MIDGIE'S WEB SITE

 

Midgie was a pretty solid car compared to other examples I'd seen over the last year. Rockers were solid, floor pans and trunk area seemed to be as well. Still she needed some dents, and small rust area on the battery tray repaired. I wanted a better than new paint job so I opted for the base coat/clear coat method.

08/01/2003 Prepping for bodywork- The pictures on the main page are pretty much as she was when I brought her home. I spent a couple of weeks pulling some more items off like the brake system lines, master cylinder and wiring harness. She was put on a trailer and sent to T&J Customs for her makeover.

08/04/2003 First Bill-Took the 35mm camera and shot a few pictures. Some of the car was sanded down around the front. At this point it still looked like a solid car.

09/03/2003 Progress-At this stage the front end had been sanded back down to bare metal, and the doors, hood, and trunk lid were taken off to make the job easier. Scraping the old soundproofing material at this stage off the trans tunnel and floorboards. Not the most fun part of the job.

09-17-2003 Body Looking Good-Car sanded down to bare metal. Floorboards have been scraped and look solid. No rust found so far. Battery tray rust hole has been repaired, as well as the rear trunk valence support rewelded and the enlarged seat mount hole repaired. At this stage your looking at three coats of primer. At this date the car has been sanded down with 300 grit sandpaper. Next task will be sanding down with 600 grit paper. Then she'll be ready to go into the paint booth. Should see some color appearing in the next update.

09-23-2003 Here's the first look at color on the car. This was quite a challenge to get it to the right color. The first picture turned out better to show the true color. The others are lighter. Next time the hood, trunk and doors will be painted. You're looking at about 6 coats of base, and an additional 3-4 coats of clear.

10/20/2003 Home Again! Here she is sitting in the driveway at last. There's still a lot of work to do at this point, but she looks a lot better than when she left.