71 Grabber Restoration Pics on-line

I just downloaded some of my restoration pics of my "Shelby" Maverick to the Webshots website. This is my first time to use Webshots so I hope this link works. I'll test it as soon as I finish this and be sure. I think I have about 53 photos on there at the present time.
http://community.webshots.com/user/rayzorsharp

 

That one works. Nice album. I appreciate being able to see the progress of such a huge project. Thanks, and excellent job.

AC

 

I edited my first message with the correct link and deleted my mistakes...keeps it a little neater.

 

Awesome job , sweet mav !!!

 

Very nice Ray...good job...Typically what does it cost to have the car media blasted and primed if it's already stripped of peripherals,,,ie; bumpers, mirrors, headlight etc.

 

Nice job! Sweet Grabber you got there!

 

Looks great.

 

Ray, what media was used to blast it? Nice job with the pics too, very interesting.
Dan

 

Great album. I love seeing pictures like that, even when I see it here in our own shop. Really great job.

 

I paid $950 to have my "now" orange car media blasted. The car was completely stripped ahead of time of everything except for the glass. That included blasting the outside, inside the trunk, inside the engine compartment, and the complete underneath.

 

I have access to a local shop that does the plastic media blasting and the usual charge for a complete blasting inside and out is $5-600 depending on the car. I decided to do the stripping myself this time. I have a sandblasting pressure pot so I sandblasted everything exept the big flat surfaces such as the hood, roof, and decklid. This really works great for all the jambs and engine compartment. I used a 40 grit paint stripper disc to strip all the remaining paint. In all I spent about 25 hours, 10 bags of sand, and quite a bit of sandpaper to get it stripped and ready for primer. That amounts to about $60 in materials plus my labor. If I was charging myself full retail for my labor I would have been better off by paying the local media blaster to do the job for me. Luckily for me I don't charge myself nearly as much as I do everyone else so I got off cheap. I then treated all of the bare metal with Ospho. I did all the necessary body work, sanded all of the treated metal with 80 grit paper, primed it, and got it ready to start block sanding. The body and all parts were block sanded 3-4 times each before a final wet sand using 400 wet-or-dry paper to get it nice and smooth for a very slick paint job. The body and all parts were painted in pieces to make a nicer paint job with no tape lines. Of course you then have the tedious job of installing all the sheetmetal without scratching anything. The entire process from sandblasting to driving it during Cruising-The-Coast was 3 months, give or take 2-3 days. Oh yeah, this was done at night time after I closed my shop and for about the last 2 months of this job I stayed till 1 a.m. almost every single night in order to get it ready for the show. I can't tell you how many times people came by and told me "there's no way you'll have that car ready by the show" and each time that just made me more determined to get it done.
For those of you that don't know what Cruisin-the-Coast is, it's one of the biggest Cruise-ins anywhere. It's 8 days of over 5000 vintage cars cruising about 45 miles of coastline. It's absolutely awesome and I take a weeks vacation every year to go there so I had to have this car ready. For the last 6 years I have been driving either the red or yellow Grabbers I gave my sons but I wanted my own car this time.
Well, I didn't mean to get carried away here so I guess I better end this before everyone falls asleep on me. Merry Christmas everyone.

 

Super pics and craftsmanship. One day I'll get a website up with mine. I know what you mean about tons of hours. This picture was taken June 1st. I had just hung the doors, hood and fenders to paint the blue. It is a totally stripped shell. Plus I still had my motor to assemble. But I made it to the Roundup July 25 with the car. I swear I will never do that again.

 

Check out the dates I took these photos:

The 1st one was taken 09/22/04 (15 days later I drove it to the show), 2nd and 3rd one was 09/24/04, 4th one was 09/28/04. Cruisin-the-Coast started 10/03/04. I did not make the first four days however I did drive my car in the event on 10/07 till the end which was 10/10. On the 1st day, 10/03, I had to tear my new engine back down all the way to the block. I bought the engine already assembled three years ago (been in storage) and somewhere along the line someone had slipped or dropped a piece of metal into the intake and it found it's way to the top of #2 piston. The engine locked up when I tried to turn it over. Fortunately it did no damage but it did cost me a couple of days. Even after I got it running I still had a few bugs to work out but I made it there and was proud to say I did it. Like you said Dennis, I don't want to ever try that again. It about killed me.

 

Ray why is it in one pic it looks Coral green and the other is Grabber blue...is it the lighting, camera or is it the actual paint shadeing as its applied...looks like 2 different cars.

 

It's the lighting. I always have trouble with Grabber blue when you use a flash. It seems to wash out the color.