[Vic1947]

Thanks guys. I'm deep into teardown at the moment. What I'm finding is a bit curious. It almost appears as if the car sat in a foot of water at one time or another. The floor pans from the inside appear relatively rust free, but from the underside look very rotted. Bolts that are above this level come out fairly easily and usually don't require penetrating oil. But the ones below have to be cut with a grinding disc or Sawsall. When I sent Cowboy Bob a couple of pictures of the rot, he was SHOCKED, SHOCKED to see the extent of the damage. But that's what happens when you buy a car in 8-degree weather that's sitting on a dirt floor. When it looks okay from the top side, you can be forgiven for thinking the rest is probably okay too.

I'll be replacing much of what's ailing it anyway, so I'm not going to worry about what's ahead. Right now, I'm focused on prepping the body for the trip to Pro Strip Indy for chemical stripping. However, I have started the search for parts. As I suspected, there's not a lot out there for this model. A few parts like some of the trim pieces carry over from the 62-64 models including the Mercury Meteor. Pretty sure the stuff is out there; I just need to get better at entering search criteria for the Google. But the challenge is what makes all this fun.