Y ZZ'T TAKEN SO LONG??

Short explanation weather! Long story far more  complicated! We live in Northern Ohio. Anywhere from mid-September to mid-April it's too cold to work. Remember, I am doing this restoration in our garage. No heat, no cooling or climate control. That all by itself eliminates approximately six (6) months per year. That cuts the restoration time in half

Then you have to add in family needs. As the kids got older they needed transportation for college and school. Since we're not rich, that means used cars and trucks and lots of maintenance as the vehicles age and the kids beat on 'em, they need more work.

I would have never attempted what follows without the sheet metal working knowledge gained working on the DeSoto and having a MIG welder.

One summer was devoted to prepping and painting a 1988 Mercury Sable. That car was originally a used car, which was the family "good" car and was primarily my wife's. It became our daughters car for a couple of years and had well over 135,000 miles on it when I gave up trying to keep it going. I suspected the transmission was going and the steering rack was leaking for the second time.

My wife got a "new" extremely low mile used Mercury Grand Marquis. I got a new Dodge Dakota Club Cab Pick up truck.

One summer was spent replacing the front fenders on our Chevy S-10 extended cab. The truck got a front end overhaul and I two toned the body. Pearl white on the upper half and original maroon on the lower. I used the body line and painted in a contrasting maroonish pink pearl in the stamped body line. That became my daughter's college car. She hated the stripe and truck. It lasted the remained of her college years and then some..

My son was coming close to driving age! So..... My daughter got a super clean low mileage Ford Contour Sport. About a month after we got it our daughter was out of town, a woman tried to across a 5 lane road and our daughter T-boned her. Damage to the Contour was mostly plastic and the hood. Insurance took of that.

Shortly after that the S-10 got new partial rocker panels and club cab rear corners. That took most of a summer.  Then to I had to repair a door. It got caved in, by me, not paying attention while launching our boat on a crowded 6 lane boat ramp. I forgot about the monster pipes set in cement to protect the docks.... from people who can't back-up the trailers.... like me!

A summer or two later the S-10 bed came off to clean and paint the frame and patch several holes around the bed wheel wells and rework some of the finishing work on the cab corners. When we finally parted company with the S-10 it had over 150,000 miles on it. I saw it 2 years later and it still looked good.

My son inherited the Contour as my daughter had moved to New York City after graduating from college. Ever tow the biggest tandem axle U-Haul moving trailer has through downtown NYC over the bridge to Brooklyn? Then empty, back out.  I have!

By now the Grand Marq was getting long of tooth. It needed work but I didn't touch it. We sold it with about 130,000 miles on it and bought a rental fleet car., a Ford Crown Victoria. Our son inherited the Contour.

He off roaded it in the snow hit a rock or a tree, story varies by who told it. One of his buds creased the side new years eve in a drive way incident.Plastic bumper and paint in the spring.  He backed up into a brand new pick-up trying to keep from being backed over by a school bus. No damage to the Contour. Our son went to community college and we shared the Contour for a year. He attempted to go see his girlfriend away at college, lost control of the car on an interstate bridge in the snow and tore up the driver side rear quarter. I drove an hour and half checked him and it out then he nursed it home. I paid for the repairs and did the paint work to keep from turning it over to our insurance.

Then the Contour went to college too. Bumper took a beating hitting snow and ice banks.  Then he became a pizza driver. It caught up to him . He got rear ended, the other driver paid out of pocket 2k.
By now the body was starting to rust including the repaired hood. In all over about three years (3)  I did the rocker panels twice on each side. Front section then rear section and middle and paint each time.  Then middle on the driver side and then in the cold and wet of early winter welded a fairly long crack in the rear subframe adjacent to the gas tank. Damage from the spin out or being rear ended??? When he traded the Contour for HIS first car it had about 150,000 hard miles on it. The Contour proved to be one TOUGH, roomy, little, reliable car fun to drive car!

Breaks over! Now it's time to back to work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!