Where to begin??

After lunch today I walked back out to the shed with the dog and just stood there looking at this project I had ahead of me "Bloody hell, just where do I begin", and the dog was looking a little worried also.
The feeling of not being able to drive this old car and also just have a bit of fun with it sitting in our signshop for customers to look over and what a great conversation starter it was to,  for sometime kinda rushed over me all of a sudden as the enormity of the whole resto whacked me right across the face just like that..... "Shit"
I reached for the phone and gave my mate Ray a call.. "Gidday Ray, how are ya" and we soon settle into a conversation about the job ahead of me, "Don't rush it Grant and don't go pulling it all to bits in a hurry", Ray quickly sets me on the straight and narrow then lays down some goals to aim for in the short term.
"Spray the rear and front guard bolts with some anti-seize then go inside and have a cuppa coffee" which I did and after a little while I returned and started to loosen the bolts on the rear guards

So the doors are now removed (easy when you now how) the old wire seat frames lifted out, labelled and hung up from the shed roof out of the way for now and some timber floor boards also removed and stored..

You can see by these pictures the damage done by the wood borers and weather over the past 83 years, in places the timber frame is very bad, but in other spots very good still.

I think dad must of got in there and quickly painted some orange timber primer around on a few of the top sections of timber.

All rear guard bolts came undone without any problems and I have just left them hanging there to be pulled off.

I have to then take off the running boards, front guards, a few other things and then lift the whole body off the chassis to replace the rotted timber rails that sit between the body and the chassis.

Anyway that's it for my first day in the new resto shed....Cheers

A mate drove Monty today

Today Ray who owns a beautifully restored 28' Chev drove out from Melbourne as he wanted to have a Monty experience......

 

These words he posted on a Chev forum later that day:

 

Many thanks to Grant and his beloved Monty for a great experience.

It was 8.30am on a wet and cold Gippsland Sunday, and I had driven for 90 minutes to vist Monty, and of course his owner Grant as well.

What an experience. To look at Monty you would shudder and think what a lot of work to be done, but once you start him up, the bugger runs and drives like a road going car.

Now Monty has no comforts, in fact he has no seats, and no steering wheel as such, and by the way, not really any brakes to speak of as well.

But for a car that was found under a tree by Grants father back in 1969, and kept in a shed for 40 years, what a surprise.

Monty accelerates, pulls away in top gear, and apart from a very LOUD exhaust you would swear you were driving a restored 28 Chev.

The gear changes are perfect, and the dam oil has not been changed in over 45 years. The clutch works fine, and Monty rides the bumps as well as many other restored Chevs I have driven.

For a car to be in such good merchanical condition found dumped under a tree with no front end, it amazing.

If it was not for the fact that Grant plans to bring
Monty back to a road going car in memory of his late father, I would be green with envy, but how could anyone not feel emotional about the journey that Grant has embarked upon, with Dad over his right shoulder no doubt.

God speed to you Grant, and to Monty, and enjoy the years or memory making you have ahead for you and your family.

Cheers Mate

Ray