All,
The date is fast approaching when my beloved car will be pulled off of the
road and will be begining its adventure called restoration. It will take a
while and will cost an arm and a leg, but when he comes out the other end he
will be a lean, mean, and absolutely gorgeous car. But for right now he is a
bondo-laden somewhat rusty workhorse in need of some TLC.
I know that many of you have been in the same boat as I and I need plenty of
guidance and advice. I have already purchased plastic bags and labels so I
may keep track of the BOZILLION nuts,bolts, and other parts that go into one
of these cars. I am going to (with the help of some SoCalROC buds) do the
dismantling myself. All the way down to the frame, I am sure I will find
many unpleasant surprises, but since I had the car up on the lift at CDM
last weekend (getting my slave cylinder replaced) I was able to do a pretty
good inspection of the body undercarriage and my initial reaction was "it
could be a LOT worse".
On thing though, I have noticed that many people have documented their
restorations with pictures- most showing before and then after. I plan to do
that as well, but I am also going to document the entire process. From the
time I pull the car into Roman Rist's driveway (thanks Roman) until the time
I pull the car out of CDM to take it home with me. You may get sick of it,
but I am going to document this for posterity as well as for the general
info of the list. Folks, this is really my only hobby right now. Every
procedure will be covered and I hope that the info may be useful to someone
who will face the same challenges that I am sure I will face.
On a side note. There has been a lot of talk about fiberglass fenders on the
list. Dennis at CDM posted that they have all that they need in place to do
some molds for roadster fenders. Keep in mind that roadster fenders are A
LOT more complicated than say 510 fenders. Also keep in mind that whatever
CDM decides to charge for these fenders, it will not be anywhere near as
expensive as finding a straight,rust-free fender. I have offered my two
front fenders to CDM to use as molds. They are straight and I believe to be
rust and bondo free. I won't know for sure until I get the body and fenders
media blasted, but we will see. Les's reaction to this was "we'll see". He
needs to look at the business side of things first and I don't blame him. It
wouldn't do him much good to build these fenders and have no one buy them. I
told him I would buy them.
So I have about 45 days left to enjoy my car. He will get driven a lot.
After that, I will have to go to SoCalROC runs in my girlfriend's 70 2000. I
will keep pics and info coming and you will all get to share in the
rejuvenation of the best sports car ever made.
Andrew Murphy
SoCalROC (Soon to be NOROC)
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