One mans 1200 quest

[powerbench]

Ok ., I've bought ( ok he has a deposit) a 71 1200 from exit 64...I'm super stoked ( old guy saying) ,to be bringing her /him  home.I'm going to explain the journey that has brought me to this point in my mid life crisis, and hopefully take you along with me as I travel to get and make road worthy the car of my youth.

I got my first 1200 when I was 15 ( my aunt's car with a big ass dent in the side of the drivers quarter panel...fire hydrant if I remember correctly she said). I loved that piece of shit, 73 1200 auto,  green , white interior, fake vinyl roof . It wasn't  road ready when I got my license, so my old man convinced me to buy one that I could drive now....500 bucks out of my bank account , I was driving around in a red( faded to orange) 72 1200 4 spd black interior. Drove the wheels off that car, and used it for my daily through grade 10 into first year of high school. I had a minor ( not to the Datsun it wasn't ) incident in the parking lot of my high school. A guy in front of me driving an Audi with one of those big aluminum bumper stopped while my buddy was goofing around beside me with a squirt gun and I didn't see the car stop and I hit him. I cracked his taillight, and folded my rad support into the motor. I drove the car home  ( barely)  and started swapping everything into the green car. It took me a bit to earn enough to get her together( plus the old man helped out  with labor and giving me stuff to do for allowance). I bought a bunch of grey spray bombs and satin black for the roof and banged out almost all of the dent and sprayed it primer grey.

 

I drove the car for pizza delivery's , school ,dates , and general mischief for 3 years ( also had a 67 chevelle during this time as well..longer story..maybe later) . It went thru many motors and tranny's and rear ends ,mostly from the abuse I put it thru. The car was my off and on love affair with vehicles . The final straw for the car came , when I was leaving a job at an automotive machine shop I worked at, I came home that night and parked the car for the evening ,getting ready to start my new job the following morning.My mom woke me , and asked if I left the car some where, i said no ...then realized my car was gone. Bastards stole my car, with all my tools ( yes i should have taken them out ) and all my music( yes cassettes, but they were all the rage in the day) , and my jacket..fucking assholes.......then they came back after i found the car and stole it again after I claimed it to my insurance. (did massive damage the second time) The Long and short of it is, insurance thought I was scamming them ,I had almost no bills to prove what was done to  the car ( bought almost everything I did from the shop i worked at , or my own parts scrounging which i paid cash for).....got almost nothing for it from insurance, and took one up the ass....Nice

 

 

Fast forward to the  past couple of years

 

I tried to buy a couple of 1200's off ebay and privately ( goes2fast on here bought the one I really wanted a couple of years ago from san rafeal California.....) (I knew i should have hit the buy it now at 2800) I have always set a budget for what I though I  should  spend on one,  and exit64 pm'd me about a month ago saying he had one in body work right now....I saw the car from pic's ..saw the grey primer and the parts that come with it......sold.....I might be 44 now , but I'm going to build this , like I wanted to have when I was 16 .....It's gonna be a slow build for the most part ( I literally have 2 full resto's to do 68 GMC sleeper, and a 67 Chevelle pro tour) but this will get done first

 

 

[powerbench]

[ggzilla]

Nice story bro. Get er driving.

[powerbench]

Ok ,

I got back on the car a little while ago , but I haven't posted anything for a while.( I have in the 1200 forum) I have had some ups and downs with the car, but I need to see it finished.

Here we go with the project thus far.

When I got the car home, I was stoked I finally bought a car , but I knew my work schedule was super busy and my brother inlaw let me stash it at his house.I  got busy with work, and got a shit load of parts and made a bit of money on selling them to partially fund some repairs I found.

I had Tycot ( member on here) doing some structural work I couldn't handle and  chuck some paint  on the inners to get me started

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[powerbench]

So after my low mileage rust free car showed her true life I had to make a choice , Cut her up  or spend money. Spend money it was. I contacted Morrisun and asked if he had a  front clip to replace the entire front end and had Tycot work his magic

 

 

 

 

 

[powerbench]

He got the engine bay in shape and he sprayed it out ....now my fun begins

 

 

 

 

[powerbench]

So I got crackin , and clean the floors and the trunk area. My rust free floors turned out to have a few more issues, but the trunk was good ,so I clean and por 15 everything and went after it.

 

 

 

 

 

[logiccreations]

oooo do mine next!

[Draker]

Wow.. nice work! Can't wait to see more.

[powerbench]

 After I finished off the trunk it was off to the suspension( totally screwy order but it's just the way I did it)

 

 

 

 

[powerbench]

I really needed to do the floors and make this heap safe....so cut weld grind treat and seal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[powerbench]

All the floor pans were flap wheeled and then por 15.......I tried to cut out and re weld all new sheet metal in the rusty area's of the floor. While gettin into the major process of the body work I discovered that the car might have been hit in the side. The rear wheel arch on the passenger side was missing all the body lines......great , now I get to look for a quarter panel.( A nice little surprise i didn't need )

I decided to try spraying and gettin on my body work. Here we go.

 

 

 

 

and because i have to,

[powerbench]

Driven by beer

[powerbench]

Last weekend I had some time to hit my fenders and hood ( back sides ) with some high build dtm primer, and try my hand at painting...way to windy and the sun came out screwing up my dry time.......it's the back side so it'll be fine. After I went back the next day temporarily hung the stuff and got on with the roof. So it would appear that either somebody sanded and sprayed the roof with a rattle can primer or the car at some point had roof dents and the person fixing it left it to long between body and paint. I knew there was some dents under the primer, but when I was going to do some spot repairs with some filler, I started sanding and found some brown speckles...Really? I guess im stripping the whole roof now and rust morting the whole thing. I D/A'd the roof and and treated it, and then cleaned it and re treated it again.The body work started ..This is just the first coat , and it's super thin for the most part.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[powerbench]

I got the front and rear window areas stripped and clean up, and gave the roof a quick once over yesterday. I stripped all the gutters , just to make sure everything is rust free. Shot some epoxy and then some slick sand so I can block it out. On to the next panels.

[Draker]

Wow. Great work man! Making it look easy!

[powerbench]

Thanks Draker ,

It's been a complete pain in the ass , but I'm learning a ton. I've never done extensive body work to this degree , but I figured I'd try. I have friend that is a painter , so he is my phone a friend, and you tube for everything else.

[powerbench]

It would appear I forgot to post the pics of the drivers side floor. There was a split in the floor , and after i stripped the floor ,I found some rust ...so out it came( sorry this part is kinda out of order considering I  already have sound deadener in the previous pics)

 

 

 

 

[powerbench]

I had a chance to get back at the car today so i wanted to strip the back valence to make sure there were no hidden issues......Thank god nothing this time. A small amount of specks of surface rust. I rust morted the areas and sanded it down and skimmed some surface enhancer over the spot welds and flattened the key area abit

 

 

 

[powerbench]

After I took a stab at the back side i decided to figure out what the hell is going on with the pass side quarter panel.I can feel a nightmare from the back side but i had to take a look......Not what I was hoping for.

 

 

[tr8er]

Following*

[powerbench]

I had a little time to head out to the shop last night and hit the ass end with some primer.

 

 

[powerbench]

I don't know why,

But every time I look at the back of this car I see 510 coupe tailights/ grand prix pontiac lights

[Ron1200]

Wow look at the progress you made! I like 1200s and yours is on track to be a super example!

[powerbench]

The weather has absolutely sucked balls, so progress has been at a near standstill. I got a chance to get one of my dashes cleaned up and ordered a new set of shoes for my heap....