LeeH

iTrader: (2)

For mostly sentimental reasons, I decided to do a full restore of my 89 Formula, so 2 years ago, I stripped the car - engine, trans, interior, wiring - everything!, and took it to a couple of friends of mine who own/run a body shop. They mostly buy totaled cars at auctions and rebuild them, but the quality of their work is awesome, so I talked them in to taking on my car as a project. I told them to take their time (though I didn't think it would take 2 years!)
It had a lot of problems - I had welded the original Spohn box subframe connectors in there back in 2000, and the floor had rotted through in several places due to water laying between the subframe and floor pan. They had to fix those, plus two other spots in the rear wheel wells (I need pictures of the fixes), as well as other problems. T-Top seals had rusted out, doors were banged up and had to be reskinned, etc.
It was a filler job - they would work on it when they were slow, and they were never slow! But, yesterday Kurt called me and said to start bring parts over - marker lights, tail lights, etc - they were ready to start putting the body back together! It has a long way to go, but I am starting to get excited about my baby again!

Finally primed it last month after extensive work - there is almost no bondo on the whole car - Kurt prefers to bang out the metal and use spot putty:


I asked them to paint the engine bay as well:



Sides look good too:




I polished up the tail lights and Pontiac plastic. THe left tail light has a charck in it and I need a replacement:


The spoiler (fiberglass replacement) went on last night, but I didn't take pictures of it yet. Unfortunately, I lost a lot of parts after Hurricane Irene last September, so I have to hunt down a lot of replacement stuff. Interior parts mostly.
I figure it will take me most of a year to finish this job properly - good thing I have patience!