[Vic1947]

Armed with my modified spotwelder, I clamped the firewall onto the surrounding flanges. I started on the bottom edge where it mated to the floorpan and worked my way up both sides. Before doing the top, I fit the forward frame braces I'd had to remove in order to make way for the firewall. There were some well placed openings in the general vicinity that allowed me to get the spotwelder in for a nice factory look. I doubt I have more than a half dozen stainless rivets in the entire truck where I should have spotwelds. There were some places I was just not able to reach with my setup, so I was forced to use blind rivets. Fortunately, none of them are visible. The only visible rivets are the countersunk ones in the lower door panels, and those I wanted to show.

The firewall was the last major piece of sheetmetal to go in. At this point I had shot several coats of high build primer on all the parts and blocked them smooth. Everything was ready for paint, but I knew I didn't have a suitable environment for doing it myself. The ceiling in my workshop is fairly low and I didn't want to build a makeshift booth. I've painted many cars over the years and one thing I know is that modern clearcoats attract a lot of dust. In anything other than a well ventilated booth you'll end up sanding out too many dust nibs and bugs.

I'd shopped around for a place that would paint it for me, but most high end shops sent me packing. I understand their reluctance because when I was doing a lot of paint and body in my younger years, it was not unusual for someone to ask me to shoot a vehicle that was "ready to go". When it got to my shop it was anything but ready. Still, I had one quote for $13,500 and I realized things have changed a lot over the years. My wife's sister had a local shop do a couple of repairs to her car and the work was very high quality. So in mid March, I struck a deal with Precision Collision in Gladstone to paint it for me. We ferried all the parts to them and they began the process of squirting everything inside and out. I can't say enough what a great job they did!