Engine Bay Patch Up

When my new engine bay arrived from California, I noticed that the saws-all bit a little bit deeper into the vertical panel that sits over the back of the engine. I decided to fix this before the sheet metal gets blasted.

All clamped up and ready to weld
All the welding is done and I have 1/2 of it ground down
welding and grinding complete
I also had a stiffener panel made this week to replace one that I totally hacked up. It cost me $30 to have it fabbed up. Much better than buying one new. I don't have the fancy indentions in this one, but I don't think they are really that useful anyway.

Blasted Right Rear Wheel Well

I managed to get a bit of work done this weekend. I blasted the right rear wheel well. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. There is a fair amount of patching to be done, but nothing outragous. Does anyone know what the 2 studs on the left of the indention are for? It looks like a flange for an exhaust, but I know it's not for that. On the other side it's slightly different.

I also received my engine bay today. I'll be blasting that soon and giving it a coat of sealer. I probably won't install it until I get the rocker sections taken care of.

Blasting Hood

I blasted the rest of the engine cover this weekend. It took about 2 hours to blast and about 100 lbs of media. I wound up reusing some of the media toward the end and it worked o.k. I have been told that slag only works once. It seemed to be just fine the second time around. I figured out that when the pressure drops at the pot, the blasting efficiency goes south pretty quickly. I spent quite a bit of time waiting for my 5hp 60gal blackmax to "catch up."

Bottom of hood blasted

Body side of hood blasted

Hood in DP90

More Blasting

I started blasting the rear hood this evening. It's about 95F during the day, so I waited until the sun went down. I blasted for about 30 minutes and I was able to get about 3/4 of the inside of the hood done. I'll get the outside skin cleaned up tomorrow. It should go much faster since it doesn't have all the detail of the inside. I should be able to get it sealed in DP90 as well. I'll post some pics after blasting and after painting.

Sheet Metal Bought

I purchased a rear clip from someone in CA. They are going to butcher it for me and send out the engine bay and hopefully the wheel wells. I bought a repro center engine bay and it's nice, but the lines are not crisp like the ones from the factory. I think of the engine bay as kind of a jewelry box for the engine. Hopefully this purchase will put my T1 engine on 'display' under the rear decklid!!!

A little sandblasting and it should clean up nicely.

Color Concept ???

Concept "artwork"
Photo of a '57 with the green I am thinking about using

I butchered up someone's photo of a 74 vert so I could consider options for color and finish. I am smoothing the front grills and stripping the trim from the lower door area. I am also planning on kicking the plastic on the top of the doors so they will look more vintage. The dash pad may or may not stay, but I'll be smoothing out all the holes in the face. I am not replacing the lower dash pad.

The green is supposed to be from a 50's era ghia (see second photo). I'll have to look up the color, but I have seen a few pics online of 50's cars that have this color.

Interior will be white or ivory with trim accents to match the paint. I am planning on a light colored top. I love Foose's use of two tone on his cars, so there might be ivory paint on the interior instead of carrying the green all the way through. I think that might be a nice touch.

I'll have other sketches later on down the line.