Thanks. I knew the car needed some work when I bought it but that went down hill quickly. The original plan was just to fix the floor, rockers and a basic tune up and drive it this summer. Then the spark plug broke and I found out how utterly f'ed the car was and now I'm into a driveway based partial restoration. A lot of the fun for me is in the troubleshooting, designing new parts and then making them. I am the product of a childhood full of Legos.
I have no plans to sell it and if I could not do the work myself there would be no hope for it but I am enjoying the challenge of saving it from what would probably have been the junkyard and bringing it back to life again. I feel these cars are worth the effort and time but there are some days I am sure my wife tires of me shaking my head and saying
"why couldn't I be a Mustang guy? They have it so easy with parts" but overall, at least for me it is much more fun to build horsepower and upgrades than to just buy them from a catalogue. My mental "to-do" list for this grows by the day. For example I seem some gated shifters on Youtube and though that would be cool so I did a rough CAD model for one to fit a 89-93 console that I will circle back around to that eventually after the car is mobile again or I see something cool here on the forum or facebook, same thing happens. Hard to stay focused sometimes.
Today I started wire brushing the rust and grime off the rear subframe so I can reinforce it and paint it. I think my subframe was welded on either a Friday afternoon before a holiday or the Monday morning right after one based on the nasty welds. So much porosity and inconsistent bead placement, oh well. I had to weld it up anyway so what's a bit more at this point.
Some of the welding porosity.