Progress Thread Cobra II Resurrection

Hello all. I've been a member here since 2003, but have not posted very often. We have a white/blue 1976 Cobra II that we bought in 1978 and are the second owner. The first owner was PHD Leasing in Los Angeles who had leased it to a magazine publisher for the first 2 years. My wife had always wanted a Charley's Angels Cobra II car and would never get rid of it. We drove it as a daily driver from 1978 thru the late 1990's and even pulled a 5 x 8 U-Haul trailer from San Diego, CA to Augusta, GA when I got out of the Navy in 1982. We finally parked it in the garage when the transmission started leaking and slipping pretty bad, and it has been there ever since.

I retired at the end of 2022, so my project has been to get the car back to a reliable driving car. Not looking to make it a show car, but just get it repainted and replace the worn driveline and suspension. Here's what it looked like when we finally parked it:



And here's where it is today:



I had to cut out the passenger floor pan and replace it due to leaks from the cowl area:






I'm working on cleaning up the engine compartment and front fender wells right now while the suspension is out. I had tried to replace the battery tray back in 1985 using a 110 volt AC stick welder and had wound up covering the mess with body filler so I could get it back on the road. So first up was removing the body filler and welding/patching up the gaps and holes.






I have a reman 1995 302 long block and Hughes rebuilt C-4 trans ready to go back in as soon as I finish cleaning up the engine compartment: