The restoration was fun but I had no interest in owning or driving a Beetle. It reminded me of my lawn tractor.
So, I needed another project. I had been looking for a few months when I remembered a Ford Maverick that had been sitting in a friend's side yard since I knew him. It was blue and white with red pin stripes and some US flag badge decals on the rear quarters. Looked around on the Internet and learned it was a Sprint. Ford did Sprint decor options for the Maverick, Mustang and Pinto to celebrate the 1972 Olympics. Inerior is white with blue dash, arm rests, and bule cloth inserts in the vinyl seats. The Sprint package included color keyed dog dish hub caps and chrome wheel rings. This one has the 302, AT, PS, air and AM radio. It was a complete and unmolested original with 58K miles with some rusty areas showing and others to be discovered. Here's how it looked after we towed it to my house and, with Walt's help, cleaned some of the 19 years worth of dirt off of it.
The Sprint was purchased new by my friend's father-in-law. My friend acquired the car when his father-in-law died a few years later. Friend drove it till 1989 when he parked it ON DIRT in his side yard. There were large Oak trees in his hard and EVERY tube in the car was packed full of mouse nests and acorn shells.
The mice apparently attracted lots of snakes because we found a few skins shed in the hood and grill.
Sitting on dirt, under Oak trees for 19 years created some pretty severe rust damage. I'll include pictures of the rusty areas and repair actions in later posts. Jim
) Still need to find headers, exhaust system, mild cam/lifters/springs, and double timing chain. If the tranny works OK I don't plan to change it or the rear. I expect I'll get the dreaded one-wheel burn outs with my 3.00 open rear, street tires and stock converter. Hoping this stuff will get me into the low 14s. If not, I'll probably do another round of "improvements".
So, I tried doing some MIG welded beads on sheet metal with really ugly results. Used up a tank of gas and a spool of wire trying to get a decent bead. No luck. The breakthru occured when I stopped trying to do beads and just did a series of spot welds. Instead of holding the trigger and trying to move the puddle, I'd just hold the trigger for a second or so, move down the seam, and do another little spot weld. I didn't kjnow it, but I was using a well known method called stitch welding. Works great as long as you have a lot of time. No warping. No holes. Can either run the spots together or leave space between the spots.
They'd want it finished in one episode. Could only do a show every year or two.