A couple weeks ago a new car followed me home. It used to be my brother in laws and I got it for a pretty good deal. ($600) The car is a little rougher then I thought but the damage is really on the floors and the roof. The quarters doors and fender have some surface rush and a couple pin holes here and there but are suprisingly solid.



Loaded up on the trailer...



Rear end shot...



Its new home in the garage...



A better shot of the rusty roof....

 

I got started tearing it down pretty quickly but also wanted to get inside the trunk since the key is missing.



This is why its not good to leave a car uncovered that has a roof that is rusted through. On top of that it also had carpet pad everywhere on the floor which pulled up the rusted floor with it when I pulled it out.



Drivers side is really bad too. The seatbelts on the tranny tunnel came out with the seat belt anchors attached.



Even the gas tank is rusted through. But somehow, the trunk floor is in pretty good shape.



The suprise I found in the trunk. Too bad there are only two. I may end up getting a couple more and putting them on the car. They have been hiding in the trunk for 10-20 years waiting to go on the car.


There are some additional plusses with the car. It ran around 10 years ago, it is an original 289 3 spd toploader car, the motor turns over freely, and it came with an extra T10 4 speed that I may decide to put in the car.

The plan is to replace the floor pans with full pans on each side and then make any nessesary repairs to the tranny tunnel. I dont want to jack this car up with that much of the floor gone. I cant beleive that would be good for the unibody construction. I may even go ahead and through a set of the daze designed subframe connectors on it while I am at it. (They made a big difference on the feel of the 65!)

Any thoughts on the best way to replace the roof. I can get a used roof but the roof supports may be in good enough shape for me to just use sheetmetal on the roof. Has anyone repaired a roof in this bad of shape? I know they dont make new panels for the coupes.

I'm trying to get a few hours of work on it a week in, but with an 8 month old and a crazy work schedule I will be posting updates rather sparadically.

Parker

 

looks like a candidate for a fastback roof swap since it need to be replaced anyways

 

Hey now there's an idea!

 

I was gonna say, roadster time???

Fastback roof swap would be cool too.

That roof is a mess, as are the floors, but it's all fixable! I look forward to seeing this go through! Best of luck to you!

 

The thing that scares me about the fastback coversion is all the interior parts needed to make it right cost a fortune. I may just buy a used roof for a couple hundred bucks and call it good as a coupe.

I like the idea of a convertable or roadster but dont know what it takes to get it done.

Parker

 

why not do the fastback thing with a bare bones interior and a roll cage like a transam racer?

 

Looks like it had a vinyl roof

 

rmodel

I thought about going that route and may end up building it for vintage racing. I could even run something like this...



I was also thinking I may just flip this car and buy myself a vintage 50 or 60's style traditional hot rod.

 

Your going to have way too much into it to flip and make any money, your better off keeping and fixing it, making a race car out of it, selling it as is to someone else and let them deal with it, or scrap it after you taken parts off of it.

Lynn