the final paint work.

Since the beginning of this restoration, I think about doing the final painting before reassembling to be able to reassemble everything. Usually, final paint is done after reassembling, so many parts cannot be put back on the car before painting is over. By painting everything before reassembling, I think the result is optimized because there are less chances to have freshly restored parts with undesired paint on them. But the big problem of this method is keeping all painted panels safe before putting them back on the car. It will not be easy but I’m ready to try.

So, here am I during August 2006, starting to disassemble some body parts to give them to the body shop. This body shop has been recommended by some members of my local antique car club, the “VEA”. I plan to bring all body parts to have them prepared before bringing the body itself. My goal is to complete this work for the end of the year 2006, but it could be longer 😉

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Here is the front right fender. As usual, it seems not too ugly…

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… but when I begin to check more in details, I depress 😉

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Tar everywhere, to hide bad stuff

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This section has been “repaired”

After disassembling both front fenders, I bring the left one to the body shop. It seems to be the better one. And here begin the bad news: I’m told that 40 hours of work will be required to achieve good results!!!!!!!

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After a quick sanding, we see that the steel sheet magician who worked on the body also “repaired” the fenders

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Approximate welding, ugly steel sheet replacement and plastic filler to hide everything

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Bad work is not limited to the bottom part, no, no!

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The bottom part has been “redesigned” following unknown specifications 😉

I don’t panic and I go ahead with the doors!

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Here is the left door, before disassembling

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There are a few parts to remove

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Removing the window has been very hard, I had to use a hammer, which is quite stressful with glass 😉

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Here is the empty door, now a lot lighter, after a few hours of work

One more time, I first bring to the body shop the door I think is in better shape, it’ s the right one. The result is just a bit less depressing, I’m told that “only” 30 hours of steel sheet work will be required 😉

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What a nice weld 🙁

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Inside, this is even worse, a nice repair at each corner 🙁

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Detail of the front repair…

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… and same thing to the rear

So I see three solutions:

– I can ask the body shop to not do artistic work and just do his best to fix the awful repairs done in the past
– I can cause my ruin by asking him to correctly repair both fenders and doors. But other parts are still to be done like the hood, front grill, rear hatch, rear fender under panels, and these parts will bring their own bad news for sure
– I can search for fenders and doors in better shape and that would be less costly to repair

I chose the third solution. So I begin searching for body parts in good shape.

If one day I meet the cow-boy who did the so-called steel sheet work on this car, I’ll torture him with a welding machine while forcing him to eat plastic filler and fiberglass 😉