My 1970 Mach 1
Once we picked out a body shop to do our body, they told us we could save a minimum of a thousand dollars
if we stripped the paint ourselves, so we went to work. It took two full gallons of Aircraft stripper,
which is some of the nastiest chemical to play with, some Citris Strip and tons of elbow grease.
It sure wasn't glamorous, but it was sure nice to see all the crappy paint disappear and be replaced
by some pretty nice sheetmetal. Once we got all the paint off and we cleaned andcoated it with PPG Metal Prep.
The worst part of the body was the right rear quarter. Previous damage was roughly knocked out
then slathered with about 1/4" of body filler. This took a lot of effort to strip by my brother Mike.
It was stripped clean, and readied for a correct repair.
The deck lid was stripped off the car, and the remnants of the original rear stripe was carefully measured to insure accurate placement
when reapplied. It locates exactly 1" from the bottom of the deck lid lip, and reaches exactly 3/8" from the edge of either rear quarter extension.
The exterior body is now ready for the body shop. The painter looked over our work and prep and was happy with it.
Deck was rehung for tranport to the body shop.
The floors on this car were virtually perfect...
...front and rear.
However, being paranoid, we decided to further protect the floors by coating them with Eastwood's
Rust Encapsulator system. This paint is amazingly tough, and even withstands walking on.
On December 20, 2005 the car is loaded and sent to Extreme Auto Body in Portland, Maine.