If you weld up a crooked car, then there is no hope of straightening it out again without removing everything you've fixed and starting over again. Body shops have large equipment to bend the car back in to shape if it has sagged due to rust. This was further complicated when I took a new job which required me to work long hours.Ģ) Getting the car straight. The two major pitfalls I encountered were -ġ) Because I am a novice, it was taking me a very long time and progress was slow. If yours is rusted out on both sides, particularly if this is a less valuable hardtop, then you may be better off finding a more solid car before you spend a lot of money on body work and paint.īefore I turned this over to a professional, I tried to fix it myself. He is rebuilding the beam piece by piece, layer by layer, with parts from a donor car. However, since the driver's side was good, he agreed to do the work. This structural damage on the passenger side was -almost- enough for him to reject the whole project. The rot started where the front fender attaches and extended all the way back to the rear wheel opening. When I started the body restoration project I cut off the rocker panel and discovered much of the metal was just missing. I suspect this poor repair clogged up the water drain holes because the bottom two inches of the 'beam' that runs below the door on the passenger side completely rusted away.

He didn't have any trouble with any of that -BUT- the car was involved in an accident at some point early in it's life which creased the passenger side rocker panel (just below the door). There are basketball size holes in the front floorboards, and the driver's side inner fender needed repairs. Also the parts that are generally bad on convertibles, the decklid and the package tray are both very good. My car needs quarters, but the inside of the trunk is solid. I have a '66 convertible with a very good body man whose restored some very nice show quality 64-66 T-birds (and also does great body restoration work on other cars).

T bird 64