Body Work Commences

It's time to (finally) dig into the body work! And this car provides plenty of items to address in this category, but to get things going, all of the stainless panels must come off; this will allow sufficient access to the fiberglass underbody to clean, fill/smooth, and paint it. The the panels will be cleaned/grained/repaired/replaced as needed and re-attached. I'm going to start with the right side, simply because those are the two panels that are damaged.

Removing the quarter panels is easy, it's the inevitable rusty hardware that perpetuate the misery. The rocker panel screws are the prime culprits, because they are completely exposed to the elements. I scored a solid 50% on the right side, meaning half were drilled-out and popped-off... that means more suffering later, but for now, problem solved!

Wow, that looks nasty.

Short-term storage. This panel will have to be either repaired or replaced; there is a large dent and scrape in the fender flare (mostly hidden in this photo).