Inspiring build, that's for sure. Ability has always impressed me much more than money.

Thanks guys.
Funny thing about that Dakota, I stripped almost all the sheet metal from the structure before it left. I also kept anything I remotely thought I might be able to use, the trunk of the coupe and a shelf in my garage are full of Dakota parts. I even had a full sized Dodge truck here that has become a Dakota parts storage unit. LOL. As the build progresses, you will see many more Dakota parts showing up. As your looking at the pictures, keep in mind, the Dakota was originally white, and the coupe was black. Anything you see that is or was white came off the Dakota, sheet metal included.

I didn't have a chance to get new pictures of the door bottom build, so that installment may come out of order. Gene

an impressive job for sure gene. i can well relate to the door fitment issues you are experiancing, as the floor and post bracing on my humpback was gone as well. what was thought as reasonable door fitment is now apparent that i will have to "modify" further to satisfy my panel/gap goals. keep up the good work ! i'm looking forward to more progress reports !

I got a couple pictures of the door bottom & door corners. I need to make a bunch of poor excuses with these pictures. All of the "new" metal welded in here was from the hood & box sides from the Dakota. When the metal was welded on, I only removed the paint from the weld area, the welding was done outside on a couple of pretty windy days, I was trying to close up the car before winter set in. After the welding was done (minutes after) the whole area was spray bombed with cheap black paint over dirt, cracked old paint, and still warm welds that were not ground down.

With that in mind, The passenger side door was cut off just below the lower door hinge but a previous owner. What your looking at is a hand formed inner door panel, welded to a hand formed outer panel patch. There are also pictures of the door corners, I didn't want the 90 degree door bottoms.

rear corner

Front, passenger side door post & rocker. Note, the seam is sealed with NAPA seam sealer.

rear of door & outer quarter patch

Driver side door, rear & quarter

Front of door

How about a pre-paint driver door?

Did you notice the Dakota gas door on the side of the coupe?

That gas door from inside, along with the wheel well inner floor extension.

There is a box that covers in gas fill inside the car. When I'm done, this will be screwed to the floor.

Some more wheel well/trunk floor to body fillers.

Other side

There was a bunch of stuff to move to get these trunk pictures

The last picture was of the seam between the front 1/2 of the bed floor (now the trunk floor) and the back 1/2 of the bed floor (now the trunk floor)

The last series of pictures I talked about how my doors were off because of the improper door post location. I have pictures....Please forgive my temporary windows, the new window channel is ordered. Driver side is about 3/8" out at the top corner.