Ok, so here's the latest, I was basically done with the undercoating project and ready to hand it over to the body guy, but, I still had a few gallons of diesel left in the hotsy and decided to see how much of the Earl Shieb $99.00 white paint job I could hose off....As it turns out the answer was....nearly all of it! Turns out that it had been painted black long ago, thankfully only the outer body was done, that paint had been partially removed by a previous owner before the cheap white paint went on, the rest of the yellow you see is the original paint and THAT is a good thing! I can still make out all of the original details, the lower body paint blackout, the side stripe and tail panel locations, etc. so I can dimension and photograph all of them to get them back on exactly right.
It's now cleaned as far as I can take it short of media blasting. Now the few sins of it's past can be clearly seen but it's a short list and all together she's still as solid as a rock for a baseline restoration project. So, if you ever wondered how much work you can take on and make a short job of it with a steam cleaner check out the following pics!
Here's what I discovered:
The hood and passenger fender, and latch tray support brace are used replacements, not a problem as I have NOS examples of each so those will go on.
It has the typical A-body curse (door jamb striker latch pegs are cracked around the posts) It has a few light older body repairs, deck lid, tail panel, leading edge of the roof, rear end of the drivers quarter, passenger door, a big shallow dent in the passenger quarter, and a few other minor scuffs. None are serious enough to demand a new panel.
The only rust is the already mentioned drivers footwell spot and some small holes at the very bottom of the quarter panel, couple small butt welded in patches and good to go.
