First test drive

Over the past few evenings, I have been able to remove the seats, door panels, seat belts, and other misc. items from the interior. Today, the rain finally let up for a few hours. I rolled it out and finished cleaning out the inside. The windows wouldn't hardly move up or down, the clutch pedal creaked and groaned, and the shifter was very rigid. Fortunately, a bit of wd40 freed it all up and saved me the trouble of further disassembly.

I took it out today just to shift it through the gears and listen for problems. Everything seemed great.

At this point, I need to decide where to go next. I would like to get everything working if I can do it without spending money but I know that eventually, I have to strip the car down to a bare shell for media blasting.

The plan for now is to make sure the car is safe to drive so that I can drive it to a body shop and have the frame checked. This car was once involved in a significant front end accident and whoever repaired it did a lousy job. This was know from the onset and the seller threw in extra sheetmetal for the project. Although the seller thought the frame might be bent, I am not so sure about that. Once I know the details of the frame, I can remove the fenders, inner fender walls, radiator support, and start working on the cowl which has some minor damage.

Once all the front end sheetmetal is good, I will strip the body down to a shell and have it media blasted next.