Those of you who follow this project daily are going to view this sneak peek of the painted frame and say "what the heck?" because at this date I have yet to cover prepping and painting the frame on-line. Sorry, but I get very little time off these days. In fact I have had only had 2 days off in the last two months and that's counting Easter (sniff), so here's the story of how I got so far ahead of the website Articles.

After finish welding the frame I took it directly to the body shop where I rented a stall so I could do my own work. I went out about 4 nights and worked on it between 10pm and 2:30am to get the "bodywork" and priming finished. Last week I went to pick up the paint - 2000 Mazda Bright Sapphire Metallic. I usually paint with lacquer but decided because of the increased durability to go with urethane. It also contained the right mix (with red pearl) to get the color I wanted. One problem... unlike lacquer, painting urethane is a non-stop process. You are suppose to clear coat it within 12 hours and color sand the clear within the same amount of time. Without a day off and my allotted time to use the body shop and paint both over at the end of the month, I worked out a way to get a full day off... Mother's Day.  I know, I'm a louse. I spent all day Mother's Day working on my car and not my wife. I'll probably never hear the end of it. Yes, I'll be paying for this car forever. Women tend to get jealous when they see their guy spend hours rubbing on a car. The difference is that after rubbing the car for hours you can see an improvement. ;)

The paint turned out great and it's back home now where I can continue to piece it back together. The photo above was taken as I was rubbing out the clear. The residue you see in the holes, etc. is rubbing compound. I'll have a full step-by-step report when time allows.

There will be some new features to the web site soon. Watch for a Rodder's Forum and a cool tire size calculator that will compute height and widths of any tire/wheel combination.

Is anyone going to "The Back to the 50's" in St. Paul, MN this Father's Day weekend? I'll be there Sat & Sun if you want to meet and talk cars.

It dawned on me the other day when I had to come to my own site and look up something that this website is going to make the best owners manual ever!

If you haven't done so already, please vote for the style mirrors that will go on this car. I'm surprised with as many visitors as this site has that one of the mirrors hasn't received 300 votes yet.

You can read my past ramblings from previous months by clicking the Links below.

Keep the shiny side up!

Scooter