Futzing. That’s the best way to describe my activity at the shop tonight. Little things, a bunch of little things is what I got done tonight. Here’s a rundown.

• Removed all of the wire clips on the firewall
• Removed all of the studs that attached the fire wall insulation inside
• Used my grinder and wire wheel to remove the sealant that was around the fresh air vents/hood hinge mounts
• Wire wheeled most of the frame in front of the fire wall, including the engine mount cross member
• Removed the driver side quarter window and window mechanism
• Cleaned out the inside of the car (tools, misc parts, stuff)

Last week I was able to remove the door handles and lock mechanisms. What a pain in the ass that was. I’d like to have a talk with the Ford engineer that came up with that idea. One won’t move without the other and the other can’t be removed without taking out the first one. One top of that you have to be triple jointed to reach inside the door from the top while simultaneously reaching in from the bottom. Yeah, real fun. It took me over 2 hours just to do that.

I also removed the driver side vent window, but the passenger side will require a bolt to be drilled out in order to remove that one. The car is almost glass free now. I’ll remove the passenger quarter window tomorrow and maybe try to get the passenger vent window out. All that will be left after that is the windshield and rear window. I’ll bring in professional help for those, as replacements run around $500 a piece.

This weekend I blasted 3/4 of the front suspensions components. My dad helped me quite a bit by scraping off the sixty year old grime, grease and grit so the sandblaster could remove the rest. The stuff is straight nasty. Whoever worked on this car went overboard with the grease gun. As much as pain in the ass as it is to remove, I’m grateful at the same time because that caked on grease saved those parts from rusting. After blasting they are super clean. The surface (after blasting) is simply amazing! The wind picked up in the afternoon so we didn’t quite finish everything, but it shouldn’t take long to wrap it up.

Here’s a picture run down of all this. Enjoy!

My dad snagged this shot of me blasting the suspension parts. We made this little box out of PVC and plastic sheeting. It caught about 100 of the 110 pounds of the garnet blast media and worked great until the wind picked up in the afternoon.