33_coupe_paint8

What we have here are my hood latch rails. When I finished assembling them way back when, I didn't know what they would look like till they were in place and once they were, I had a couple of things I wanted to change. As you can see, I've put a cap on the front end and also rounded-over the mounting bracket to make it look a little cleaner. The rear of the rails also have been treated to some clean-up as well. I welded the new piece in and then filed and sanded the weld smooth which is now ready for paint.....or chrome.....I can't decide. I thought these might look nice chromed which would contrast with the paint better than if they were painted so I haven't ruled that out. The problem with chrome these days, nobody seems to do plating very well anymore. It seems like the chrome wants to "flake off" without much effort so I'm not sure which way I want to go yet.

The green stuff that you see below is welting, which goes between the body and chassis. It's 2" wide X 20 foot long and has adhesive backing. I cut-out around the roll bar mounts and body mounting holes with scissors and hole punch respectively. This stuff is very easy to work with and trims easily. Now that the welting is in place, I'm ready for the body to be placed on the chassis.

Speaking of the body, here it is over at Bart's getting body work done. He's using an engine hoist that's hooked to a chain which has been placed through the holes that the roll cage goes through to hold it up. This way, Bart can work on the bottom of the car without laying on his back so much. He's also doing some fiberglass work on the underside of the wheel-wells so with this setup, it makes his job a little easier. Notice my wheel dollies holding the front of the body. Bart mounted a 4" X 4" piece of wood to the body and then placed the wood against the dollies which makes it very easy to move around. These things sure are handy!!

This shot gives you a better idea of how the body is being held up by the chain. I plan on using a black undercoating on most of the body, running boards and the underside of the fenders because when rocks are being thrown around by my tires, it won't chip like paint will. If it ever does chip, I can touch it up much easier than if it were the outside color. I do plan on painting the outside color on the flat surface of the rear wheel-wells, which means if you were to look in over the tires, you would see orange. Here you can also see the work being done to the wheel-wells. What Bart is doing is fiberglassing in the underside of the wheel-wells that still needed to be fixed when Wayne from Redneck Street Rods came out to fix my body. The area that was cut out to fix the tubs left a 2" wide gap on the underside of the wheel-wells that need to be filled in. The top side was fixed by Wayne when he was here so that's been finished for some time now. Wayne was nice enough to send me all the needed materials to fix it when the time came because he ran out of fiberglass when he was out here. Bart is also removing some excess material that was hanging down along the flat surface of the wheel wells where it meets the underside of the floor. This will make for a nice clean look when he's done. I'll be posting more on the body and paint as soon as possible.

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