Things are slowly starting to come together

Since I first bought this, it has been one continual project of destruction, and seemingly de-beautifying the car. In the midst of working on it most days during the week, the mess seems to get worse and the car becomes less and less in one piece. With some relief I think I have finally reached the threshold where things can start going back on and this project can start to take the shape as I envisioned. I'll formally kick it off today. With the priming completed yesterday, I painted the inner fender skirts with rubberized undercarriage paint...it should give it good protection against rust, the elements, and debris kicked up while driving, such as rocks and dust.

Most of the suspension parts also got their coats of paint, featuring Bill Hirsch Semi Gloss Chassis Black. I could not separate the spindles from the lower ball joints, so I brought them to Arnold Motor Supply machine shop to see if they had any luck. It was a bit of a trick for them too, but they finally got them separated. A dunk in the hot tank and those parts are now ready for the sandblaster. As soon as the suspension gets back on, it's immediately off to a trip to the welder.

In other developments, the fenders have already found their way into the body shop (it's looking like Mike Louis is going to be my guy) to get sandblasted on the insides. While they're there he's also going to do a chemical paint strip to see what lies beneath...

This will be a suspens(ion)ful entry!

In the time since my last posting I have been occupied with a never ending stream of sanding and grinding and surface prep. I now have all the exterior seams on the inner fenders and cowl sealed up with a combination of 3M caulk and/or brushable seam sealer (which isn't so 'brushable' in my opinion.) After sealing surfaces were primed with a rust converter primer that chemically reacts with rust and oxidation. Even though I could not visibly see any rust, it turns black when it reacts, and you can see every it reacted with the oxidized metal. This should give me some protection for the next coats.

In the exhibit below, you'll see my fancy paintbooth and some of the exterior parts I have began priming.

Between yesterday and today I completely removed the entire front suspension (pictured below). The pile of parts (also pictured below) will be hot tanked and sandblasted so they can be recoated with shiny new paint and fitted with new bushings. Removal involved numerous skinned hand parts, but when your hands are caked in ridiculous amounts of grease, the grease plugs up all the cuts so they don't bleed! As a microbiologist, these are the times when I turn a blind eye to these things.