I second that!

Rich, i can't remember, but are you putting the side trim, and lower black back on the car? That color combo would look good with the red reflective stripe.

Side trim delete. A not so Rare option

For years I always said I’d put the trim on if I had it, but the car
Never had it during my ownership, and I never acquired it.

after replacing all the metal I’m not sure I’d have the
Heart to drill 40 holes for that trim.

Did some more stuff.

Was totally clueless how to install the trunk torsion bars/seemed counterintuitive. Once I understood how, it took about 5 minutes.
The service manual confirmed my improvised approach was more or less backwards. I've never messed with those before, ever and hopefully
never will again.

On disassembly, you could see the factory assembled the metal, greased the trunk hinges, and then painted right over the grease.
As awesome as a factory original car might be, I didn't do that....

Now that everything has new slippery paint on it, it all needs to be adjusted and seems to be fighting me.
I used to be able to just wiggle the pieces around a little, and they'd find their old home in the very few places there wasn't any rust. Not anymore.

Alot of prep I did 2 years ago on tedious little things (rebuild/clean/epoxy most of the hinges and things like that), paid off....as I could clean/prep/paint them real quick now.
I did mess up by waiting to rebuild the upper door hinges until now, so that slowed me down a couple hours or whatever but nothing too bad.

Nice progress!

Floor jacks and muscle power, turned the car sideways for final prep.

Washed the floor for the first time since last fall. It's still not actually clean, but it's better.

The biggest problem is not only my bodywork project, but one of the rams in my hoist sprung a dang leak. The hoist works fine but you go through alot of oil-dri.
So that is first on my list to repair once this has color on it and is curing. If anyone local knows someone good I can just drop the cylinder off to... to be rebuilt,
pls let me know about them as I'd gladly go that route.

The hoist + high lift garage door tracks will make good attachment points, and I shouldn't need to add a ton of structure to section the car off
with plastic or whatnot to control the airflow/protect everything that I don't want painted.

The view when I open the door:

WOW....looks like its almost that time ! ! !

GO ! GO ! GO !

your car will look AMAZING when done !
keep after it. won't be long now !

Change of plans I probably communicated on another platform but not here....Enough grinding and welding needs to happen in the engine bay
that I think I'll not do that until later.

So I will leave the Wedge in it to get the exterior done.

then after engine comes out repairs/changes happen in the engine compartment, the color will match.

Getting ready to bolt the fenders on pretty soon and had to get my topcoat in all the back areas.

These are still curing and I think I achieved the target of "Pretty close to factory appearing, but cleaner" look that I was after with the seam sealer application.

High K factor camera flash as shown here=Medium, very normal looking Silver.....Low K factor=flop to green or gold.
The color is like a "mood ring" (remember?) I love it.

Rich,

Damn! Looking good brother! Nice work!!!

Needed to go one step backward on the trunk lid to get it the same level as the rest of the body.
That one part has been quite alot more work than it should have been.
If I could go back in time, I'd have used polyester primer on it which would have helped me get it right, faster.
Lesson learned.

It's almost all blocked out to P320 except below the character line on the right side, which I should get done over the next couple days.

Above the character line all the cut throughs to metal and underlying layers of epoxy have been addressed with fresh epoxy and more 2k urethane surfacer, to give the final P600 something to work with.
That can all sit there, outgas and shrink for awhile.

Will need to do the same to the lower body areas as well.

Still need to address lower grille support, have not done anything yet and will probably prep my original part.

I already look at it, even like this, and can't hardly believe it's mine.
It's looked like hot garbage for over a decade now and I both hated it and was adjusted to it at the same time.

It's probably going to feel a little strange to not be able to throw wrenches at it anymore like I used to, and to have to cover the fenders with blankets and stuff when working on it.
I'm looking forward to the change, though.

It's going to look amazing when you are done.

I'd love to see it. There is something to be said about not being careful with wrenches. I loved working on Dizusters car for that fact. The 64 has been raced for 10 years. Lots of valve lash checks, engine work, and tuning. It still looks pretty damn good. Very few rashes to the paint.
Doug

Hope to invite a few known cool local folks over once I have something a little more worthy of inspection, and a slightly more presentation-ready shop.

Might be a minute!! I'm going to keep messing it up and only cleaning the localized important areas for awhile yet.

About an hour with paint stripper and a half hour with the sandblaster proved I can save the OE lower grille support.
You never know what you have until all the coatings and fillers are removed.

I'd bought a reproduction and it's pretty nice but I liked the OE one a little better.

It might be the original part it was built with but I don't know...It came on the car back in '88 when I acquired it, and doesn't look to have been changed, but it may have been
swapped decades ago with the original right front fender was mashed and replaced. I can't tell, I'm not that good.

A couple finish sanding pics
+ wet check of the trunk lid, (by far the worst panel on the vehicle, now maybe not so anymore)
+ a reminder of something already produced, that I just need to duplicate on the exterior (Knowing for sure
You can already do what you’re trying to do, and having proof, helps alot ).

I’ll be chasing and refining scratches for quite awhile yet.

Wet check shows the car is pretty straight for an amateur, and I just have to refine the surface
properly, keep it clean so I can see what I’m doing, and end up with a uniform p600 prepped surface.
From test panels, I know what happens when you miss a scratch (metallic lays in it, looks bad) and can’t allow that to happen.

i see a small dent !!!

just yankin' yer chain !
everything is looking great ! keep up the good work !

LOL!

I'm busted! You've got a great eye!

I knowingly did let two dents go, that one you can see on the inside of the decklid, and there is also one other that is also hidden when the decklid is closed.

I've gotta draw the line somewhere, the goal is still the same.... "really nice looking"...not perfection or even close.

It's fun to be called out on that, thanks

if anyone looked at my charger, they would fall on the floor laughing so hard at all the bad spots !
having worked in a body shop and played the auction game, i really appreciate GOOD body work, and you sir, are doing a GREAT job !
i have a friend that has been a body man for over 50 years, and your work rates right up there with his !

Got about 6 hours of sanding, cleaning, scratch refinement in yesterday.

It’s very close to where I want it now.