Just like the title says, its my friend nicks 65. doing a full restore on it.
so far 4 days into the project and he has already nicknamed it Project Gold Digger.

day zero.


Day 1: pull motor, trans, and everything from the motor bay, and start stripping paint.



Day 2: remove windshield, door glass, front bumper, fascia and all the fun stuff on the front end, continue stripping paint.



Day 3: remove rear window, start stripping interior and strip more paint.




Day 4: remove doors, fenders, interior, find rust, put all trim and non metal parts in storage, vacuumed and blew off the car too. not bad so far rust wise, driver and passenger floor pan where it meets the fire wall has a spot about 4 inches long by and inch wide, passenger behind where the seat sits has a rust spot as well thats not big but theres a larger area that is rusted and the metal is too thin now.







ill try and get more pictures as it progresses. always forget to . so far between the two of us we have logged about 48 hours on it.

 

Should look super nice!!

 

I love the body style of those cars! Continue to march young men, doin' a hellava job.

"Gold Digger" That's a perfect name for a project like that.

A nice little 408 would look good between the fenders.

 

Thank you, he is thinking of a white and black interior, and either black or that dark hunter green either way he wants the typical two stripes on it, hood back, so i had the idea of with either color, making the stripes just a little lighter, basically having the paint shop mix in a little white into the color so they dont stand out as the first thing you notice but more of a subtle touch to the whole paint job.


Me too, just absolutely gorgeous. its definitely been fun and exhausting so far, each night we have worked till 4am on it and turning around and getting back up at 8 or 10, takes a massive toll on the body ha. She should be well worth it though.
haha, he came up with the name literally about 30 seconds after i was talking to him about what a build like this is going to take, parts and time wise.
I fully agree, its going to start life with a 351W backed with a T5 for now. basically he is wanting to get everything but the interior and building an engine done. since the interior isnt key to having to atleast take the car for a spin but ive been trying to talk him into doing everything at once.


More pictures should be up probably monday night, well really tuesday morning. unless i get some time this weekend to do more work on it.

 

Nick just sent me some pictures he found of the car before we brought it to the shop. so some more day 0 pics. enjoy

 

removed the rear panel to be able to remove the trunk floor.


Nick (the owner) sandblasting away to find spot welds and pre-preping for the new panel.


Thank you Dallas Mustang. quick 45 minute drive and we were proud owners of a new reproduction trunk floor


had some small rust on the wheel well, so cut out the old and weld in some sheetmetal


cut the brand new 400 dollar piece and test fitted.



another shot of the test fit.

we opted to cut the new piece instead of going all the way down to the floorpan for the simple fact of we didnt need to. the damage wasnt any farther than where we made the cut. we did go farther back than where the rust ended just to make sure we got it all.

 

Is he gonna keep the six or swap it to a v8? I see hes got the offenhauser intake and a header on it.

 

He's going to swap a v8. Small block 427. Good eye my friend, the motor and trans will get cleaned up and put on a pallet and plastic wrapped for storage. We are building it to what he wants but hanging onto everything that's original and being removed just incase one day he sells it or sets it back to how it was

 

Damn gentlemen, thats a lot of work for a short period of time! Any thoughts on paint color and interior?

 

Haha yeah it's a bit exhausting honestly but a lot of fun none the less.
As far as paint and interior, exterior will be midnight black with two dark charcoal stripes so they blend in untill you get closer and it's not a slap in the face. Interior I believe is going to be black, dash and the metal on the door panels will be that dark charcoal, bring the outside scheme to the interior.

 

Not a whole lot to update on, got the replacement panel trimmed, put a bead roll on it to lip under the existing floor, drilled holes to fill weld onto the car, replicate the orginal spot welds basically. Kept trimming and tweaking as needed, still more needs to be done but it's very close to fitting properly. Roughly another 1/8 inch to go. Hopefully have that done tomorrow evening.