Latest Journal Posts

10 SEP 18 This was much easier than expected. We just disconnected the drive shaft and brake lines, put a jack under the pumpkin, and then removed the nuts and bolts holding the leaf springs in place...easy. Once everything was disconnected we lowered the jack and rolled it out. - Jax

18 JUL 18 I'll be the first to admit that this sounds crazy, but dad and I wanted to be able to get under the car and clean it without having to jack it up on 4 points. There are a lot of other methods of doing this, but at the time we were a little cash strapped and this sounded like a fun project. Dad and I built the ramp system in the garage and then stored Tracy on it for a few days before swapping it out to the drive. I was the one who raised his hand first to pull it up on the ramp. Mom and dad helped me keep it straight. Once we got it out in the driveway, I spent a few hours...

02 AUG 18 There's a point at which you take a car so for apart that it starts to not look like a car anymore. At this point we had the wiring harness, doors, fenders, windshield, hood and engine/transmission out and only the brakes, wheel, suspension and steering were installed. Seemed like a good point to take some pictures. - Jax

21 JUL 18 A question remained in my mind while we were pulling Tracy apart. "How are we going to move the body around once we fully disassemble it?" I had an easy solution, we'd pick it up. That's fine except I knew that we would have to roll it over to get to the bottom for cleaning. This is when I remembered my early comments regarding how far we would take this rebuild. "We will not take the car completely apart. At most we'll get a quick Maco paint job when we're done." I didn't stick to that obviously. But, then dad came to the rescue with a home built rotisserie...

02 OCT 18 It would be a mistake to not catalog the limited welding we did on Tracy. Dad and I are not welders, and neither of us know how to weld. But for a day, we tried and melted some metal. We only welded 2 spots. First we welded the jacking hole on the passenger side over with a square piece of metal. This was a pretty good mess. When you can't really weld and the metal you're working with is at best sub par, the results (and process) are sketchy. However, I work under the principle of "I can do just about anything", and welding seemed to fit into "just about". In the end, it...

21 OCT 18 Dad let me handle these two projects from the fiberglass point. He was busy fretting over the chin and I had done enough of the fiberglassing to get the hang of it. The fender was a real mess and getting the hood and fender to align proved challenging. This is the curviest area of the fender, and when aligning everything with the hood you just have to take your time. See the photos: 1. Fender fiberglass rebuild - notice all the holes from the previous body work. 2. Hood fiberglass/bondo rebuild - this was bent, the edge was broken and dented. 3. Fender bondo work -...

10 OCT 18 One of the best angles on a Sprite is from the lower front. When looking at this angle you get the front fender, wheel, the hood and the lines down the side. In that shot of the fender though, you also get the lower rounded portion...the portion that naturally gathers water and dirt...and the dirt holds that water instead of letting it go down the drain hole...and then rusts. For people who don't get low enough for this view, it no problem because the bumper covers it. When you delete the bumper, however, it's obvious. This was a fun body work job because it's a curved area...

10 OCT 18 Now for some real body work. In her previous life Tracy had been in a few accidents, and these has taken a toll on her front end. Here we addressed what we call the "chin" and deleting the bumper mounting points. When the front bumper was installed a lot of the damage we found was hidden quite well. It was under the bumper and under some paint and poorly applied bondo from a previous repair. As we dove into this it was evident quite early that we were in over our heads. I remember clearly coming home from school too see Dad in the garage fretting over the sanding, lines...

10 OCT 18 Something that Dad and I wanted to do from the start of the body work is clean up Tracy's lines, and the reflectors and license plate light had to go. These were fairly easy pieces of body work, but I wanted to highlight something for those that may wonder how to do this without welding. Since the reflectors and the light are attached with holes too big to fill with bondo, we chose to use fiberglass on the backside of the holes. You'll notice in may of our other body work posts that we used a good bit of fiberglass. Dad had used this in the past with Papa on boat repair...

21 OCT 18 The top of the driver side fender was an interesting project. There were, as in other locations, many layers of paint and bondo. Dad and I learned a lot about patience, bondo, sanding, and fitting the curves. Car fenders are one of the most beautiful pieces of a car and very visible. While working through this we learned to stop, step back and look at your work from many directions and distances. Above all, know 2 things: 1. This is the base for the paint and it needs to be good. 2. Paint will make it look even better (check out our final photos when available). -...

21 OCT 18 The passenger side fender's major repair was on the front. In one of the accidents that Tracy endured there was probably a fence post that creased the fender and hood. The fender took the brunt of the damage. We used a similar repair as we did to the lower portion of the passenger side fender. The only difference was that there was no need to used the fiberglass on the inside. The difficulty of the project was getting all of the curves right. The interactions of the headlight, turn signal, hood, and Tracy's "mouth" made it take some time. It turned out quite well...

21 OCT 18 The driver side fender was is fairly rough shape. There were 3 parts to the repairs, but the major one was on the lower portion under the light. The damage was very clear once the paint and rust was scrubbed away. Years of water sitting in the spot and dirt filling the drain hole created the perfect recipe for creating holes. To fix this, we decided to use a fiberglass repair method. We started on the inside of the fender by placing a single sheet of fiberglass in. We also lathered it up enough to fill the holes with epoxy. Once the inner fiberglass was set we sanded...

21 NOV 18 Under the red paint that Tracy wore there were plenty of scars, dents and holes. In fact, we didn't realize the degree of the issues until we started to strip back the layers of paint. Our first body work project was the passenger side sill. When we purchased Tracy we realized that she had a checkered past. Looking around her at our first meeting, we noticed that our magnet did not stick at many points. The passenger sill was one of those. Looking under the sill there were several large gashes that were used as access to push the metal back into place. As we pulled back...

06 JAN 19 Vince sent some pictures of the body and we painted some parts as well. To paint all the parts left behind at home, my father and I built a paint shop in our garage. We took an open corner and erected plastic sheeting on all 4 sides that was pinned to the floor. We then put a small fan in the window and sealed around it so it could remove the fumes. Due to the cold and to keep things dry we added a heater and strong lights. It was cramped, but the painting went fairly well and quickly. - Jax

07JAN19 Messy day today. We took some time to clean up the transmission and engine in preparation for painting. Nothing special, but an important step none-the-less. - Jax