Tackling the innards - Part 2

Once your floor and trunk (inner gardens) have been rust treated (weeded) we are ready to introduce our best defense against rust (pests). The beauty of what you are about to see is not, contrary to popular belief, the sweet, rich, black bedliner material that we sprayed. It is the fact that you will probably be good to go with this setup for another 44 years. That will make me 79 and so I sincerely hope that computers will progress at the rate that they have been so we don't have to do so much typing just to get a blog post done. Perhaps we will be able just to think our thoughts and BAM! your post will be written out, photogs uploaded, and spell checked in an instantaneous instant. Yeah, would be FAST!

The bummer about this spray-on bedliner is that you can't spray your own innards to keep them rust free for years to come. But alas, that is a whole other blog subject for a later date.

Ok, back to the task at hand. Thinned out spray-on bedliner was applied to the entire floor and trunk. This liner helps prevent water penetration, it seals the bare metal floor from the elements, and it will provide a layer of sound resistance between you and the road. Benefits abound!

But come back to watch me take this beast to a whole 'nuther level. I am a post away of showing you what real sound deadening is all about. Hang in there, we are almost to those sweet seats, carpet, and of course, the first ride down the open road!

And now on to the pics!

Let's tackle the innards now

Ok, we have the outside of the dish pretty clean and tight, now we aim our sights for the inside. If you've been following this project you will recall how much time and energy was spent getting the outside to shine. Well, the inside is even more difficult than the outside. See, the outside can always be washed and waxed and made to look like new fairly easy. But the inside is a more complex task. You can't just go in and treat the rust and holes without doing some major work. Just think about the seats and the carpet and the console; all have to be removed to access the inside. So your work here is more precise and takes patience and meticulous attention to detail to be done right. Take your time and cultivate this garden, your rewards will be great compared to the work you put in.

After replacing the small floorpan behind the passenger seat it is sealed with seam sealer. Every rusty looking spot is brushed with rust-sealer and the whole floorpan is prepped for spray-on bedliner. The trunk had underlayment that was glued to the metal so armed with a razor blades and a can of adhesive remover the trunk was prepped for the bedliner treatment.

Take a gander at the photogs and see that the floor is prepped and ready to be sprayed. Come back to see the rest of the interior come into shape. Slowly but surely we will get it done!

Cleaning up the dish

This restoration journey has been awesome for me to repeat to you. Although this was started in November 2008 and finished just after the New Year, I feel like there are some emotions I didn't fully experience being in the middle of the mix. Now that it's over (a restoration project is never over, by the way) and my stress level has come down, it has been a real treat telling you my story.

About the title of this post: There was a very wise dude who said, "you clean the outside of the dish but on the inside it's full of leftover food, and mold, and dirt." Ok that's not verbatum but you get the idea. Imagine if I took the StangBeast and just cleaned it up on the outside but left the inside all rusty and dirty? That would not be cool... at all. I mean what would be the point of that? To show everyone a nice outside paint job? Hmmm.

So here we go, a few final pics of the outside of the dish before we get to that moldy part I was talking about.

In between layers of color

I mentioned in an earlier post that there were two coats of color and four coats of clear but I failed to mention all that over a coat of primer and another coat of primer-sealer. In between each coat of paint/primer/sealer there is a significant amount of work to be done.



Sanding, wet sanding, and sanding, wet sanding over and over and over and over. By the end of this segment you should be feeling like Daniel Laruso did in that movie when he washed and waxed those sweet antique cars.

So this is what your car looks like in between coats of color. What? You were expecting it to be all shiny and glossy, perfect and ready for the show circuit huh? Not yet my friends, there is plenty of work yet to be done to get the color nice and deep and glossy. Your hard work will pay off though as you will see in posts to come. So come back again, become a follower so you'll know exactly when a new post is published. Until then, be safe and be good.

Let's put some color on that Beast

Finally 6 weeks have passed and we are ready to add some color the Stang. I wanted my StangBeast to be painted with an intense yet classy color. I mean, you can color a Lambo Lime Green or Jungle Banana Yellow, but that ain't happening with a Stang. I didn't want a color from the original color chart because they just didn't do anything for my eyes. So I ordered a Dupont Hot Hues color chart to expand my color visual vocabulary, if you will. I knew Black, Blue, and Red, but a color named Sinful Cinnamon? That's what I'm talking about!

At one point, I decided on Blazing Copper with double Gun Metal! stripes running from the front bumper to the rear. Eventually the color and stripes were dropped as were the flames, but I knew that I definitely wanted a copperish-pomagranateish-reddish-metalish-brightish blow your socks off color. So the search continuted.

Until I came across Copperhead Metallic. The color was custom created by Stacey David and Ron Payton of PPG Paint for the 1967 Chevy C10, shortbed, fleetside truck named Copperhead.

So I sprayed the color on a swatch and walked around with it to see how it would look in the shade and in the sun and under the clouds and in the garage. It had a chokehold on me no other colors so I simply said, "Let's Roll!"

Now feast your eyes on the color, let me know your thoughts. After 2 coats of color and 4 coats of clear we will be ready to install that sweet new carpet, those sweet seats, and full interior package. Be sure to come back!

Blocking and Sanding and Straightening, Oh My!

The journey to get the body straight has begun and there will be several days and many pieces of sanding paper to go through before we start to see some progress. The photos here are fast-forwarded in time compared to the actual time that it took to go through the various phases of blocking. So feast your eyes on these and be sure to come back... we are getting near the first coat of paint! Woo Hoo!

The Best Color Ever

I think primer gray is the best color in the world. Something about the 'finished, yet work in progress' look does a little something for me. I guess because you can see all the fine details. There is no hiding anything from primer gray. It is transparent and holds no secrets.

So if I were to color my soul, I would choose primer gray: See all my imperfections, see the places where I need work, see the places where I am solid, unwavering. I'd choose not to hide behind some flashy color that blinds people from seeing the real me. Or some mega dark color that hides all the dark places. Nah, it would have to be primer gray for me. Real, straight up, work in progress.







But I digress, so let's continue on with this restoration project shall we? You can see the sweet orange color is just about gone. Now for blocking, smoothing , and sanding to get every inch of sheetmetal straight and smooth. So stock up on some elbow grease and get ready for the real work.

The Refiner's Fire is Unrelenting

Here we are in another stage of the restoration progress. I hope that you are enjoying this journey as much as I am. If you are new here, just scroll down to the beginning of this particular thread so you can catch up with the rest of the clan.

The details never end for the Stang. My goal is to get every nook and cranny smoothed, fixed, straight, rustproof. I want the sheetmetal to be as clean as possible before she gets an ounce of color. Check out the pics, the new floor pan behind the passenger seat is in. The holes are filled and sanded. The triangular piece that was hacked off has been replaced with new metal. You can't even see a scar!

Smoothing out the rough edges

This journey of StangBeast restoration is a lot like getting ready for that special prom date or class pictures or your wedding day. You take extra time in the shower scrubbing and rinsing, washing and cleaning. In front of the mirror you move inches from your reflection to get all those bumps and valleys and hairs into their right place. So it is for the Stang.

Removing the chrome trim pieces left holes in the sheetmetal that needed to be filled in. 40+ years left waves and dents and rust; all needed extra special attention. I didn't especially like the F-O-R-D in the hood so those letters were popped out. On the driver's side just behind the front wheel I found some rust that was not treatable. So armed with a saw-saw and nerves of steel, a triangular piece was cut out. Fear not though, a new piece of metal was welded in place and smoothed out, you can't even tell the piece was even cut!

The rocker panel moldings were removed as well as the brackets that hold them on. I really wanted a smooth, straight, tight Mustang for the finished product. The Mustang's body lines are so straight and the car is so small, I didn't want there to be any distracting scoop moldings or antenna poking through the fender. Simple, elegant, classy. Oh Yeah!











Looking over these pics sends a chill up and down my spine! But it's a good chill. I hope you are enjoying this journey as much as I am, write a comment and let me know! Until next time...