The hood at one time was from a yellow bug, like school bus yellow. Pretty neat to see. Lots of filler covering dents, creases and rot.
The driver's door ended up being the only panel on Zippy that wouldn't be considered scrap by less sentimental folk.
The filler below the driver's rear quarter window was covering fiberglass.
The fiberglass below the driver's rear quarter window was covering a whole lot of nothing.
The front apron consisted of nothing but bondo, rust and brazed shut overrider holes. What kind of bastard doesn't like overriders!
There was a strip of bondo across the whole top of the hood that covered hammered in rust holes.
The driver's side of the hood had bondo packed into a rust hole that you could reach your hand through.
Taking a tally of Zippy's body, it's not such a glowing review. Literally every panel but the driver's door is heavily damaged, rotten or both. If this had fallen into someone else's hands, I imagine they'd simply cut the sunroof out of it for use or sale and scrap the rest. Luckily, I don't care. I love Zippy for all his flaws. He's like me, hastily bandaged and doing his best to hang on
The plan to get him back on the road continues.That being said, some planning adjustments will be made.When I thought there was more metal and less filler, I had hoped to buy quality replacement panels where needed and try to end up with a solid body and pan to put back together. In it's current state, I couldn't afford all the metal needed to properly restore him. Even if I could, doing a full body disassembly and restoration in a sloping mud driveway in between rain drops is just not possible. Finally, let's not forget that I'm not talented enough to do all that, even if someone gifted me all the metal and a fully stocked workshop.
I don't know what direction I'm going to take yet. I have always liked the ragged builds but I didn't intend to have holes big enough to toss turkeys through. I've got the metal for everything on the driver's rear quarter except for the window surround and I will try to get that all together and I've been building patches to kind of rebuild the heater channels so that will kind of get most of the lower half of Zippy back together. Depending on how it goes, I might try to join the pan and body back together at that point before tackling the upper half. It will just likely depend on when the pan is ready.
I know I should be upset at the recent discoveries but I'm not. In fact, I kind of feel like the pressure is off of me. I don't have to succeed at restoring Zippy now, I just have to keep him alive until I die and my wife sells Zippy to pay off my vegan ice cream debts.
