1972 Gran Torino Sport - 17 year barn nap find

You've come along way and might I say , WELL DONE . It's awsome seeing another 72 saved from the crusher !! Keep us posted.

Spent this Saturday working the door.
I finally got over my hesitation, and did what needed to be done to fix it.

I have about 12 hours give or take on the door.
I cleaned the skin off again, had some minor flash rust; I marked out measurements on the door, and marked out the door skin I removed off a spare door I had.
I spliced in the center of the panel, not my first choice, but considering what I had to work with, I felt this was the best with what I have to work with.




After cutting out the center, I used a heavy duty dolly and hammer to work some damage as best as possible...in hind site, I should of used a wider section of the donar skin, but I fixed it as best I could, and moved on.






The welding took probably about two hours, going slow, but all I know some splatter fell in my shoe, and I was suddenly in a lot of pain with my sock on fire. I got some Tylanol, chugged another mt. dew, and kept spot welding. Dug the splatter out of my skin, #@!* is about all I am going to say.





While I try to go for as little filler as possible, some times it can't be helped.
I need to do some more blocking yet, and clean up the inside of the door skin a bit and put some primer and dampner material in the door.

I am not a bodyman what was wrong with the door in the first place i didnt see anything

Well, this is why I did it:


The door as some point has suffered a decent hit, and had a crease in it top to bottom; I welded up the holes, but after looking inside the door, where those holes were, there was rust on the inside of the skin, and no easy way to clean it up. I debated about the best way to fix the damage...before any welding, I tried some hammering to fix it, but the metal was stretched pretty badly, and I decided to just replace the center of the door skin with good metal off another door.
Lesser of the two evils I suppose.

Well, I finally managed to get the driver's door all prepped and primed tonight. I sort of took a bit of a break from the GTS...but decided to step back into it finally this week. Spent yesterday blocking out the door, and also prepped the jam area on the inside, was pretty much rust free and I was happy, no patches needed.


I also primed the rear roll pan, the door hinges were taken to a body shop of a Family friends, and I used his blast cabinet to clean them up, always a plus when no hinge pins are needed!








The passenger door came off, and primed the spots where the hinges bolted to the door, discovered I need to lay another coat on the bottom side of the door, to hit some spots I missed. Of course, this was after I got done spraying tonight and cleaned my gun.

I cleaned up both door jams and the ends of the cowl finally, and sprayed them, still need to retexture, but that will get done here in the next week or so.









My only thing I messed up on was the fact I neglected to tape off my frame sections by the cowl, and I managed to get a bunch of overspray on the frame. Not the end of the world, but irritating that I neglected to think ahead on something simple.

More to follow. Thanks for looking in.

Made more Progress on Saturday:
I rolled the car out of the garage by hand. I've been doing this for the last few months, and said to heck with it.
I hook the battery up, and took a few laps around my neighborhood:


I managed to get both doors blocked out, and ready for the next layer of primer; I finished sanding them, bolted the hinges on, and put the doors back on the car.







I found by drilling alignment holes in the hinges on the doors and A pillar made my life a hell of a lot easier.
I know some guys don't like the idea of drilling holes, but if you fight to get good door gaps...I set my doors in place, used two 1/8" drill bits to set the location, tightened the bolts, pulled the bits, and I had my door gaps with VERY little fuss.










I think it took longer to get the doors bolted down on the car than to see the alignment was like on the gap and be like WOW.





Now, I need to:
Block sand the front and rear roll pan and header panel.
Reprime the doors, and then I get to start possibly getting ready for the fenders. Color I think is not too far away...

Will post pics a bit later.
Doors have been primed again, and I am really happy with the results.
I have noticed an issue with one of the quarters, not sure yet is it's going to require me fixing one small area.
Getting ready to tackle the NOS fenders-have rust in the pinchweld areas-and got to figure out best method to fix without seperating the skin from the fender brace.
Roll pans are blocked out, along with the header panel.

Working on color, but had to hold off a bit before I can edge {yet again!}

Still lookin good. That car looks better in pieces than most new cars look in the showroom.... :-)

drilling holes in the hinges,why didnt i think of that...
thanks for that idea mate,its going to make my life easier too when my mustang is ready for paint

Spent some time recently out with the car, before I discovered the oil pan has a bit of damage, so I have started work on fixing a few things.
I put the front clip back on the car so I could get it out and drive it a bit before warm weather is done and over:




I blocked out the header panel and primed it {and discovered my HVLP spray gun is getting long in the tooth and due for a full rebuild}








I also started on fixing my damaged oil pan, and widening it with yet another damaged pan off a 400 I had {does anyone see a pattern here? }





I'm taking my time, and constantly measuring to make sure I still keep the correct pan to pickup clearance