hey guys, I'm a bit late in starting this thread since the work has already begun, but better late than never to start documenting the project! I bought this car about 18 months ago from the East Coast and brought it out to California. it was a pretty nice car overall--owned by a PCA club racer who took very good care of it--but it started off Sepia Brown then had been repainted in its current shade in the '90s. the suspension is fairly stiff since it was set up for some track use, but on the mountain roads around me, the benefits of the stiffer setup have definitely outweighed the occasional roughness. the 2.7 engine (RS pistons/cylinders, Webers, "early S" cam) was recently rebuilt by Automobile Associates and made the car incredibly fun to drive while I thought about whether to keep it as is or to make significant changes.
after enjoying it for about a year with some small updates here and there, I decided to dive in and do a pretty big re-work of the car starting with a full repaint. so down the rabbit hole I went!
I wanted to learn about the car, so I started taking it apart myself. I'll just admit that disassembly took me a long time working on the car when I had spare time on weekends/evenings. still, it was pretty interesting to see how everything fits together, and I also got to spend lots of time with my two boys turning wrenches in the garage.
along the way, I found of number of areas that would clearly need attention--a questionable headlight bucket, a rusted-through rear seat bottom, a smuggler's box butchered in the name of a/c--but nothing catastrophic. still, based on everything I've read on here about all the issues that *can and probably will* exist underneath the surface, I was pretty sure that there would be more rust and more issues once the paint came off.
after a few months of working on the car, I was ready to turn it over to a pro who could take the car down to bare metal, address the known and unknown defects and rust, and start rebuilding it the right way. so off it went to Scott Longballa and crew to really get the project moving! they've gotten started on the car, so more updates will be coming soon!
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Originally Posted by NickP
