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Are you keeping the battery boxes?
Hi Max,
I spoke to a knowledgeable person who has inspected many of the original cars. Based on review of his old notes from those inspections, he recommended that the RH battery box be shaved but that LH box be retained. Here are the pics of the batterry boxes post-surgery. Other opinions may dffer but it is already done...
Where did you source steel front and rear flares?
The front fenders, complete with flares as well as the rear flares came off of another 71 coupe that had been dealer modified for its first owner here in the Hartford area.
Like all old parts, the fenders and flares required a fair amount of repair and tlc to make them nice again.
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final shape on front fenders
Here are some pics of how the front flares look in their final shape.
There is more to getting these flares looking the same side to side and in the same spot on the fenders then one might think. Once that part is done you need to get the contours just so and most importantly, pleasing to the eye.
All this hand work may help explain why seemingly no two ST cars look exactly alike.
Here the primer shows evidence of final attention with hammer and dolly to get a nice shape.
Headlamp buckets are being checked for gaps and alignment.
The RH headlight bucket was water damaged and badly rotted underneath the old paint. It required replacement with a solid bucket.
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Gaps for alu skinned doors
This is a hot rod, so the shop does not want to just throw it together like a real race car!
Checking door gaps after re-skinning the doors revealed one or too proud surfaces that required attention to make them look street car nice.
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Balsa front lid trial fit
The balsa front lid was surprisingly straight and aligned nicely when first bolted on. The lid is seen here on the car for a trial fit prior to being stripped of its old, but still lurid, Signal Yellow and Blutorange livery.
Underneath the old lid there is fair amount of tank blow-by and fuel permeated gunk accumulated during long-term storage. The 2.3 ST donor of this old balsa lid was written off somewhere in Germany. There are a few more bits from the same unknown donor that will be used on this project.
You can see the balsa wood reinforcement strips let into the grp on the underside of the lid in the second image.
These lids are shockingly light - more like grp reinforced balsa then balsa reinforced grp.
911.511.901.00 Hood front materia artificiale