'74 rebuild to daily driver. What have I done? (1 Viewer)

[donpardo]

I first met this vehicle in 1981 in college when it was a friend's daily driver. That friend recently decided to empty his garage and somehow I ended up with it. My goal is to return it to mostly stock, nice looking but not so nice that I'm nervous driving it. It will go to the mountains occasionally and to the hardware store frequently.

It has some rust (see below) and the top has a few holes. The tailgate is a homemade job and will be going away. The glass is all intact

We got it running (not moving) last week after tweaking some wiring and sanding the points. When cleaning it out we found the original back doors, the original back seat and a couple of interior body panels that I am unsure of.

Next steps are to get it moving under its own power, stopping without hitting something, removing the gas tank and cleaning it out and moving the fuel pump closer to the tank. Then to give it a good power wash and see what we're dealing with.

 

[Rusto]

what a garage! Good luck. That'd be too much for me, but I'll be watching this one.

 

[kerplunk]

That gas can might need some duct tape to help hold it up in case you hit some bumps.

 

[donpardo]

That gas can might need some duct tape to help hold it up in case you hit some bumps.

Safety last!

Also, we refer to it as a "fuel cell".

 

[Noahrob]

Nice...I look forward to watching this evolve. Here is how much room I have to work...so jealous. I literally need to spend minimum 20 minutes just to start working...hahahha

 

[SteveH]

Good project - many fun challenges.

A capstan winch isn't something you see ever day. How very.... 'Land Rover'!

 

[mattcamp]

Sweet garage you got there! Very cool. That 40 has seen some creativity. You gotta do something with those shackles my friend.

 

[donpardo]

I've been distracted by some other projects recently, but I made it out to the garage today. Organized some tools and spent about 2 hours pulling the front seats in order to pull the tank for cleaning and to see how bad the floorboards are. The back seems fine. The front, not so much.

My only questions is this: why the hell is the gas tank under the passenger seat?

And yes, those are thousands of ladybug corpses.