1973 Surprise

[madmas]

I should have spent a bit more time searching out a car for restoration or at least because a bit worried during the entire sale process. Well lets just say that hindsight is always 20/20 and sometimes we just need to break some eggs before we make scrambled eggs. My mechanic and I found my project car on eBay (mistake 1) and contacted the buyer. The price seemed very fair considering what 02's go for up here in the Northeast. We were told it had a rebuilt engine by BMW and the usual Weber 32/36, Stahl Header, Ansa exhaust, etc. All receipts were going to be provided when we bought the thing. We called his mechanic who was supposedly bleeding the brakes and clutch and he told us that the car was in good shape except for the rear shock towers and rocker panels. The guy selling the car sent us a mess of pics all of which confirmed this. He told us that the car was 90% restored. The seller was willing to trailer the car from NJ to CT for a small fee to my mechanics place. Due to a comedy of errors this never went exactly as planned. The car arrived very late on a Saturday. There was rust...and a sticky gas pedal...and not much of the electric ran to well. We had receipts for everything back to the early 80s (second owner) but found out that the rebuilt engine actually had only 20k miles on it but had sat for about 8 years. The day after getting the car back to my home I went to investigate the sticky gas pedal and found the carpet was wet. The rest is rusty history. Will get pics up as I move the project along

[madmas]

Flash Forward - here it is after sandblasting and epoxy primer on a rotisserie. Ready for lots of welding. Lots of welding.

[madmas]

Driver side rear shock tower

[madmas]

Passenger floor pan...no water gets through there does it?

[madmas]

Think someone forgot to prep the floor before the POR-15?

[madmas]

Water poured through holes in pedal box and where firewall was welded to the floor!

[madmas]

First major repair - the driver side subframe mount - engine bay side

[323IJOE]

where about in CT are you? both of our restorations are alot alike, I bought it with a rebuilt engine that sat since the mid 90's and a ton of rust too lol. most of it should be easy fixes though. not much rot except for the floors and towers. rest is all surface.

[madmas]

Lots of work but end result seems worth it!

[rickman]

wow i commend you for saving this poor car cant wait to see more as you get further along nice work on the rail

[madmas]

The firewall in my car had a really nasty patch welded in at some point in the past. The slug that did it left a double layer of metal and never cut away the old metal. Rust developed between the two which were never sealed. After speaking with Andrew at Ireland Engineering I decided to go with Wilwood front brakes and a Wilwood set of pedals so...time to do some cutting and welding because I no longer need a pedal box!

[madmas]

Ok time to up date the build. Rocker panels done. Actually built them a bit better then when they left the factory. I replaced the bottom of the inner part of the panel with 2" x 1/8" steel running fully from the from of the car to the back. Similar to the way the targa rocker panels were build. There was a noticeable change in the stiffness of the tub on the rotisserie. If anyone wants more details email me. I was negligent in getting pics. Below are pics of where the rear seat belts bolt to the floor and the rear frame rails are. Welded a nice piece of 16ga steel in place and rewelded the rails. Should be super strong and rust cancer free!

[madmas]

Replaced the passenger floor pan last weekend and this was actually a bit harder than expected in the fitting department. While the new panel from Walloth looked great fitting new floor pan to 40 year old car was a challenge. This required the use on many hammers or different sorts as well as a mess of sheet metal screws.