My 2500M progress/questions thread

[CoolHandMoss]

I thought I'd start a thread on here to share my project progress and have a place to ask questions and see help without starting new threads. I'll take the first few posts to document the progress up to date.

I bought my 2500M from the original owner in August of 2021. It had been sitting for at least 20 years but the environment was decent most of the time. It was pretty nasty inside with plenty of rodent damage. It definitely needs nothing short of a complete restoration. Much deliberation went in to deciding what balance of originality VS. Improvement the car would get. I certainly appreciate originality in a car like this but I also really like to drive hard and I hope to be able to drive the car at a track day and autocross periodically without worrying too much about breaking it. So I decided that the drive train and suspension will be performance oriented and the body will be restored with a priority on originality. I spent months considering different engine options looking for something that matched the personality of the car, had decent output and reliability, and would transplant with minimal major challenges. A rover engine was a top contender, the Ford v6 cyclone got a fair amount of research for feasibility, the Ford ecoboost 4 cylinder, BMW straight 6 and v8 options were considered, building the original engine for performance wasn't off the table, and a few others got a decent look. In the end I couldn't find any option more appealing than taking a page out of Jack Griffith's book and going with a small block Ford. What do you know, a friend of mine had an original 289 just down the road from me. So that will get a t5 behind it and go in as is to begin with. It will probably come out for a refresh not long after it's all together.

Here are some pictures of the car early on. I am not quite sure how photo uploading goes on this site yet so I don't know how to rotate them but I'll figure it out.

 

[CoolHandMoss]

The car had been reupholstered by the original owner with an abismal fabric. So even though it's in decent condition that is all getting Re-covered. As I cleaned up all the old animal mess throughout the car and started to slowly disassemble I found minimal bad surprises. There is one spot of rust on the frame, pretty typical, that won't be hard to cut out and replace. The body is pretty much as solid as one can expect throughout other than some damage around the sunroof opening from something flat being stored on top of the car long term. I'm not a fan of sunroofs anyway! The car has just under 50k miles on the odometer and has the normal deformation of the control arm mounting tabs in the front. One of the lower control arms is a little tweaked as well. Oh, and the windshield was destroyed. Luckily the rear glass was fine even after having fallen down in to the car after the rubber seal deteriorated. But a windshield will be needed eventually.

I swapped on some old tr6 wheels to move it rather than getting tires mounted on the original wheels.

 

[CoolHandMoss]

As I said, I am not a fan of sunroofs. Too much weakness and opportunity for leaks for not enough benefit. And I am bald so the sun hurts my head. Combine this with the deformed opening to the sunroof in my car and my decent body fairing skills and the idea of filling the sunroof opening in with solid glass sounds pretty appealing. As luck would have it, another gentleman, Scott, happens to be working on a similar project and is rather good with composites. So he makes himself a composite filler panel for the sunroof opening and is nice enough to make me one too while he is at it. So I received a perfectly contoured panel with which I can fill the sunroof opening in the mail. The panel is very well made and also comes in at less than half the weight of the sunroof and accompanying hardware. I 'mushed' the panel up into place with thickened epoxy. A groove along the seam was ground out and some glass strips laid in. Some extra glass in the low spots at the corners brought me closer to grade to minimize the thickness of body filler. Then began the fairing. At this point currently I am just about there. It's tricky to establish a contour that doesn't actually exist. The roof surface will be a blend between what should be and what was when I got the car. I am using Awlfare as a body filler. Super pricey but very good stuff. I come from a boat building background and I bring some of that knowledge with me when approaching this fiberglass body. Awlfare cures much slower than bondo but has a much more rigid consistency. There are fewer concerns about adhesion and strength.

I hadn't quite decided when I started the roof panel project whether I would soda blast or chemically strip the body. I had to get the paint off the roof to do this so I sanded it off. By the time I was done I was pretty much committed to sanding all the old paint off. I will likely end up soda blasting the tighter areas like the door jams and the like but it looks like I will be sanding most of the paint off.

There are a ton of spider cracks in this body. They never end. So when my brain is dead from work work and other work on the car that is what I spend my time on. It takes very little brain action to grind out cracks and wipe some epoxy over them. One attached photograph shows a distinct web of cracks that required a little grinding out of fiberglass and replacement with new glass in the center.

Next installment: suspension changes and control arm fabrication.

 

[DrEntropy]

What do you intend to shoot over all the 'glass for a primer?

One friend (boat builder-canoes) described our GFRP cars as made of "frozen snot."

 

[CoolHandMoss]

I plan to go with the awlgrip system. So 545 primer, awlgrip high build, then 545 again, then awlgrip top coat. All epoxy based. Very durable single stage top coat as well.

 

[Grady]

Good project, keep updating your progress. Grady