Passenger front floor installed, plug welds ground

New seat support in place

Stripping the body of 40 years of paint and filler. All the reason to select the right car. All steel and no rust!

Turning back the clock-removing all of the old coating

1/17/08

Gently stripping the body of old paint

We use a maximum of 80 grit to get off the paint without removing any metal. Another advantage of gently removing the old finish is to "see" where the highs and lows are. This will help when it comes time to do the body work.

Driver side rear 1/4-all metal, no rust and no filler

Passenger side front fender-almost stripped

Driver side front fender down to metal

1/23/08: The nose is stripped

Starting the body work on the nose

The trunk lid-always a vulnerable part on a 544. It usually needs a 'skim coat' of plastic to get the lines back to original

Starting the body work on the roof

Evidence of old style body work: the dents were pulled with a slap hammer and holes were simply filled with bondo

Fender seam on the body before treatment-the rust will be sandblasted before it is finished

Driver side body-to-fender seam-blasting and some welding will be needed to get this area sound again

Trunk lid to body seam-sprung as they usually are due to closing the trunk lid improperly

Passenger side body-to-fender mount area: always vulnerable to rusting, this area will also be processed to eliminate rust

1/29/08

Excellent used fender to replace the badly damaged fender that arrived on the car

Stripping the replacement fender

Fitting the replacement fender-just checking

1/31/08

Driver's door-pretty rough. This had been fixed by old technology, using a rock to straighten the panel and bondo to fill the dents that the rock made

Driver door: damaged area has been removed

2/5/08

2/19/08

Driver side door skim coated and ready for primer

Passenger side rear fender being fitted

Body work on driver side rear quarter

2/26/08 Driver side rear fender getting closer

Rear apron-shows rust perforation after sandblasting

Rear panel being fitted

New rear valence held in place

Sandblast exposes all-the trunk areas of these cars are vulnerable to rust

The trunk's vulnerability is from the lid being closed improperly and bending the hinge. The lid never seals properly after that and water reeks havoc with the trunk floor.

Old rear valance : even on a car from Texas this area of the car is vulnerable

6/03/08: Sandblasting the radiator support

The rust on this Texas car is so minimal that the radiator support has only light surface rust

Nose: metal work done and ready for a tiny amount of filler to get back the "lines"

Nice metal work-no wrinkles

Melvin has nice lines back in these front fenders. Deep gouges from previous heavy handed metal work

ALL metal

Nose, completely blasted

Nose (again)

A little, light coat of filler to get the beautiful line back in the nose

Another front fender is all metal

Working the metal on the front fenders