The doors are off.

June 4th, 2005

Removed the doors today and stripped them of their bits’n’pieces. I had read that it is quite difficult to take the doors off due to their weight, but found that a well placed trolley jack and block of wood made it a breeze.

Once I had both doors off, I stripped them of their components. The only thing to remain on the doors are the window regulators. I didn’t see any need to take them off as they are not in the way of painting or and repair work that needs to be done. The doors were pretty complete with only one weather rubber (from the bottom of the driver door) and one striker (from passenger door) missing.

Now that the doors have nothing on them, I’ll be able to finish stripping the paint.

Bad, but not a total loss.

May 14th, 2005

Spent the day stripping the passenger door back to metal to get a better feel for the problem at hand. It looks like the rust isn’t as bad as what it could have been. With all of the paint off, we now think that we should be able to repair all of the holes. It will not be easy, but we think it can be achieved. We thought that the tailgate was a right off and Dad was able to bring that up really good, so fingers crossed we can do the same for the door.

The stripping is nearly done. I have to take the doors apart so that I can completely finish them off. Once the doors are done, there will only bee the front guards, air intake grill and apron to go. Oh, cannot forget around the windshield and quarter lights (small rear windows), but they will have to wait until the glass has been removed.

… and reveals something nasty.

April 25th, 2005

Spent the day finishing off stripping the body today. Worked on the final stage, being the sills. Thankfully, only a minor rust hole was found that I didn’t know about previously. So we are now all clear for getting started on the body work and patching all of the issues that we have found.

I did a little stripping on the passenger door as well, just to see where we stand, and I did not like what I found. It had to happen sooner or later I suppose. There is a fair amount of rust on the door and it looks like I’ll have to get a replacement. If I cannot find a replacement, we’ll have to try and re-skin it, but we’ve never done that before, so it might get interesting.

… and continues …

April 17th, 2005

Well, did more work on getting that paint off. Glad to say that the rear of the car is more or less done. The only paint that needs to be stripped is that around the lights and where the rubber seals are for the tailgate. All that is left to strip on the body are the sills. The front quarters still need to be stripped, as do the doors. I started on the front driver door and have already found a few holes, hopefully the last.

I also started to remove the fittings from inside the car. I’ve removed all of the carpet, the seats and the center console. We found that one of the brackets for the driver side seat is caved in and will need repairing.

The stripping continues …

April 9th, 2005

Spent the day stripping the rear quarters. The driver side is all done now and the passenger side is almost completed. I found a few dents in the wheel arch on the passenger side, but no rust holes … yet.

I also started to get the inside of the car clutter free. I took out the majority of the carpets, the spare wheel, the center console and the seats. It will be easier to work on the sills now that we can jump in and out of the car more easily. I found some interesting wiring to a rocker switch on the center console, definitely not original looking to me.