As I mentioned, I don’t have a good setup for doing bodywork or painting, which tends to create lots of dust and fumes. And I also don’t have the funds to drop the car off at a reputable shop and pick it up a month or two later all smooth and shiny. So, I put on a Tyvek “bunny suit” and went to work smoothing the areas with the most obvious problems.
Some parts of the car were in really bad shape, such as the inner edge surfaces of the doors, and the exterior surface of the footbox area which is visible when the front nose section is opened up. (I actually painted this surface with Eastwood chassis satin-black to match the frame.)
It helps to keep in mind that prior to prepping the body for a fresh prime job, I had recently got the car to road-legal status. It passed the required safety inspection, was assigned a VIN number and plates at the local DMV office, and I was anxious to start putting some debug miles on the car to see what might need a little more attention. Partly for that reason, I planned to only apply light-gray primer on the body for now. The freshly primed car looks much better than the patina, camo look it had before, but it still has too many subtle waves and alignment issues to be considered “ready for paint”. Those remaining problem areas will need to be dealt with before this car gets a real paint job.
Next: Adding an oil cooler
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