Steve has been working on some of the interior details. He removed the carpet and cleaned the floors. We found our first ‘real rust’ however it was surface rust in the two foot well areas: an indicator that cowl area of the car had done some leaking to the inside of the car. The car had been stored in the same spot of the original owners drive in shed for over 30 years. The roof had been leaking onto the hood area of the car which did a lot of damage to the general condition of the paint on the hood and cowl. However, I do not think this was the source of this rust as the car was not at all mouldy and musty smelling which would be expected on vehicle parked in a garage in California with the windows up. I am assuming the leaking that caused this would have likely happened while the car was still on the road back in the early 80’s. Anyway, the rust was surface type, there were 2 small pinholes we found but the surrounding metal is still solid. Steve cleaned up those rusty areas well with a wire brush then sprayed a couple coats of rust encapsulator to halt that process. We did actually find a hole that was a ‘factory error’. As most of you know, all the bodies were initially built for automatic transmissions. If a 4 speed manual shift was ordered, the assembly line guys cut a section of the transmission hump using shears. I am assuming they had a template they traced around then sheered out the section making every 4 spd hump slightly different based on the accuracy of the shear operator. The 4-speed hump, which is slightly bigger than the cut was then welded into place and a sealant putty spread on the inside to smooth it out then underneath an undercoating was sprayed in the overall tranny tunnel area. Anyway, we found an irregular hole at what I would call the right rear corner of the hump and the putty may have initially filled that hole but it certainly did not show signs of ‘having a chunk missing’ – but there was not putty and there was a hole! Steve filled the area and added Dynamat to the entire car floor which will make the car a nicer beast to drive.
