So, off came the hood. Not really all that difficult, the hinges were long gone, and it was barely held on by the latch. Next the fenders and the rest of the front. After a trip to the in laws to borrow the engine hoist and engine stand, I pulled the engine and transmission. Again not to difficult as it was not bolted in and there were no hoses or wires running to it. It is a 351 Windsor that seems in good condition. We shall see as it gets pulled apart. The transmission is a C4 and it does seem to be in good shape and the fluid is clean.
Somehow I managed with a lot of effort and a few friends to get the flywheel off the engine, the engine down into the basement, and installed on the engine stand. It will probably be sitting there a while as I don't really need to work on it yet. There is waaaaay to much bodywork to do first.
Where to start the body work? I didn't have a welder, or even any power tools really. I did have a drill though. So I went down to the store and purchased a wire wheel and fiber wheel. I then started stripping the driver side fender as it looked the best of the two. By the way, I feel like the fiber wheel actually does a better job stripping it down to bare metal, even on the rust! The passenger fender was pretty much rotted in way too many places and I felt that I should be looking for a replacement.
I have mostly stripped the fender and there was a big surprise under the paint and rust. 3/4 of an inch of Bondo! What a ding! I stripped off the bondo and found at the local Harbor Freight a set of body hammers and dollies for a decent price. I let fly and practiced my hammer skills as this seemed a pretty straight forward repair. As you can see in the pic the dent came out rather well. There is still more work yet to do on it, but I am satisfied with the initial result.
That's enough for now, here are some pics for your enjoyment. I'm sorry to say I don't have any pics of the engine pulling and stuff. I was more interested in some pics for my reference.
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