We sandblasted the shell the week between Christmas and New Years – that’s how far behind I am on posts! Take a look at how she looks now:
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- Here she is – a little worse for the wear, but as naked as they get! Both side cowl panels had suffered the dreaded “snapped check strap” in the door hinge. Make sure yours are NEW – you don’t know they’re wearing out until AFTER there is a kink in your cowl!
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- For all of the rust in the lower portions, the firewall is surprisingly solid!
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- And so is the inside of the cowl – NO rust in the heater ducts – unbelievable!
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- Both “X-panels” are being replaced, but we will upgrade this side to the 4.2 style to accept the mounting of the servo unit. This car will be a driver, and so I strongly suggested the 4.2 braking system, and the customer agreed. Your best bet on an E-Type is to go to Series 2 brakes all around – there are lighter and fancier options out there, but for a street car, the 4.2 servo setup and Series 2 calipers are the best bet – as long as you have a set of Series 2 uprights and steering arms to bolt them to, that is!
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- The rust was bad in the lower portions of the LH tunnel panels – so bad in the trans and driveshaft tunnel that we didn’t even bother blasting it – it has to come out.
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- Neither the owner nor I can figure out why the mounting area for the parcel tray backboard have been smashed like this – both sides are the same – weird…
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- The underside of the roof panel was surface rusted, so we GENTLY blasted it and will give it a good coating of red oxide.
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- OH PLEASE NO – it’s the LEAD SLED all over again!!! That’s what I thought when the paint started coming off this fender – it was where we started blasting. Luckily, the lead was limited to this one patch.
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- At first, I thought this might be the factory throwing some lead in a dent they made during assembly – I have seen that, but never this large. But the slobbed lead under the bumper tells me it was an early crash repair done in the 60’s… There was also a tell-tale hole punched into the inner wheel well where a pry-bar was inserted to work the dent out so that the gas tank didn’t have to be removed. This dent is relatively shallow, and we have decided to leave it undisturbed. That is usually the best bet with a leaded repair that does have solid metal behind it.
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- Here are those same dents on the other side…
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- We get every square inch of it as clean as possible.
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- We used a combination of chemical strippers and light sandblasting to ensure the roof was stripped safely without damage.
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- Completely stripped and ready for new metal! Coupes are always more of a pain in the rotisserie – the roof is constantlt blocking what you want to work on, and it’s a constant worry that it will get dented during the work!
