So now we begin, a process that could span two or three years.  The time finally came to tear into the car.  It was a very dirty job, but someone had to do it.  As you can tell by the pictures the car was in tip top shape and actually didn't even need to be restored.  In fact the guys down at Midas told me that they could drop my motor right in over the weekend if it was ready.  But instead I decided to tear apart the car and go with the frame off restoration.  Actually I don't know if restoring is the right word but...

This whole process took me a few weeks to accomplish, it would have been alot quicker but I was only working a couple hours at a time.  As you can see from the photos the frame was really sick and needed some major stripping.  The exhaust side of the original engine that was in the car had a nasty oil leak, which didn't really help in keeping the under carriage clean.  Overall I was pretty happy with the appearance of the car though.  The oil leak had actually helped in keeping the frame from rusting, but the leaking battery did'nt.  Under the battery  was the only spot on the entire frame that had been pitted from rust.

At the same time the car was getting torn down the engine was getting the same treatment at Top End Performance in North Hollywood, CA.   Here are some pictures of the engine after it was cracked open.

There it is as you can see, the caramelized oil shows that the engine was meticulously taken car of and was kept on a regular service schedule by the former owner.  Needless to say, if I did'nt want to spend the money and build this engine, I would have had to do it five minutes after I started it for the first time.  But everything checked out OK with the block and we proceeded from there.

In early December a friend (Owner of a Nissan Silva s13 Japanese Spec. Conversion) and I removed the body of the car.  It was a process in which I was very unfamiliar with, in fact when another friend had mentioned it to me I thought he was kidding.  But he was'nt,  the process involves 600 or so pounds hanging from the rafters of my garage.  I sure hope my land lord never finds this page.

At this point the frame was removed from beneath the car and taken to Andrews PowderCoating.  They did a great job on the frame, front control arms, and the new rear end housing.  If you are in Southern California or anywhere for that matter check them out, they give really fair prices.
 

Well this is the first time my garage floor has been clean in half a year.  It was a really nice site.  Thats it for this section.  Check out the next section to see the newly powdercoated frame and components.  In that section I will also show you how I cleaned the underside of the floorboard, and installation of the new Chassisworks Fab-9 Rear End.