Well its been a long time since I have updated the 'current jobs in the shop' albums

Most would think I have been doing very little customer work - and they are right. This is gunna change in 2007 - My projects need funding and I need to pay bills. So here is the start of a very special large resto project - that I swore I wasn't gunna be doing any more of.

This is a genuine Bathurst HT Monaro that has sat in storage for a very long time. Scotty who owns this gem is a panel beater- but has nowhere to do this project. Scotty is a very persistent bloke and it took a fair amount of convincing and dollars waving to get me to agree to take this one on. He is quite happy to hand it over to me for a full Monty streetneat style restoration - as close to concourse as we can get it .

This car was sanblasted, panel beaten then primed decades ago. Unfortunatley - thats as far as it got. The resident possums took over and subsequently the rust set in from leaking possums.

Even though this car looks straight - underneath all that panel work lies disaster. Rust from Possum piss and lots of body filler is only the start of the problems. Scotty and myself have decided the only remedy is to re-skin the whole car- so for now its off to the sandblasters.

Rust is a common theme here at streetneat. Where better place to start on a project than the chassis? In this case - its a subframe and Scotty's original subframe wasn't rusty - but was accident damaged. In the back ground you will see a NOS headlight section - that will be used to repair this donor subframe from our stock of spares I keep for this model.

This area I call the subframe ears. Where tis connects with the car is a very common trap for moisture- and making matters worse- the factory never really had much paint in this area.This ear isnt bad - but it will be replaced entirely.

But first we will tackle the headlight area that has been poorly repaired. This is an eBay item Scotty sourced- its a shame to cut it up- but would be more of a waste if it wasn't used.

The damage isn't really all that bad- but its not good enough to leave in place as we are chasing a pretty high level of restoration - so if its wrinkly - it needs removing.

We can see that this is showing its age and when viewed from the inside of the engine bay with the bonnet up- its going to be obvious. -not to mention the asscociated parts wont fit as well as they should.