Day of Days.........

Actually, it was two days.
Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 29-30, was a landmark weekend in the restoration of the car.
Endless sanding occupied two full days for Benjamin. When the morning began Saturday, the car looked bad, with the remains of seven coats of paint and primer layered in different stages.
At the end of the day Sunday, all of the layers of paint were gone and a new coat of self-etching primer had been applied to the body.
Benjamin and his dad made great efforts in this project, while Uncle Dan once again provided little to no measurable assistance.
Through all of this effort we now know more about the condition of the overall body in terms of rust, bondo and other imperfections. This will give our body shop man a chance to cut and weld and hammer to form a body for this car that will be solid and straight.

This picture shows the car after priming. This primer is only a protective coat to help prevent rust. After the body shop repair the car will eventually make its way to the painter where the final efforts of primer and paint will take place.

We have used many, many tools to get to this point, but none more symbolic than the Binks Model 69 paint gun. This gun belonged to Benjamin's late grandfather, James "Moon" Smith, and father and Dan and Ben. Moon and Coot Smith were the owners of Smith Brothers Body Works, and during the '50's, '60's and '70's, offered stellar body shop services in Troy.
While Papa could not be here for this project, there is no question he is here in spirit and is constantly thought of as he would be so proud of Benjamin of his project car.

In between football games, more car work

Autumn Saturday's in Alabama are reserved for college football, thus, we have not turned many wrenches on the Mustang in a long time, but this morning was excellent.

This morning Benjamin pulled the heater box from under the glove box/dash, ripped and cut out the ratty overhead headliner, removed the brake fluid reservoir from the engine compartment, removed the break line assembly from the engine compartment, removed an old battery tray, removed the interior automatic transmission shifter and assembly, removed all heater hoses and cables from under the dash, removed the cigarette lighter from the dash, and rode with Uncle Dan to Zaxby's to get some most excellent chicken, although the drive-through attendant was obviously texting or not familiar with the English language or possibly both as placing the order was more of something off of Jeopardy......"Alex, I will try 'What is Chicken Finger Meal?' for $500 please"....."

With the stripped down 'Stang resting in the garage, there is now time for Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening college football.

This Monday we will try to remove some paint and get to the bare metal. That is the plan. Benjamin is to be commended for his interest, enthusiasm and love for this car at the age of 13, and it is certain he will be proud of it when it is ready and he has his license.