The picture above says it all, this car was a mess and has taught me a very big lesson about inspecting a car in much greater detail OR the other option is to really start with a project and not a finished car. The air chisel made the work really easy, at least getting the large sections out of the way. However, there were still tons of spot welds that had to be removed in order to get the remaining parts out of the way. After reviewing the work on the quarter panels there were gallons of filler used to help make them straight I'm sure.
Above was the first test fit of the new parts, at this point things were moving along quite well. I had to weld in braces to help support the rear tail panel and inner structure and ensure they would stay relatively close when I removed the quarter panel.
This shows the braces and the reality of what was left of the car after removing the quarter panel. Once the quarter panels are replaced the trunk floor and rear tail panel will be as well. Not much left that remained from the original car.
Finally some progress and things were looking much better. However, this was the first of 15-20 test fits that were yet to come in order to get the panel aligned well enough. This was the last work completed in 2009 and the project was essentially put on hold until 2010.
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Now fast forward to May of 2010 and this is where the passenger quarter panel is at. I did the final fit and alignment and then used the cleko's to hold the rest of the car together. You can see here the bracing is still in place to help old the car together.
Now the entire car is sitting on the rotisserie for the first time. I was really happy to see how easy the entire car moved around and how easy it was to rotate the car. This is when I figured out that I was not going to be able to rotate the car 90 degrees without modifications to the height.
Next step is the drivers quarter panel...
