We have paint!

Now that the car is up on a rotisserie, we can work on the underside.  For the past year or so the car sat on a donor frame from a sedan I parted out.  The underside and firewall were cleaned up and all the imperfections were addressed as this was the last time any major welding was going to happen on the floor.  Also at this point the seams were sealed up as well, making sure no water will ever get in again.

The first coat of primer went on and the car finally started to look like a car again. 

Now you can't just toss a big ol' boat of a car like this on a rotisserie w/o it destroying itself.  So what you have to do is support the car from the inside.  Before the car was removed from the frame, brackets were welded in to hold everything in place.  W/o the bracing, the car would just buckle at the doors.

Once the car is returned to the frame and the rest of the car is lined up, these will be cut back out.

The car sat for about 1-2 weeks so the primer can fully cure.  Then I had to make two very important decisions.

1.  What color to paint it.
2.  Shall I paint the underside body color.

First one was easy, I had pretty much decided a while back to return the car to its original color of Ascot Blue.  I had no idea when I bought the car it was this color.  But if I was doing all the work to return it to its original state, I had to put the original color back on.

The second took some convincing.  The original car was just painted chassis black on the firewall and underside.  However Pat convinced me to make it a little more flashy by painting the underside body color.  This will add a lot more contrast and look a lot better.  I just hope I don't get dinged at car shows for it.

So blue it is on the underside and I gave Pat the go ahead and make it so!

After seeing the paint actually applied, I am glad I did it even if I get dinged for it at the car shows.  It was at this point I really started to get excited to get this car back on the road. 

The car had to sit for another couple weeks for this coat of paint to cure.  After that it got a shot of clearcoat.

Married again... No pre-nups needed

Once the clear coat cured, the car could be returned to the original frame.  Before that however the engine and transmission were reunited and dropped on to the frame.  After that all the accessories were put back on.  There is one hiccup yet to be resolved here.  The alternator is not lining back up like it had before.  This is most likely due to the new position of the alternator bracket.  It is not 100% back in the original location due to the after market intake.  It's not critical to address right now, but we will get it right before the front clip is installed.

With basically 95% of the chassis done, the car was set down on the frame.  Now one thing that took me a long time to find was the body mount kit.  For some reason it was a rare parts set to find.  I eventually found a set from The Parts Place Inc. (Not to be confused with Parts Place Inc for VWs)  Now I'm not 100% sure what exactly happened, but the two bolts that mount the frame at the door sill poked through.  My body guy also made a comment there were two bolts short.  I'll have to look at the next coupe or convertible, as I just don;t recall bolts going under that sill plate.  Plus when he did it, the bolts poked right through. I seemed to recall there were just bumpers there and no actual bolt.  Not real sure.  I also need to consult the assembly manual.  It should say in there.

Here are some shots of the car back on the frame.

Now back in its true original configuration, work can continue on the main body.

Prepping the body...

Work is now concentrating on getting the main body ready for paint.  This time the top side was sealed and the interior portion got a coat of chassis black.  No one will ever see this, it will all be hidden by carpet and trim.

The exterior was sanded and the imperfections were patched up.  It was soon ready for its first coat of primer.

As you can see the underside was sealed off, after all we don't expect to have to spray that again.  Just like the underside the body was left to cure for about a week.

While the main body was curing, we started to address the doors.  My driver side door was in decent shape.  It had one small rust hole forming in the lower corner.  Seems liek everydoor I had seen had this problem.  It was a quick fix for Joe to perform.  As for the passenger side, it was a lost cause.  I had to get a different door.  Luckily I had a decent door to use and it was brought in and restored instead.  This door was a non power window door, so we had to punch the factory knock-out out to allow the wiring to come through.  The doors were soon finished and ready for their first coat of primer.  I still need to address the power window set up.  I'm not sure yet what I need to replace as far as the rollers, track and etc.  I'll likely get to that after the car is painted.

As mentioned previously we never found a passenger front fender.  The one from California was just not quite good enough to use.  I had already found a driver's side NOS.  Actually everything in the front clip was NOS that I accumulated over the past 3 years.  Luckily we found a guy who had a 1973 or 1974 fender NOS.  As best as we could tell the fenders were identical except for the front end section at the bumper and the fender extension.  These sections from the California fender were in great shape, so we graffed the two pieces together.  It came out way better than I had ever thought possible.

This fender still has one minor dent in it, but that will get addressed later when it comes time to put the front clip back together.

Here are a couple more shots of the car after the 2nd block and sanding that was performed on the car.  At this point the car is ready for its 2nd and hopefully final coat of primer.

At this point I'm bringing back all my trim that I had taken to ABC Chrome in Waterford.  The guys there did an amazing job.  I highly recommend them.  He even did my giant bumpers.  Bob at ABC Chrome swore to never do a set like those ever again.  (For the right price he will, as I'm not done with these guys) Anyway, we needed to bring the trim in and dry fit everything to make sure stuff still worked together.  I don't foresee any issues as everything has been going back together pretty well.