And so it begins again.... (86 Vert)

[JTurbo]

Here is the patch on the lower rear edge of the door:

All ground down:


Here is a shot of the lower lip, partially completed. The final patch panel is shown in this pic as well:


Here are all the patches welded up:


Welds ground down and ready for mud:


And finally a shot of the inner door frame, all welded up and ready for final finishing:


That's all for now - JT

[JTurbo]

Very nice Joe. I wish I had the stones to attempt this sort of thing. Keep up the good work.

TommyT

Thanks Tommy. Not sure it takes stones - in fact if I had more brains than stones, I would have just bought a car in nice shape to start with and I'd be driving it instead of working on it

Man, talk about a labor of love. Just looking at the pics I can tell there tons of man hours in there but I'm sure there's plenty more we can't see.

Joe - if you ever need rust free metal (i.e the fender) let me know. I can go to the local yards any day of the week and pick up just about any body part and know there's going to be zero rust.

Can't wait to see more, your build threads are always most impressive.

I'm really not sure how many hours I've got into it. I usually only put in 2-3 hours at a shot and I don't keep track. Yes it is a labor of love, but it's also my hobby, so I do enjoy this sort of work (on the side that is).

Thanks for the offer Mike, I'll keep it in mind...

looks like some nice progress there! keep up the good work.

Thank you. Over time, you'll see this car re-finshed right before your eyes....

[JTurbo]

Worked on the fenders and driver side door off the car {easier to my back}:

Door is pretty set, ready for final putty:


Both fenders are ready to go, treated the rusty areas (driver side lower fender and around the inner fender lip) tonight with Eastwood's rust converter:



Driver side rear quarter plastic work is completed:

and primered:


Fixed some "areas" on the lower cowl structure and around the upper hinge (welded new metal, then covered with filler):

I also treated this rust as well, no pics...

[JTurbo]

Passenger side was a walk in the park, really just a handful of parking lot zits, now all smoothed out:

The obligatory "garage work in progress shot"


More photos later this week....

[86 50CPRI]

awesome progress..love to watch your threads evolve!

[JTurbo]

After a quick coat of gray primer over the sanded / smoothed body filler, I applied the final spot putty (red stuff) to fill in all the remaining sanding scratches/blemishes:






Then onward to wet sanding with 220:

[JTurbo]

As noted previously, after I wire brushed all the surface rust, I hit it with coat of Eastwood's rust converter. After that dries for 48 hours, I used Eastwood's rust encapsulator (black in color). I shot the lower part of most of the car and the areas of the unibody (behind the fenders).



Still more wet sanding (need to finish the passenger side).
Need to replace the door hinge pins/bushings on the pass side door.
I'm also going to repaint the front top of the rad support, so I need to finish sanding this area.
Then I need to sand the front and rear bumper covers before the final coat of primer is applied and block sanded. I'm getting closer....

JT

[magnum517]

JT Awesome progress so far!! looking better and better with each pic Cant wait to see it in paint!!

[flyboy60]

wow
rustoleum paint again?

[JTurbo]

awesome progress..love to watch your threads evolve!

Thanks Pete

JT Awesome progress so far!! looking better and better with each pic Cant wait to see it in paint!!

Thanks, I will post more progress later this week....

wow
rustoleum paint again?

Nope, I'm going to use traditional urethane. Still haven't decided on single or two stage yet. I'll probably go 2-stage. I already have a quart of Centari for the jambs....

[JTurbo]

Ok, so the main body (except the trunk lid) is all ready to go and in primer. Here are a few shots still on jack stands prior to garage clean up:



The nose cone is ~90% done. Just a bit more wet sanding and it'll be ready:


I also sanded down the top of the rad support and treated rust with converter and encapsulator (that's the black coating in the pic). I'll paint this when I do the jambs of the car:

[JTurbo]

So I did another garage clean out tonight. Pulled the car out of the garage and un-masked anything that was covered up. Here are the shots of the car back in the garage:



Doesn't look like much, but it's come a long way so far.



That's all for now - stay tuned for more updates next week.

JT

[85GT-79FJ40]

If you have next week off you might be able to make it to Ford Fest next weekend with it! It's looking good. I really want to repaint my 85 but I'm probably going to have to find another place to do it. My garage is attached to my basement and painting cars stinks up the whole house for several days.

[eeprete]

awesome progress JT. Great job.

[JTurbo]

Not much being done recently to get it closer to paint, sort of lost momentum...

I did strip out the interior:


Reason for the interior removal is this (typical for a north east / new england fox body):



And I've been spending money, new trunk lid from Mustangs Unlimited:


Some trim paint:


And the mother load - RED paint and some other odds and ends:

The base (chroma base) red 2R color code was $150 per quart

I'll be using the Centari for the jambs, inside the trunk lid, etc. Once that's on, the car will be final wet sanded and sprayed in base/clear urethane.

So over the last few nights I've been spending some time on the floor repairs, removing cancer, fabbing up patch panels, etc. That's all for now, thanks for looking.

[JTurbo]

If you have next week off you might be able to make it to Ford Fest next weekend with it! It's looking good. I really want to repaint my 85 but I'm probably going to have to find another place to do it. My garage is attached to my basement and painting cars stinks up the whole house for several days.

Thanks Stan. I'm not pushing for a specific completion date. I will wait for some dryer, less humid weather. And based on how late it is in the season, I'll probably wait until next spring to put it on the road officially. This way I can take my time and fix all of the small issues that pop up....

As for the painting area, my garage is attached to the side of my house, but I have a HUGE exhaust fan mounted up near the ceiling that takes care of the fumes. When I painted the last 2 cars there was no issue at all

awesome progress JT. Great job.

Thanks Ed!

[86 50CPRI]

Getting closer! Looking great already..Im sure it will look awesome when you get it done.

[Jeremy86coupe]

Man looking good so far! I can't wait to see what it looks like after paint!!!

[Motorcity]

Wow, this is a great thread! Good job man! It's coming along nicely. Are you going to lay down a "guide coat", sand and sand again to get that body smooth as glass?

[kj_80Cobra]

The base (chroma base) red 2R color code was $150 per quart

Great work! Paint has gotten very expensive. I visited my local Dupont supplier last weekend too. I bought 1 pint of mixed base paint, 1 quart of clear, basemaker, and hardener. $176.00 just to paint my new fender flares for my truck.

[JTurbo]

Getting closer! Looking great already..Im sure it will look awesome when you get it done.

Thanks!

Man looking good so far! I can't wait to see what it looks like after paint!!!

Thanks, me too. I've had this car almost a year already.....

Wow, this is a great thread! Good job man! It's coming along nicely. Are you going to lay down a "guide coat", sand and sand again to get that body smooth as glass?

Thanks. Yes, once I get the jambs done, I will go over it with a final block sanding with guide coat. Then seal and paint.

Great work! Paint has gotten very expensive. I visited my local Dupont supplier last weekend too. I bought 1 pint of mixed base paint, 1 quart of clear, basemaker, and hardener. $176.00 just to paint my new fender flares for my truck.

Red is crazy expensive. I bought the paint for my 84 Capri RST and the whole enchelada was only ~$500. That one is Gray/Sliver two tone.

[JTurbo]

Not much in progress towards paint, but I did get the driver side floor patched. Here is the front of the floor, top side:


From underneath:


Close up of the patch panels:


And I had cracking near the rocker where the rear seat mounts:


Tomorrow I will give it a quick sanding / primer job and then hit it with some undercoating.

[JTurbo]

Finally mounted the trunk lid. Had to drill the holes for the hinges and then "tweak" the lid a bit for the best fit. It's going to need a little smoothing along one of the edges, but nothing too terrible. I made sure to pull it out of the box at MU before loading it into the trunk. Nothing worse than pulling a new part out of the box and finding damage. Anyway, here are the pics.




This week I'll get this prep'd, primered, and hit the underside with some of the 2R enamel paint when I do the door jambs.

That's all for now - JT

[Gearslammer]

Doing a nice job. I'm in the painting stage of my car also its alot of work.

[magnum517]

Looking AWESOME so far!! Nice progress!!