Okay, so trying not to fall a year behind on this again… here’s a current status update. I stopped driving it I think around mid-January so that I could do an engine swap and repair a small section of one of the front frame rails that was badly rusted. So far, I have accomplished what seems like nothing besides spending money and getting a little overwhelmed. I pulled the I6 engine out in early February. Then while trying to figure out a plan for repairing the frame rail section, I decided the majority of the frame rail on that side (the driver’s side) should be replaced. It’s not absolutely terrible and could be probably be okay for awhile or just patched, but I figured it just made more sense to go ahead and replace the whole thing since they’re available. But that would still leave me with the rust at the bottom of the shock tower, which seems somewhat hard to patch. And I definitely need new fender aprons on that side too. Considering all that, I caved and decided to replace the whole driver’s side shock tower/fender apron/frame rail assembly. It seems simpler than piecing things together individually. We’ll see; I haven’t gotten to actually doing it yet. Depending on how that goes, I may do the passenger’s side as well, or I may just patch some things over there—the passenger’s side is in better shape overall.

While I was stripping things in the process of figuring that out, I realized the top outer areas on the firewall are badly messed up. The driver’s side has been patched before but it’s not done right and there’s still a lot of rust. The top cowl is also messed up in some areas. So further down the rabbit hole I go. I’m now in the process of removing the upper cowl so I can patch the lower portion and hopefully stop any leaks that are still coming from there since I put the plastic hats in place a few years ago. And of course removing the cowl requires removing the windshield, so I did that too. That’ll also give me the chance to replace a couple of the clips for the trim that are missing/broken so all of the trim can find its way back on, and I may replace the windshield too. Maybe. Seems like the time to do it with it being out already and all. :p

Hopefully I’ll start making what feels like more actual progress soon and I can remember to post some more updates.