Update, 12/27/2011: Been progressing on cleaning the paint up, doing it a panel at a time. We’ve all seen shiny paint, so I’ll skip the pictures of it.

Today I put the car up on jack stands in anticipation of getting to some of the brake work, pulling down the transmission to inspect the clutch and swapping out the deep sump pan. After it was up on the stands, I decided to clean out and vacuum up the trunk. The Airgrabber duct work was in there, along with allot of other scattered small stuff. The A/G looks good and is intact- but being my first A/G, I’m not sure what to watch out for (any pointers, let me know ). The air cleaner is chromed- a little old school touch:



I sifted through the dirt/rust flakes before vacuuming then up- some Hurst steel shifter bushings and clips, OEM nuts/bolts, screws and other misc stuff. They were all gathered up and then vacuumed the trunk out. Most of the trunk areas are kinda ‘tacky’- not sure if this is some kind of dealer installed rust preventive, but it is all around the trunk area- too much to think it is just something that was accidently spilled. However, the lowest areas of the trunk are not coated in this stuff- or it got wore/rinsed off somehow. There are a few perforated areas of the center pan, but it is better than I expected now that it is all cleaned up.





I’ve no idea why the A/G duct work was removed, but in addition to taking the underhood stuff off, someone made stainless steel ‘block-off’ plates for the hood vents:



Then, I hopped on the creeper with a drop light and spent a few minutes under the car. I’d taken a look 2 times before purchase, but this was the first time with the car fully up in the air front and back. No surprises were found- all solid and decent. The trans tunnel needs replacement (cut in the back for a Hurst ram-rod shifter) and I located holes in the floor pan from a bolt-in roll bar (which confirms stories I’ve been told about the car). Other than these things- all else is very nice. The car was either undercoated at the factory or prior to delivery: it’s been there forever and is everywhere (floors/wheel wells).

Will be dropping the gas tank out next- the shop reeks from the stale fuel sitting in it.