Ohh that's great news! I wish I were that far along, I'm still buried in the damn snow and ice... Can't wait to see Ol' Betty with a new paint job Chuck
here are some recent pics shot last night. i'm a photographer so enjoy the artsy shots. as you can see we're working with limited space so its hard to get some good photos right now.
One tip I don't know if has been mentioned; make sure you examine those floors really well. Most of em are cancerous to some degree. Apparently the deadner that they used in those floors (some sort of hair) was great for keeping road and engine noise out but it didn't breathe. In other words any moisture that did make it to the metal was held there. Mine has patch panels in the rear floor boards like crazy. They were done a VERY long time ago, so it must have been a problem from the start. Looking good though.
after t hos epics were taken, the last remaining bit of paint was removed on the front fenders...only to find more bondo and more of a hack job on a very simple set of dents. Grinded them down and front fenders have been removed. the trunk lid, the fenders, doors, etc are all going to the shop tomorrow for a more detailed inspection by the body guys. Plenty of beer and grinder or pizza and 2 saturdays and those parts will be ready for primer and paint. we have 3 tiny rust spots on the roof and a small area where the grill was that need to be sandblasted due to some heavier surface rust. those areas will be done ASAP. We peeled up most of the floor coating (which happened to be the same crap they undercoated the car with and the floors have surface rust but are still extremely solid. We're very, very lucky to have a car with only some very minor rust..especially after its been living in New England since the early 80's....unrestored....with the paint fallen off to bare metal. Betty is a pretty lucky Plymouth to have been kept stored so well More pictures to come as the body work improves and we get ready to paint the undercarriage and primer the metal. after the last few days of warm weather...we all are going MAD with spring fever.
believe me...i think we're all tired of it hahahaha! off to a long day getting lots of things ready for primer.
I think its great that you've got such a solid car to start with. Looking forward to more progress pics.
yes we're very fortunate. she's been in great hands all these years. we just can't wait to get it in primer. come march the weather will start to get crazy around here and the humidity tends to shoot through the roof and thats when things turn not-so-good for having a bare-metal car in the garage so we're trying to get it to primer as soon as possible.
quick little update: we've been working on this car and all of the panels as much as we could the last week. I can honsetly say I'm exhausted but i know the hard work will eventually pay off. The body work is a bit of struggle. right now the worst struggle is that passenger side door. it's looking pretty close to perfect right now but we still have some very minor high spots and some very minor low spots that need to be fixed. I know we wont be applying primer until it is perfect. We are also currently working on the driver's side rear fender. she backed into something back in the day and someone, once again, did a butcher repair job on it. after somemetal work and the first coat of bondo yesterday afternoon, it looked pretty good. we have one little old repair job on the passenger side front fender that is going to be our last major body work job on the car ( AMEN!). It doesnt appear to look that bad so hopefully it'll be an easy one (but i'm not going to jinx myself). The last registration sticker for Kansas City on the car is 1965. I'm guessing the old lady who owned it passed away around this time or she traded it in after 15 years of ownership for something different. The car went to someone after that and i'm guessing was sent to a body shop to fix the dents the lady had put in it. we have concluded she was not a very good driver as virtually every fender is dented in some way, shape, or form. I'm guess she would just pull it in or back it in until she bumped something and that was her way of knowing when to stop The body is virtually ready for primer and paint...it's just sitting in the garage....waiting. The paint inside the door openings is virtually brand new so we are just working on sanding it down a bit so the paint will set properly on it. other than that... its just the damn body work thats holding us up right now. stay tuned; i'm going to be sharing some history i have of the car, where it originated, who owned it, and how it got to new england.
Cool! Looking forward to the stories. Thats one of the things about our cars, some were around way before us, and many will be around after we're gone so its interesting to see the road the car has been down, where its been, why etc. The story about the little old lady "parking by feel" cracked me up. My '56 F100 was a clapped out work truck that was off the road for maybe 20 years. It now resides in Florida with a mean BBF, narrowed rear end and looked great the last time I saw pictures. Thats much better than being crushed or left in a field to rot away.
So here is the history of the car and what i have un-earthed via google about her original owner. we have all existing paperwork to this car in its originally Plymouth folder that has been with the car since 1950. The paperwork is in 100% mint condition right down to thefinal Chrysler Corp Final O.K. Tag from the factory According to the original bill of sale: the car was purchased by Mrs. Murat Boyle of 435 W. 58th Street Kansas City, MO on 12-12-1950 in Kansas City, MO. It was purchased at Jerry Smith's Crosstown Motors Chrysler-Plymout of 5835 Troost Kansas City, MO. The bill of sale states: 1950 Plymouth Special Deluxe 4-Dr Sedan in Brunswick Blue Car Number 20426334 Engine Numer p20-547335 Car cost: 1780.00 Heater: 79.80 Perm. Anti Freeze: 5.40 Undercoat: 35.00 (This makes me want to puke at the time spent on undercoat removal!!) Weed Chains: 11.65 (We still have them in the original bag!) White Wall Tires 30.00 -------------------------------- Total car cost: 1941.85 Settlement: 1939 Buick Roadmaster Sedan ----- $400.00 Deposit: $100.00 The salesman was :: Clif Spurlock -------------------------------------------------------------------- Digging through more paperwork i come across the original Plymouth Service Certificate which was issued to Mrs. Murat Boyle of 435 W. 58th Kansas City, MO Inside the folded pamflet is an unused "Plymouth Approved Lubrication" certificate for "one complete chassis Lubrication" --------------------------------------------------------------------- After googling the owners name in as many different ways as i could i found a TIMES Magazine article from July 1930. Stated: Died: Murat Boyle, 47, President of the Missouri Bar Association. Three Kansas City friends and 1 pilot when an airplane in which they were returning to Kansas City from fishing near Corpus Christi, Texas, lost its wings in Aransas Pass, Texas. I'm am guessing this Murat Boyle is the husband of Mrs. Murat Boyle who purchased the car new in 1950. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mrs. Murat Boyle signed over the car to Jerry Smith Buick Inc on August 31sr 1965 in Kansas City, MO. It was noatized by Betty Simpson according the signatures on the original title. Mrs. Murat Boyle's signature is even on it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The car was purchased by a gentleman from Tolland, CT for 1,800 on August 17 1982 from Jerry Smith Buick, Inc/ Dale and Twyla Weien of Ottawa/Kansas City, MO We purchased the car in April/May 2010 from the gentleman in Tolland, CT ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Along with this entire packet of great info, pamphlets, etc came 8 very vintage roadmaps from florida, west virginia, florida, connecticut, mass, rhode island, new hampshire, etc. The old gal also came with 4 spare keys. I hope you enjoy. if anyone has any info out of Kansas City about the original owner, etc...i've been trying like hell todig up more info...but i keep coming up short. i hope you enjoy. i should take pictures of the original paperwork and post them here.
upon further research the car belonged to Mr. Jerry Smith who was famous for his antique toy and car collection. His car collection was said to be the largest in the world at the time. "betty" was sold by Mr. Jerry Smith to Connecticut 2 years before his death in 1984. He even signed the title
A little update: If all goes well: we will be priming the car this weekend. Our body guy will be in the shop finishing up the panels that need touching up and we will have the main "shell" in the paint booth for primer. how exciting!
That undercoating probably saved your car. I know it saved mine from the salt and slop we have here in NY. My car literally rotted from the inside out. I know what your saying though, i took a molten ball of melted rubber to my forearm earlier today. I was welding on a fender and it dripped off and landed on my arm, then cooled and stuck to my arm. Not the first time it happened, but it's not something that you get use to.
i know what your saying hillbilly. we've been wiping on gasoline, lighting it on fire, putting out the fire...then scraping the crap off. its the biggest PITA. Luckily our car never had to endure salt or road grime. it doesnt even look like its seen rain very much. Its a Kansas City car and it lived in the south until 1982. Once it came north, it was stored in a climate controlled garage and it was rarely ever driven until we bought it last year. i think a lot of people wouldnt believe how incredibly original and how solid the car actually is if they ever got to see it in person. Betty is one true survivor.
its 2:30 pm here at the shop and thought i'd share a photo of Betty after her first coats of primer. Here she is after the etch. we're spraying grey right now She looks really really good. We're very happy so far and we're very optimistic that we will only have to block it out a max of 2 or 3 times to get it perfect. Couldn't be more thrilled the rest of the panels are still getting body work finished so they will be ready for primer in a week or two.
here are the last set of photos after she was finished in the paint booth yesterday. The primer is on! Just have to finish the body work on the other panels so we can prime those too and prep for paint. Like i said before; we are very very pleased with theoutcome post-primer. we still haven't decided on a color yet...ugh.
ooohhhh no, no, no haha. no pink. If you read my comment about PINk on the other thread i said it remins me of the 80's: leg warmers, big hair, side pony-tails with scrunchies haha We think the car could definately pull of something dark. we love the thought of black BUT there isn't very much for blue cars out there. maybe a vintage ford blue or something along those lines? we shall see. there are so many options we are very overwhelmed
oh yes. i saw that car's thread . It definately is going to be a midnight blue or something of the sorts if we go that route
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