1965 Convertible Pictures

[Yoda]

Just put some updated pictures of my 1965 convertible online for anyone who might be interested:
http://www.greatmindsworking.com/tbi...humbnails.html

I recently purchased my 1965 Thunderbird Convertible with 58,000 original miles on eBay from a man in Virginia. I'm the fourth owner. The car has always been garage kept, and was almost perfect except for some small rust holes in the rear cowls. I just had new metal welded in and had the area sprayed to blend with the original black lacquer paint. A prior owner recovered the seats and replaced the carpet, convertible top, & tires.

[carrbuff]

Nice car. Maybe mine will get there someday. :D

[woodward bird]

:D Very nice Yoda looks great! :cool:

[Captain Mike]

Saw the photos on your webpage and it looks like the car had a good bit of rust. Did you do the patch panel repair yourself, or have a bodyshop do it? If so, could you share with the group the approximate cost of your rust repair. A lot of us have similar rust issues. One more thing, did you make your own patch panels or did you buy the pre-stamped ones offered by Classic Sheet Metal Co. of Charlotte, NC? Thanks!!

[Yoda]

The rust looked a bit worse then it was because I jammed my digital camera in the rear cowl. They are really extreme closeups. In fact the pictures on the site are chronological from top to bottom and you can hardly see the rust holes in the first few pictures. Most of what was in the cowl was light surface rust.

I had the work done at a local body shop. They cut out an area around the rust holes (some of the pictures (#27 - #32) show the size of the areas that were cut out), ground down all of the rust, and then treated all of the metal with a rust converter/inhibitor. They then fabricated some metal patches from scrap, welded them into place, used a bit of professional filler to smooth over the welds (I know lead work would probably have been better, but I don't know anyone that does lead work), primed, and sprayed black lacquer to match the original paint.

The body shop also made some small alignment adjustments to my hood and driver's door and did some spot touch ups where the paint was chipped. Unfortunately they couldn't buff the small touchups very well because they would have buffed through the original paint (all except the passenger door is the original paint job).

Finally, the body shop had an outside "dent guy" use those plastic hammers to remove a small ding in the hood.

Everything was $440 (including $40 for the ding removal). The guy who runs the shop is a friend of mine. I did supply the paint (came with the car).

Sad thing is that the only reason the car rusted in the first place was that two of the undercarriage drains were blocked with dirt so rain couldn't drain properly.

[ 08-01-2003: Message edited by: Yoda ]

[woodward bird]

$440 Yoda make sure you STAY friends with that guy,here in michigan (rust city)they charge you $440 just for sittin in the body shops office and havin a cup of coffee while they quote you! ;)

[Yoda]

I'll actually be up in Michigan (Sturgis) in a few weeks. We're bringing the kids to see the inlaws.

[tbird5866]

I'm wondering why you use the expression
"original black lacquer paint". In 1965, Ford was using enamel on their cars.

[Yoda]

Oops. The prior owner referred to the paint as lacquer so I never thought much about it. I stand corrected. Thanks.