27 replies to this topic

[Giants Fan]

The beer can actually made a really nice curve for me to put media over. I epoxied it into place and then put a lot of fiberglass and bondo over that. Been working my way down to the form I need, but it's complicated. There was nothing there, once I removed all the rust. I had rust holes in my rear quarter panels too, and a big dent where one tail light is ... it's almost all fixed now. The trunk, I used a lot of bondo to patch rust holes, prolly $50 in spray paint before I just went ahead and Herculined it. But somewhere buried in all that is a 2011 penny. Next time someone finds that, it'll tell them when the last restoration was done.

Been a lot of sanding .... a lot of forming, but I am learning. I'm gonna be able to get it really close, before I take it to get finished and painted. Looking at keeping that cost under a grand.

Looking at recent prices on eBay ... I should be able to get $12k+ for it, when it's finished.

It WAS a rustbucket.

[Giants Fan]

Car looks way worse right now than when I bought it

But ... new top, repaired the top frame, made the power top work, welded in new rear floors, put in new carpet. If you look close in the pic I posted above, you can see that krinkle behind the tail light. That QP right now is 8 different colors of Bondo or Dolphin glaze, or primer. I had to take a torch to that QP and burn out the old Bondo. I've got over a hundred hours in that quarterpanel. Invested over $5000 in restoring the car ... yeah, again .... looks worse than that pic. Once I spend another $1000 on it, it will look pretty much the same. Just .... fixed.

Of course installing the new top and the 428 Cobra Jet was most of my restoration cost, but those motors are not cheap.

[Giants Fan]

If you look at the front fender chrome ... most 65's have 4 prongs. This car has 5. Why? Because it came with the optional chrome guards that ran down the length of the car. Of course, those chrome "shopping cart guards" are impossible to find these days ... but I'm on the lookout for that part. I found the chrome that goes around the gas cap cover. Still need the one part of the rocker moulding you can see is missing in the first pic, have better, OEM Park Lane badges ..... but badges? We don't need no stinking badges. Well, besides the 428 "Screaming Eagle" badges I'm going to put on it after it's painted. But it won't say "Mercury", or "Park Lane", anywhere on the outside of it.

Car might have also came with rear "skirts" .... but they are pretty rare and expensive to buy these days. I like the way it looks without them, anyway. Want to put Cragar SS rims on it. 15's in the back, 14's in the front.

I'm seriously proud of myself. I've never done this kind of fiberglass/bondo work. Not on this level. I've created structure, where it was all rusted away.

Yeah .... it'll only last 10-15 years ... depending on what climate the car lives in. If it stays in Arizona, it wont have any future rust problems. The frame is solid.

[SUXBNME]

You have a car?

[Giants Fan]

That friggin quarterpanel though .... and the area around that rear tail lamp ... I'm not sure I'll ever get it perfect. Gonna hafta pass it off to an expert here soon. But I'm not an idiot ... I can mix Bondo and apply it, and sand it. I can't afford to pay someone $10 an hour to do it better than me ... so I do it. I have an air sander and a paint gun, I'm gonna shoot about half the car in primer in a couple days here. This car was way, way, way more work than I anticipated, once I got into it .... but without replacing the rear quarterpanels ... this was the only way to get it done.

I almost got a 65 Monterey parts car for $750 ... 4 door, but I coulda still cut the rear quarters off .... woulda been easier to weld new ones on. Prolly also had an original Mercury 390, and I could prolly sell my 428 and make some buckses ... without really lowering the value of the car.

That's always an option. Lotta people want a 1968 428 Cobra Jet motor. Someone could come along and offer me a lot of money for that motor, and if I had an original 65 Mercury 390 ... might make a lot of sense to sell it.

[Giants Fan]

You have a car?

I sold my Jeep for $6200. Not bad considering I paid $4500 for it. I pretty much bought and sold parts, traded up ... pretty much broke even on cost. Jeep Wrangler parts are easy to sell in Arizona, if you find them cheap enough. I once got a pair of TJ half doors (real, metal, factory doors with vin plates) for $75. Sold them real quick for $250. Prolly stolen.

Took some of that money .... fixed up this car. Spent the rest carousing and gambling .... and now ... I gotta finish it .... with no money.

[SUXBNME]

Alas, in a current bored befuddled with politics, you bring a shining beacon of hope with your inane ramblings.
For that, I salute you

[Giants Fan]

You ever see one of those shows where they "mud the car down" or "skim coat it" with like a greenish color bondo? That's Dolphin glaze. Stuff is awesome. It dries harder than Bondo and it sands smoother. My uncle gave me some, apparently it's for "Professional use only" ... prolly gonna kill me because I been breathing in the dust .... but that QP is smooth.

[Giants Fan]

Alas, in a current bored befuddled with politics, you bring a shining beacon of hope with your inane ramblings.
For that, I salute you

It's not inane to me. It's everything I own.

[gocolts]

It's not inane to me. It's everything I own.

Maybe he meant insane.

[Giants Fan]

If you look at that original pic, you can see where the old Bondo was failing. So, I had to get all that old filler out, before I put new filler in. Someone had used aluminum foil over the rusty areas, and then body filler over that, and then just more bad resto work over more bad resto work ... took a year just to demo it and get the new motor in there and the rear floors welded in.

It'll never be a "rust free" car ... but without welding in new metal .... I fixed it like it should be fixed.

[SUXBNME]

It's not inane to me. It's everything I own.

It's all good. I give you sh1t because it's fun. Kinda the same way how some of the tards give me sh1t here.
Bottom line is that without GFIAFP, the geek club wouldn't be the same.

[Giants Fan]

There wasn't much more I could do to my 95 Jeep Wrangler 4 cyl to make it worth any more. Drove the shiat outta that Jeep. Drove it from Tucson to Seattle. only adding gas and oil. I was thrilled to get $6200 for it.

But this car ... I could work on it forever. This car .... could be a $20,000 car ... if I spent another $10,000 on the restoration.

[Giants Fan]

It's all good. I give you sh1t because it's fun. Kinda the same way how some of the tards give me sh1t here.
Bottom line is that without GFIAFP, the geek club wouldn't be the same.

Fock off. Seriously.

[Giants Fan]

Fock off. Seriously.

You prolly gotta be a silverback to get that is like .... the ultimate geek club compliment.

[gocolts]

You better keep this thing off the road. It would suck to put all this time and effort into this car only to get creamed by some d-bag texting and driving or drunk driving. You can be the best driver in the world, but it wont matter if the other driver is a complete idiot not even paying any attention to what they are doing.

[Giants Fan]

It's a 2 door convertible, but it has seat belts and it's a "full sized car". Have you ever driven like a 65 Cadillac? 65 Lincoln? Same thing. If you get into an accident in this car ... big, heavy, all steel car .... you are prolly gonna cause more damage than you take.

AND .... it's fast. Big car .... but I can get it outta the way real fast too.

Have you ever driven a car with a 60's American big block engine? There's nothing else like it. I've driven Porsche's and Ferrari's ... if it's a race in a straight line .... I'll take a muscle car every time.

[Giants Fan]

And it's funny you should say that. In college I bought a 1966 Galaxie 500 convertible with some student loans. Factory 289. AT on the tree, red on red. As it was, today I'd say it would be $10k easy. Galaxie and Fairlane guys back then used to be a little jealous of the LTD and Mercury crowd. I know I wanted a car with more options before my Galaxie got destroyed by a freight train.

That's right ... totally uninsured and luckily they didn't site me for lack of insurance ... but it was a total loss. I got $50 for the car at the wrecking yard. Car got caught on some railroad tracks and a train came. Just had it painted like 3 months earlier ... but not insured yet. Wasn't supposed to get stuck on railroad tracks that night.

Shiat happens.

And ... I'm already paranoid about something similar happening again.

[Giants Fan]

I remember I had $1500 and needed a car. I wanted a Jeep ... but found that old Galaxie. Needed some simple adjustments and ran great. It still needed new canvas on the top, but I had put new top cylinders in it. That was a helluva job, and the new cylinders cost like $300 too.

And if I had a Jeep .... if I had a 4X4 .... I wouldn't have gotten stuck. Was pretty hard to find a decent Jeep in 1991 for $1500.

[Giants Fan]

And before you call BS ... I have told this same story here before. A friend of mine was there and saw the train hit my car. It's not BS.

I had 3 grand in that Galaxie .... but it was a rust free, Arizona car. I ended up selling the trim I had not put on the car, and the paperwork .... title and such ... on ebay for over $500.

But there is one less 66 Galaxie 500 convertible in the world, because of me. Hit right on the passenger door, made the car almost shaped like a horse-shoe. No way you could repair it.

[Giants Fan]

I've restored a couple Jeeps and resold them, It's not hard to remove the seats in a Wrangler and Herculine, or Rhino Line the tub interior. Makes it a lot easier to clean if you are off road, than if you have carpet. These Jeeps also had rust problems, rusted through on some parts of the body and I just kinda slathered Bondo over the bubbling rust spots.

This time, I've .... for the most part ... I've removed all the rust, and rebuilt parts that are not structural with fiberglass.

So, you build it up, sand it down, clean it, build it up ... sand it down clean it .... build it up ... file it down, clean it, build it up ... sand it. Sand it again.

Lotta sanding.

[Giants Fan]

The Bud Light can was an epiphany. I needed a curved surface, and cut open a beer can. Drunk Uncle was there ... drinking Bud Light in cans and I cut one open, and put it in place .... and it fit really well. It's not gonna rust. Matter of fact, the rest of the car would rust around it before it would rust. I joked with Drunk Uncle, "Someday, that's all they'll find ... a Bud Light can with some fiberglass stuck to it,"

Prolly had to be there, but it was pretty funny at the time.

[Giants Fan]

[Giants Fan]

Drunk Uncle loves fire.

But my point is that I was actually able to, almost, do this .... after lots of hours and lots of $. I made car .... where there was no car. That drivers QP ... pretty damn close to unfixable. I fixed it.

[IGotWorms]

Who posted in: I have invented car, where there was no car
Member name Posts
Giants Fan 19
SUXBNME 3
gocolts 2

[Giants Fan]

20!



SNL stole my idea

[Giants Fan]

Just decided to light a big fire in the back yard. Pile of twigs was looking kinda snakey. It's that time of year. Next time ... I'll get the snake on video. I'm ready this time. Prefer though .... not to almost step on a diamondback rattlesnake like 2 years ago.

Talk about adrenaline, When I realized there was a 4 foot, coiled rattlesnake 6 inches from my bare ankle (I always wear flip flops), I lept in the air .... and I don't remember if it was a 180 or a 360 ... but I remember being up in the air looking at the snake below me ... and like half a second later, I was 15 feet away.

I think, what I did was I looked over my right shoulder, and saw the snake next to my ankle, hissing, and right away my right foot, without thinking was moving in the opposite drection, and I found myself, in mid-air, after doing a 180 ... mind quickly confirms it's a rattlesnake, a big one and it's pissed off ... and I spun in mid air, another 180 ... touched ground, and then lept again, off one leg ... I was trying my best to fly. And somehow ... split second ,,, I was like 15 feet away.

Closer than I ever wanted to be to a live, wild, big ass rattlesnake. We had, I think the same snake removed by local FD the next year .... but the law is, they can only move it a mile away. So .... we need to make steps to keep snakes away. Like burning up big piles of sticks.

[Giants Fan]

Same coloration .... about a year later. 5 foot plus, pale diamondback. As thick as your arm ... same grey/brown color as Arizona dirt. Good thing was, it was LOUD. Let's you know it's there and not to mess with it. There is some concern that the loud ones, that are all bark and no bite (they know they can't eat humans and don't want to waste venom on you) are being killed more often ... but that's what you want ... that snake that informs you not to step on it. Man it was mean ... one fireman couldn't do it .... but the chief got in there with the snake grabber ... and put it in the box ... snake never struck. Seemed really angry .... never struck.

I thought people were exagerating with stories of 6 foot rattlesnakes, but they exist.