72 TA : New Project

[njsteve]

The body shop is starting the plasma cutting of the rusty sections of the trunk floor. He is trying to remove as little as possible since the rusty part is only in the "pit" section of the trunk floor. Since no one makes replacement gas tank braces for second gen F-bodies, he has to cut around them as well and then remove the rusty trunk floor manually from the long braces.

[njsteve]

After some more trimming. The gas tank braces look very nice for their age.

[njsteve]

More progress: the trunk pan being fitted and welded up:

[njsteve]

No more "Lite Brite" quarter panel...

[njsteve]

After soaking for over 2 weeks in the purple stuff, all the paint finally came off of the spoiler end caps and the fender vents. There was some thick paint on there for sure.

I was also able to trim the black spoiler end cap to the correct length by placing a piece of masking tape along each leading edge of the white end cap and marking where the taper ended. I then removed the pieces of tape and placed them on the black end cap along the same leading edges. I then marked the locations. I then verified that the cut angles were the same as on the white end cap (65 and 80 degrees) through the use of my 7th grader and her protractor. I then used a fine bladed hand saw to remove the excess and voila, a correct 1970-73 end cap.

Before:



And after:

[njsteve]

At the body shop, they started trimming the replacement section for the front of the driver's quarter.





And welding up the 27 dent puller holes in the passenger quarter:

[njsteve]

They cut out the shoved in section of the rear valance and hammered it back into shape in order to then weld it back in place. He said after metal working the panel, it's now 1/2 wider and 3/8 longer! Love that original red-oxide primer inside!