[J_Pro205]

Hot damn! I looove the Cortex stuff, especially the front spindles. I started out liking this build, now I love it.

Right? They were an early contender on my list, and after talking with them for so long I decided I'm only building this car once, or at least that's my plan! Thank you! I'm glad you enjoy it!

 

[J_Pro205]

Metal Fabrication/Replacement:

With the inner structure and front suspension work pretty much done, I moved on to addressing some more rust areas, particularly on the driver side. I started with the A pillar on the driver side as there was a section in the window channel that was pretty rotten.

This also started the work needed for another modification I had planned that others don’t always agree with; trimming the drip rails. A few bits of thought went into this decision, rot, personal preference, and planned use were the main ones though. To remove, I had read online to do it in small section as to not let the roof pop, so I marked the drip rail in 2 inch segments and worked that way.

With the driver side drip rail removed, I focused my attention on the roof and inner structure in the driver side sail panel. The damage here was not as obvious as the passenger side, but both the roof and the inner structure had some significant rust and very thinned metal due to rust. The rear of the drip rail roof shape was rotten as well, so I marked a section of the roof to be removed as I did the passenger side.

 

[J_Pro205]

Metal Fabrication/Replacement:

I used poster board again to make a template and move it to metal. I skipped some pictures, and definitely didn’t make a pretty panel, but the new metal was installed and ready for clean up and POR15.

With the inner structure repaired, I moved to the roof patch panel. Once again, used some poster board and transferred to metal. I bent this panel up the same way I did the other side, using some pipe, locking pliers, my knee, and hands.

 

[J_Pro205]

Metal Fabrication/Replacement:

After tacking in this patch, I moved to the passenger side to remove the drip rail in the same fashion as the driver side. This time, I didn’t take any pictures of the process, just the roughly ground down end result.

All of this had to be done before moving to what I was originally trying to do, and that was POR15 the inner structure where all of the bars would run since it would be next to impossible to get to those areas once the tubes were welded in.

Fitting that post #100 brings us up to date! Next steps are to paint the back side of the inner structure with some sort of paint before re-installing all the bars and full welding, just need to determine what to coat with and how. A friend who does some good paint and body work recommended using some PPE Cre x21 epoxy, so that might be my next step. Updates may come with some longer breaks now, especially as I figured out our new schedule with our new born, but hoping to get out in the garage on a regular basis still to keep knocking things out.

 

[J_Pro205]

I like the look of the deleted drip rails. It is the first thing you see when you walk up to the side of the car, and on my '66, they look like they are rusty but covered up with paint (and they probably are). The chances of most of us needing those when driving are very slim. Yes, we might get caught out in the rain, but probably try to not do so.

I was surprised with how much rust I found behind the drip rails (not sure why I'm surprised by rust on the car anymore....), so I'm sure many others have the same cancer in that area. Yea anymore I'd imagine most of the classics rolling around are fair weather cars. I'm sure I'll be out when it's raining, but I think I'll be ok removing them.

I was showing my Wife this thread as I bought a 69 Mach 1 a few months ago and showed her how nice your car was in the photos and then I showed her the pile of scrap metal on your garage floor and she instantly asked if you had ever reached out to the person you bought the car from and show him any pictures of the carnage? I said, "That's a great question"

You know, I had thought about it, but part of me doesn't want to know if he knew the extent of the rust when selling it to me. He was a classic car dealer and had restored cars, so my guess is he knew at least a little more was hiding underneath, but I don't know to what extent. The way I look at it now is I bought it knowing it would be a project, so I'm ok with that. I think once the car is back on the ground, I'll send him some pictures to show how far it has come, but I want to be "done" with the metal work before then.

 

[J_Pro205]

In the same boat. We bought a pair of 70 Mach 1 out of New Jersey that we thought we could combine to make 1 car. Come to find out, most everything on both cars was rotted. We saved very little. We knew we would find stuff, just thought it would be less than what it was.

It's amazing how well it can hide! Was your plan to make 1 out of the 2? What were you able to save? If it's anything like mine I'd guess a few portions of the roof and maybe some of the inner structure, but not a single full panel haha.

 

[J_Pro205]

We saved the rear seat support from 1 car as well as the roof crossmembers and the firewall. We have other original parts. Deck lid hinges, door shells, valence, headlight buckets and quarter extensions. As far as the unibody goes, not much other than the cross members and firewall. And the VIN numbers. Both clean titles.

Who did you buy from? Just curious.

Wow, so yea that sounds about right! I am fortunate that I think a lot of the auxiliary parts are ok, kind of like what you've found on yours.

Off hand, I can't remember his name. I know he had a small, classic car dealership and had been working in that business for quite a long time. He bought it from someone in NJ though not long before I bought from him, and I don't know the history before that.

 

[J_Pro205]

Cervini’s is where I got mine, but I wouldn’t call him a dealer. He did have a dealers license.

I gotcha, yea that name doesn't sound familiar, but who knows, maybe my 69 got pulled out of the same swamp as your 70's!

Didn’t realize you had your build documented here. Awesome work.

Yep! I started it here and went much more in depth than on TMO for the overall timeline. I still want to go more in depth on certain topics there, but I liked using this platform for the in depth reviews of work done and upcoming.

 

[J_Pro205]

If it is a surface that may still have some rust go por15.
if you know it’s clean. Preferably media blasted then go for the cre.
and welcome yourself to a whole new world of inflation when you start buying coatings.

Thankfully the DOM tubing is nice and clean and rust free, so I'll try and get my hands on some of the Cre this week. Everything I can reach inside the car's structure has gotten POR15. Oh yay, can't wait.... lol You don't have a huge stock pile of materials I can bum off of back in the shop???