Yesterday, Jim and I drove up to Cumming, Ga to pay the dudes at BRP Muscle Rods a visit. While Jeff and Nick were patiently working out how to jam a LSx engine into a car 45 years its senior in a repeatable fashion, Jim subjected the Rider to a detailed body panel inspection. This consisted primarily of banging on things with a pocket knife and occasionally scraping off paint or digging out ancient body panel filler when appropriate. I don’t have any pictures of this process because I didn’t want to disturb the inspector.
…and because I didn’t really think about it. I do have some pics of the car up on their lift, which is really almost as exciting.
At any rate, the sheet metal appears to be in pretty fair shape for its age. There was at least one collision at some point in the late Permian era, and most of the body issues seem to be associated with that event and its subsequent repair. Problem areas include, but are not limited to:
- Cowl tops
- Trunk floor
- Passenger side floor pans (front and rear)
- A couple of spots on both passenger doors where panel filler has soaked up moisture
- The right side rocker panels which are solid, but display a distinct lack of straightness
We’ll know more once everything is down to bare metal, but at least things look relatively positive at this point.
We should be on schedule to get the car back some time next week. After that, I’ll need to take out the interior and then it’s off to body and paint.
Whew – this is getting real, folks.
