Mav1970's Insane 69.5 Street Project

More progress and a milestone

Finally got something else done on the car last night. My trunk lid is original to my 69.5 and never had a Grabber spoiler installed. Long ago, I drilled the 4 spoiler holes in the outer lip but never finished up those 2 retangular holes in the underneath skin for access to the 2 inner spoiler mounts so I finished them up last night. Then I loaded up the trunk lid, the 5 piece Grabber spoiler set, front bumper filler piece and the cowl top for today's 35 mile ride south on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Palmerton to give them to Dale and Jean Doll to be readied for paint. It will be much easier for Dale to finish up the cowl cover off of the car, including the final sanding of my delete of the grills, washer squirter wells and the large wells that I welded in where the original closed hinges went when the hood was closed. After I get the finished cowl back, I'll glue it back to the car and be done with it.

The trunk lid surface will come back to me in epoxy primer BUT!! the inside will be finished off in ORANGE! A part of the car actually completely finished and painted is a monumental event

I got to watch Dale work his magic to a 41 Lincoln Zepher trunk lid and on the way home I stopped off at Chris Moses house, to see his Sprint progress, but he wasn't home

A LARGE TIME WAS HAD BY ME

 

Looks awesome!! So you'll glue down the cowl cover, once the body work is done? mine was a little flimsy, you're not scare of cracking any body work?

 

Thanks Dave :Handshake

First off Jean and Dale told me to send you a "HI" back - Dale speaks highly of your own body work abilities and, after seeing Dale's work, that is high praise for sure They remembered your green Maverick and also told me you had a brown one so I told them what you were up to with your brown car

I did a little hammer and dolly work on the lip of the cowl cover last night and it lays real nice to the main cowl - wiper shafts center in the holes nice also - I shouldn't have to twist or flex the cover to just glue it down - I wanted to get all of the fitting out of the way before it comes back to me all nice

 

Today's progress

After I got back from talking my parts to be painted, I decided it was time to do something about the rusted through right front rocker. I already had 2 rust free Texas rockers that I bought from Rick Brooks some time ago so I made this the next step of the journey. The hard part was removing just what I needed to remove - these things are built like a spot welded jig saw puzzle. I think I will incorporate the passenger side floor repairs and some repairs to the right front torque box as these are all related in a way. I'll be cutting the rocker a little further back than the photo shows but that will be tomorrow's part of the project

On a side note, when I got the front of the rocker opened up, I ran my shop vac nozzle down the rocker and I couldn't believe how much mouse nest material I removed. Even a deceased Micky came out head first into the vac nozzle. I think I now know where my headliner and carpet padding went.

 

Those rotten mice. The little creatins find thier way into everything. You would not believe all the places I've found mice nest over the years, so finding them in the rockers is no real surprise. Dale recently did a little patch work on a 1964 Galaxy that a friend bought with intentions of doing a quick flip with the car. The car was real nice.... until you opened the doors. The whole car stunk of mouse crap and urine. It was horrible. I had seen this car at car shows for years and never knew it was infested with rodents. The nest were everywhere they could sneak into and there was no way to remove them all without tearing the whole interior apart. Couldn't get rid of the smell either. Our friend did not want to invest any time into cleaning out the car, but he did sell it. He took a heck of a loss on the sale due to the rodents and thier little 'gifts'. Did you find any nest inside the cowl when you cut it apart? They seem to like to get inside the ' hats ' and into the air vents.

 

The cowl was packed tight with nest, Jean. The driver's side vent was completely full. Inside of the front and back frame rails seemed to be their favorite place to store their acorns. I thought I was done cleaning out these critter's nests but I sure was wrong. Now the back foot or so of the driver's rocker is also on the list for metal replacement so what are the chances of finding them in that side rocker too

 

There's a product (can't remember the name) you can buy at pet stores that neutralize the smell. I used it on a back seat I bought and it worked well.

 

Well that's nice of them, I don't really look at myself as a bodyman, but it pays to have friends that are.. But I appreciate that.

 

They are very nice people

 

The product that socalcomet is referring to is called "Natures Solution". It's an enzyme solution that eats away at the urine and feces to get rid of the odor causing stuff. There are probably other products that do the same thing but you want one with enzymes to get rid if the odor for good.

 

I was exhibiting next to these people at the conference I attended in Arizona last month. It’s geared mostly towards hotels but they developed a technology for cars.
Got to love the name!
http://ugotstink.com/

 

The only thing I found that gets rid of the rodent aroma was an ozone generator. It worked great on my 72 four door. It had been infested with mice. Luckily they didn't eat anything, just party hard and never cleaned up after themselves. I didn't want to rip that perfect interior out to find them all so I rented and industrial ozone generator and let it run in the car for a few days. Did the trick.

 

Back to progress

This past week I was able to get a nice coat of POR 15 on some of the interior of the right front rocker while it was opened up for replacement - So today I spent a lot of time on the rust free Texas replacement rocker piece that I bought from Rick Brooks - cut-fit-cut-fit-cut-fit and then cut and fit some more - I finally got the replacement rocker piece to fit like a glove so I'll get it tacked in place tomorrow and move on

 

Wow that part cleaned up real nice. Good work.

Rick

 

Thanks Rick, I guess I just know where to get good used parts from


Now you know why I told you to simply cut the 2 complete rockers in half, and ship them that way, to save on oversized rates.

There was one small dent that shows up in the third phoro as a spot about the size of a half dollar - it just tapped out and is straight again.