The Turd Bird is gone. I sold it today to a Ford guy that's probably going to race it (he showed up in a nice modified Cobra).

I hated to get rid of it but we needed money to finish our kitchen remodel. I've got a few other project cars, anyway, so this way I can devote more attention to the others.

It was kinda sad to see it drive away...

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The Turd has been sitting dormant in the garage for more than a year now due to an excess in heat/humidity and priorities. I had been working on the hood recently and finished it up a few days ago and tossed some primer on it to decide what to do with it. Because of the amount of filler and dust surrounding the car, I didn't feel like kicking it all up so I rolled the car out into the driveway, hooked up the battery, and turned the key.

It started... on the first try. Not only that, but I'm sure it needs a tune-up and it still idled nearly flawless for 10-15 minutes while I let everything cycle.

I have to say, I was mighty proud of her.

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I took on the hood this last week and it turned out to be quite a chore. I tried sanding it down but it was providing little result (I went through 4 pads @ 60 grit), so I picked up some chemical stripper. 5 applications over 2 days did about as much good as the sander did, so I dug around the garage and found the floor scraper I picked up when laying ceramic tile in the bathroom. This actually did a decent job of getting the paint off the outter edges but once I got towards the center of the hood, it seemed to be all filler and was knicking and chipping the blades in the scraper. This called for the big guns...

A chisel and a hammer. 'Tis true. My good set of wood chisels were the only thing that would put a dent in the filler and on first pass I spent 10 minutes digging a trench halfway across. This stuff was 1/2" thick at least and 1" at the deepest point of the dent. No frickin' wonder it was starting to crack.

It took 3 days of digging (my arms would grow tired of swinging that pick hammer) and sanding but I finally got it all cleaned out. I think it would be better in the long run to just replace the hood, so for now I slapped a couple coats of etching primer on it for protection.

I forgot to get pictures of the trench to show just how deep it actually was but I snapped a few post-procedure and I'll get them up here in a few days.

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