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Day 1 The Beginning This is a 1977 Monza Spyder. It's not bad looking for $500!! The car had 80K miles when I got hold of it. . Close inspection has revealed that the car has never been in an accident, but has suffered quite a few parking lot dings. Overall the body is straight. The blue you see is the car's second paint job. It is adhered well in most areas. I plan to strip only portions of the car for painting. The Original 305 Runs Strong...but will have to go. The lack of A/C as the engine photo reveals means less weight in the front end for better weight transfer when we go racing. Day 1 was spent mainly just tinkering, however, the front end did
wind up coming off. A days work is done. Day 2 and 3 Fixing Rust RUST! Inevitable with a 23 year old car Days 2 and 3 were spent fixing rust around the car. Mainly at the
base of the windshield where I used a grinder and removed all traces of rust
and then filled with a fiberglass filler. The hole in the first photo was
actually very small before I got the die grinder after it! I have removed
all the rusted metal and plan to fiberglass over the hole. This area is invisible
when the fender is installed, but better to stop it now than have it spread
later. The hatch has some pretty bad rust around the driver's side bottom
corner. I decided to replace the hatch rather than fix the rust on it.
Day 4 The Disassembly These photos show the door with all trim pieces removed including all the rubber and felt in the window frame. The stuff was hard and cracked and must be replaced. Some rust was found at the base of the doors also and will have to be tended to later when we get the doors off the car. Disassembling a car goes pretty fast as can be seen here. The interior is 95% stripped with the exception of wiring and gauges. The drivers seat and steering wheel are temporarily in for convenience. The dash pad is removed revealing all the areas that are to be painted metal. The gauges and wiring will be the only pieces left inside the car when we start painting. They will be masked.
Day 5 The Disassembly (Cont.) Removing the aftermarket sunroof and windshield. At first I thought I would get ambitious and go back to solid metal in the roof, but the aftermarket sunroof was in perfect condition, so I decided to keep it. I will paint the sunroof frame the same color as the body to give it a custom look. Getting it out in one piece was a project in itself. The windshield was removed also to lend access to the rusty areas and to allow a better paint job to be performed. I ended up cracking the perfectly good windshield, so I will be having a new one installed after I finish painting.
Page 2: The disassembly continued
More Monza and Vega (H-body) information
For more Monza information visit the H-Body Owner's Association at http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/gmhbody or http://www.inwave.com/~bacchus/HBOA/. Also visit Bob Gumm's Building a V-8 Monza at http://www.v8monza.com .
Email me: Todd Allen |
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