Progress Thread The "grátis" 1966 Coupe - final sheet metal repairs

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Those suck
Your already in there! Do it Once! Do it Right!
I'm not actually talking about just inserting them like they're intended. I'm talking about removing the upper portion of the vent hats from my lower cowl and replacing them with these. The lower cowl is solid with no rust through anywhere. The only rust holes present are in the vent hats themselves. I would get the patch pieces, but they're too expensive to justify the cost.

I could get some strips of metal from the hardware store and fabricate new vent hats, I suppose. It might be worth the experience to give it a shot.
 
yes weld some thing in but no plastic insert crapola

The old vent hats always seem to have rust sandwiched in them.

Also for some clutch cable kits there will need to be a small dimple going up in the lower cowl, right above the clutch pedal for clearance (bracket bolts on top of pedal and sticks up)
If you go that route. I love my MDL clutch cable set up, one adjustment once and has been good for many years.
 
I’m back down in Fort Worth for the weekend. Peter is doing well. We’re going to go ahead and have them put in the GI tube so he can come home. Hopefully he can be discharged by the end of the week.

In the meantime, my new sheet metal is projected to arrive this Thursday. One piece is back ordered I guess so I can feel like a real body man like @horse sence always waiting on sheet metal to arrive.

All that I ordered is everything I need to repair the rusted passenger quarter and rebuild the tail panel area. I’m looking forward to that!
 
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Did I win, @horse sence ?

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Everything remaining that I needed to rebuild the tail panel area of the car arrived today (extension brackets, trunk floors, bumper brackets, and passenger quarter skin). Not pictured is the passenger quarter panel skin.

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I'm thinking I'll start by installing the trunk support. I'll also need to rebuild the flanges for the extension brackets on the driver's side and the upper part of the passenger side (still haven't gotten to that). I'll then do the trunk floors and follow that up with the tail panel. I think it would be best to wait on doing the passenger quarter skin until everything else is put back together to help take some of the guesswork out of making it fit. I'll be sure to bolt the trunk lid back on when I'm working on the tail panel. Can't wait to start getting the exterior of this car back together.
 
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Not related to my car, but I just won an auction for these on eBay!


I'm going to give these to my father-in-law (same one who gave me the '66) in hopes of motivating him to restore the '71 convertible he still has that took the place of the '66 in the same broken down garage.

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Little Peter is doing pretty well. About a week and a half ago they made an impression of his mouth so they could make a prosthetic palate for him to help him eat. It helped a lot, however, he still wasn’t able to eat enough on his own.

Yesterday they surgically inserted a tube in his stomach. This replaces the one down his throat and will allow him to come home once he recovers and is transitioned to a more home-oriented feeding regimen.

The good news is that they also found two hernias that they repaired while they were putting in the tube. The doctor also told us today that he may be able to come home as early as some time next week if he recovers quickly and doesn’t have any issues with tolerating the new feeding plan.

Things are looking up! We may be all back together within a week!

Not sure when I’ll get back to the car, but I’ll probably try once we’re all back together. I just haven’t had time for anything since I’ve been taking care of the older two and bringing them to and from school on my own.

He’s a tough little guy. I’m optimistic we may be home soon. Even if we all miss Thanksgiving, at least we’ll finally be together.
 
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Peter was finally released yesterday afternoon. It's great to have everyone back home! We're working to get a routine down for his feedings. Things are going well so far.

Might be able to get back to work on the car soon. We'll see. Feeding him is much more labor intensive than we expected.
 
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Peter is doing great! He was evaluated today by a speech therapist. Cleft palate notwithstanding, he's doing very well developmentally.

I want to try to get some car work done, so I went ahead and put the blaster together. I bought 50 lbs. of glass bead for it earlier this week. I'm also clean up the cowl area and get that put back together and rust repaired.

I'm also going to use the glass beads to clean up some parts I need to eBay (stock 6-cyl spindles, etc.).

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