Ok, I bought my 65 last August. I knew the turn signal housings were bad in the front so I go to replace them. Whoops, turn signals are crap too. Guess we'll buy some new ones. As long as I am in there that front valance needs attention so I remove it, straighten a couple of dents, sand it clean and repaint. But then I notice the upper stone guard has some rust. OK, take that off and give it the same treatment the valance got. Gotta take the bumper off first though. Hmmm, that could use a little work too. A little rust inside it. And those bumper mount tubes lookalittle rusty. We'll just take those off tooand clean em up. Well, look at that...there wasa littlerust under there where they bolted up. Probably ought to pull off the big mounting brackets between the bumper mount tubes and the rails to check that. Yep, the bracketsneed a little work. Oh hey, my rails look good...but look at the rust where the bracket was. Where did I put my grinder? So to replace a couple of turn signal housings I now have removed the valance, turn signals, upper stone guard, bumper, and bumper mounting system and am working on the rails. My wife thinks I'm a lunatic. Is there a place to stop before I get to the back bumper?!?!?!?!?

This is the part I wanted to install. The second picture is where it took me...so far.

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This is exactly why I'm ripping our 67 down.. every bolt, screw, clip, spring, wire, tape, etc is coming off/out of the car and then sanded down to the bare metal. Now.. during therebuild I'll have every single part of the car in my hand and if it needs replacing it gets replaced. When I finish the project later this year anything that didn't work on the car will have a new replacement part in its place.

Will I be done?? Hell no! There will always be something you want to do to it.

Its a 40 year old car you have there in your garage. If you dont do a 100% restoration at once then be prepared for something breaking down every now and then. After 40 years everything on your car "needs a little work" and most likely at least a few need a lot of work.

But hey! Isn't that why you own a 40 year old car.. Its not just a means of transportation but a complete hobby!

 

Never, it never stops. Thats why people go postal, the mail just keeps coming and coming.

You'll have to finally stop yourself and say "No, I WONT take that peice off!" or your car will eventually look like mine....[8D]

 

Sounds similar to what i did when i put my new valance on. Had to take out the lights, take off the valance, try to put new valance on, take off bumper, and then put valance on. Well i forgot the bumper so i had to put that on with the new valance still on the car.

It is very time consuming. Good luck though.

 

Just venting I guess, with a little humor. I don't have the skills or or the space or the time for a total rebuild and this car is actually in decent shape. I plan to fix what I can, preserve what I can from further deterioration, and drive it when I can. I'll keep it in good shape for someone after me to rebuild if they want. But I do know this...anything I do fix or have fixed will be fixed right. I guess that's kind of why I didn't just put the turn signal housings on and be done with it. On the other hand, I really can't remember when I've had more fun. This is the car of my youth (I was 14 when it was introduced) and it's a car I can work on, not like my 05 Mustang.

 

Yeah thats me.We dont have the space either, so i take my moms parking spot in the garage to work on it. We got my mustang for my first car and for me to mess with.

 

There is always a stopping point, it's just hard to find sometimes.

 

Your just going to have to bite your lip at some point and convince yourself that it is good enough,,,,, for now...

 

It doesn't stop. This is what happened when I just wanted to clean up the trunk... ended up stripping the whole car, having it sandblasted, tons of body work and eventually paint. now putting back together.

This is after sandlbasting...

 

This is where you decide how much you love your car, It really never stops, but hey it gives a great way to kill some time, or a way to kill some time...