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Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Front end on, car rolling

Finally, the car rolls.
It's been a while since I have updated, but the car is coming along nicely now. Early on, the work was slow and I stockpiled parts, now the parts have almost all been used and now the goal is to get the car together without dipping into our 3-year-old's college fund.
The car actually is beginning to look like, well, a car again. For several weeks it sat with the front end of the car chopped off, but my Dad was able to weld the frame and cross members back together, and it looks like everything is lined up, which is a miracle in and of itself. Everybody has heard the expression, measure twice and cut once, well, that's not always the case. It was measured, measured, and measured, cut, trimmed, measured, fitted, trimmed, cut and measured again.
In the end, we ended up with a frame where the control arms fit, the steering linkage replaced and everything put in its place. The entire front suspension is new, so hopefully there won't be any problems.
Nothing has been torqued yet, as that won't be done until the engine is installed in the car.
Next up on the list is floor pan and back quarterpanel replacements. The front fenders have been patched and primed, and I must say, they look pretty good.
A couple of weeks ago Christina and I made a trip to Amarillo to get a new driver's side door as the one on the car suffered some extensive rot after being left open to collect pine needles and plenty of other debris for 30 years.
With the door came a couple of front fenders, a hood and 15-inch rims. The car originally came out with 14-inch rims, but we decided to go with the larger size used on the Thunderbird to make a transition to disc brakes in the future much easier.
We will be adding some photos of the car soon. It has traveled around the yard some and is now being housed in a garage Christina and I made for it.