[$100T2]

And it's spring.

Actually opened the car up for the first time in oh, 5 months today. Vacuumed it out, because a mouse decided to shred my seat cover for a nest. Fucker.

That's ok, because the FC seats I was planning on transferring in temporarily are in the shed.

Here's the latest plan:

I bought myself a new angle grinder and some more wire wheels yesterday. My other angle grinder was a Ryobi 18V "+ system"... It's nice that it's cordless, but it chews through the batteries like nothing. Even though I have 7 batteries and 3 chargers, they can't keep up with the cordless grinder. So, I broke down and bought one that plugs in. The wire wheels are bad ass: At $15 a pop, they better be.

The car is going back on jackstands tomorrow night. I am dropping out the entire suspension (again) and taking everything down to bare metal. Then, I am going to do all of it with POR-15 before reassembly. The only thing that could be better than that is powdercoating, but I really don't feel like sending the stuff out to be powdercoated.

Next, I am removing the entire interior again. I need to do something about some of the rust spots on the car: It has a bit of wheel well rust as well as spots up on the sunroof hinge areas. I might see if warwickben can come down and weld them up for me, if not, I'll figure something out.

As much as I hate to do it to her, I'm going to get my GF to make a new set of door panels. The black and grey looks really nice, but I've decided I want to paint the car midnight blue and do a black and tan interior with a mahogany steering wheel and shift knob. With all my new (and extremely expensive) wood working tools, I am going to make the knob and door handle/arm rest combos myself. It should look very, very classy if I can pull off the mental image I have. That black dash is going bye-bye for a full custom fiberglass dash. Think bare-bones, not F&F.

Warwickben gave me a 5.0L Ford engine, and I was going to put it in the FB, but the more I think about it, the more I want to rebuild that and put it in the 'vert. The 'vert can't get out of it's own way, and because it's so heavy, could use all the torque it can get. Therefore, I think the FB will stay rotary. I am going to look on Ebay for a nice JDM S5 T2 motor and tranny combo, and go from there.

In the meantime, this summer is basically going to be "rip everything out, take it down to bare metal, and bring it back up with POR-15, paint, and elbow grease." I have to have surgery on my ankles one in early June, the next after the first heals, so I will be out of work for a while. I figure I can sit on my ass and grind and paint to my hearts desire.

Figure I've got until mid-October before the car needs to be back as a roller, so I should get a lot done. I'd like to do some body mods, but we'll have to see how well I can do bending metal and learning to weld.