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From: Neil Vedder
Email: [email protected]
Remote Name: 209.240.205.61
Date: December 23, 2003
Joey, if your car is drivable (& even if it isn't) IF you can, "get" it to a commercial sandblast facility--I drove my 57 Dodge to a place, & they arranged to have a large forklift be there. My car had an air-cooled trannie, so I covered the cooling-vents/openings, & let them have AT it--clean metal is a joy to behold (sometimes!!) as my car's undercarriage had been saved by its undercoating, no severe cancer was found. What I did , THAT DAY, was "rattle-can" apply ZINC CHROMATE (a pretty yellowish-green color, that the Navy uses, to prevent rust--so you KNOW it'll be good for your car, too), and then, shortly thereafter, that day, applied gloss black paint to the undercarriage, AND THEN, sometime shortly after that-time, applied rattle-can undercoating to the floor pan KEEPING IT OFF OF the frame rails, as the floor pan was undercoated before the "body" was mated to the chassis. I then, later, replaced the exhaust system, but the sandblaster can "get-around" the 'intact' exhaust system. After your sandblasting, you will see the full extent of necessary 'cancer-surgery'--florpans and rocker panels, and even quarter-panels are/may-be available--I had a competant body shop, back in 1981 CUSTOM-FORM, out of sheetmetal (something that I thought "couldn't" be done!) the outer- rocker panels, lower-rear dog-legs, and lower 1/4 panels, AND lower-rear ares of the fenders, after the sandblasting had been done. BUT my advise is: BEGIN with the undercarriage-area, and THEN re-do the engine and driveline/mechanicals. Then the interior (assuming dashboard doesn't need re-finishing) is done lastly, after exterior painting and re-chroming, etc, but undercarriage and body rust are job-one. Neil Vedder