Doing another e-bay project would be pretty simple, knowing what I know now of course. My project lasted me about 11 months and was some of the hardest work I have ever done to any car. The welding, patching, smoothing etc. was the easy part. Fitting your hands in small places, grinding, cutting your hands on everything in sight, bleeding, tasting metal in your mouth for days and sweating like crazy was the hard part and the mental challenge that comes along with it. Here are some tips that were passed down to me (from ALMOST STOCK) and some lessons learned that will hopefully help you in the long run. Again, these are the things that helped me and may not apply to all situations and may not be the rigth way, but it worked for me.
1. Have a game plan outlined with some goals of what you want to accomplish and how you want to your e-bay to look. Don't be afraid to ask questions of people on this board, as well as other boards. It will help you out tremendously. At some point through the project you are going to get frustrated, its going to happen and you will need some encouragement (unless you know everything) and pointers from others. Again, don't be afraid to ask. I spent countless hours on the phone with Paul (Almost Stock) as well as hundreds of emails.
2. Remove
everything from the engine bay. Wires, brake lines, hood, fenders, steering rack, you name it. Have your work space as clear as possible. Label every single connector and wire that you pull out and take lots of pics of all of the connections from different angles to help you remember where things go. You can never take too many pics, trust me. Here are some progression pics.
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3. IMO and this is just my opinion if you are going to hide any wires... If you are going to do it, do it right the first time. This is taking it to the extremes, but trust me, it is worth it. PULL THE DASH!!! Pull it and pull all of the wiring harness through the the firewall and completely hide all of those nasty wires. Even if you don't polish everything in site like a few of us did, not having any wires (as well as brake lines) in the e-bay makes a huge difference. It's cleaner looking and much easier to work with when they don't get in your way. Use some ingenuity when doing it and don't be afraid to try something new. There is no right or wrong way to hide wires, but take good notes.
4. Measure twice and cut once. Measure twice and weld once. Welding is just something that you have to get used to and need some time under your belt in order to get better. The metal in the engine bay is very thin and when extreme heat is applied to it, it becomes very temperamental. Welding up the small holes is generally pretty easy because they are so small. On all of the larger size holes, I tacked up a piece of metal being where I was welding to help not burn through everytime I started welding and it helped as well as strengthened the e-bay up a little.
5. As Dave stated earlier, the layering, filling and sanding process can go on for days. When I did mine, I did the passenger side first and then went over and did the drivers side. The passenger side took me about 2 months to complete and the drivers side took about 4 weeks to complete. I wasn't working on it everyday, just kind of here and there and polishing stuff up as I went, plus 2 hurricanes while I was in Florida, etc... You will learn things as you go that will help you in the long run and speed up the project. You can only work as fast as your skills will let you. But as I said before, do it right the first time and don't cut any corners.
Most of my comments are just pointers and tips and not geared toward the technical side of smoothing the bay, hiding wires or polishing. There are several resources on this board that can help you out in your project.
http://www.leemotorsports.com/almoststock This site has wire hiding and polishing tips. USE THEM!!! As I mentioned before, don't be afraid to ask questions. There are numerous people that will help you out and they are more than willing to help out. If you have any questions, let me know. I will help you out in any way shape or form. I hope this helps.
Tim
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i hate red interior but man he pulled that off with a wow. i just seen that car in a recent 5.0 magazine! thanks for the post! hope to here from alot more stangnet guys!! this site rocks!! :SNSign:
He just started a new business and needed a rolling advertisement
It was just a lot of repeating steps (sanding, laying filler) and nothing to really go wrong.
