Here's a view that you will never see again.  Both of my '67's sitting side by side in my garage.

Well, not long after bringing the '67 home from Arizona, I sent it in the Bel-Red Auto Rebuild to get her rear quarters straightened out.

While her panels were getting worked over I decided it was time to get a proper place for her to park when she came home.

The first thing I had to do was come up with a design in my head, and then go buy the materials.   I decided a 15x22 carport should just do the trick.

Here is our Van loaded to the hilt with 16' lumber and metal roofing.

And here is the material laid out on the lawn.............

Then comes the hard part, putting to reality what was in my head.

I started by building the trusses

 Next came the walls with trusses set in place

Finally (not quite) came the roof

My car was taking longer than expected, so, after painting the floor,  I used this opportunity to detail my sons Neon Sport Coupe "Nitro"

It was sure nice working in the shade for a change.  Never has been enough room in the garage to polish and wax a car.

It was finally now time to go pick up my car at the body shop.  It had been a month and a half and I had lost precious "good weather" time to work on the car.

Bel-Red had I straightened the fenders and welded all of the emblem holes shut except for the CS on the roof. While they did a pretty amazing job at repairing some very bad damage, after closer examination I will still need to do some finessing to get the curves just like I want them.  There is some filler in the Drivers rear fender as the damage that they found under the paint and bondo was pretty severe and it took a lot of work to get the lines out.

I started right away to start to deconstruct the car.

I told you I wasn't quite done with the carport.  I decided it needed proper lighting and a exterior wall to keep the rain out. (It's been known to do that here in Washington).  I also added some T-4 sideing to the gables to finish it off.

You can see on the far wall where I am starting to store the mechanical parts.

Inside my garage I built a pegboard wall to hold the chrome pieces.

I have spent the past several days sorting out the parts between the two cars and choosing the best for the final creation.  Virtually all of the external chrome will come from my original car as I had really babied the car and it was in very good condition.  The new '67's chrome had 100,000 more miles on it and showed the wear.  As for the interior, I am using several parts, where possible from the new car as mine sat out under a cover for many years and the interior started to mold and some of the chrome has pitted.  Some like the console and bucket seat fittings I will just have to replace or re-chrome as the new car is a bench.

Off come the doors and fenders and inner fender wells.  Next I will fit the doors off of my other '67 to the body and then fit the fenders to the doors and body.  Next I will reattach the hood and fit it and the fenders together.

The reason I took the inner fender wells out is that they make it tough to adjust the fenders.  I figure once I am satisfied that they fit like I like them.  I will etch the body mount points so when I go to reassemble the car after painting I will be sure to get a good start on the fit.

After all is to my satisfaction, I will sand down the fenders and smooth them out and prime them.  I will then disassemble the whole car and paint the panels individually.  This will insure that I get good coverage inside and outside of the panels.

Since I am painting the car it's original "Provincial White", color matching will not be a problem.  I will just need to be careful when reassembling.  I have some tricks up my sleeve to insure I don't nick the paint.

It is now September 12th, 2006 and I have a few days left before I have to take a two week business trip.  I will try and get the doors fitted and the fenders reattached before I go.  I will then work on the alignment and smoothing of the panels in October.

I have decided that after all of this - I just can't part with my original 1967 body, so now that I have the chassis and engine finished (see below link) I am going to put my old body back on the original frame.  I will use the front fenders and hood of the "Arizona" car just to make my life easier and not have to deal with the rust, but other than that, I plan on keeping my car as original as possible.

It has been 5 1/2 years since I finished the chassis and still no progress on the body.  I really need to get focused :)

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