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Thanks for the nice comments everyone! It's a great hobby and I'm very lucky to have fell into it with such a nice car in the family.

Hi Nick, I'm 21 so the old girl is nearly 3 times my age!

Cheers
Henry

G'day guys, I've been hanging around on the forum for a while now so I thought I'd post my FC.

My FC has been in the family since new - belonging to my great great grandmother, who passed it on to my grandmother who passed it on to me. This is how it had been sitting in the shed for the last 32yrs when I got it. It'd done an original 52k miles.



Took me a year or so to get the engine, brakes and clutch running, and generally tidy things up a bit to put it on a club rego. Found plenty of good info on this forum so thanks everyone for that!





Then a few months ago I posted on the forum looking for someone to panel beat and paint the left hand doors and the right front quarter panel. Haydn (HSV-001) got in contact and did an awesome job for me, tidying up the original paint and matching in the new. My FC came back running and driving good as new - Haydn had fixed up things I didn't even know were wrong. Can't thank him enough. Here's my FC as she sits now.









Not much to do now, just replacing the door seals and bailey channels and a few other little things...

Cheers
Henry

Cheers for all the replies! Yeh the more I think about it the more I reckon it'd be better to just leave the paint as is as far as possible.

Haydn - I'm not too sure about the paint code but I do know that it had a respray in the 70s, after it had a minor prang. You can see on this photo where the 'new' paint has flaked off. I'm guessing it flaked off when pop backed into it in the shed a couple of years ago.

Mechanically it goes well, it wasn't particularly hard for me to get going - even starting with next to no mechanical knowledge. It still has the original grey in it with ~60,000 original miles on it. I had to replace a few parts in the electrical system (plugs, leads, points, capacitor etc), rebuild the fuel pump and carby, replace master and slave cylinders. I also replaced the welch plugs, the main gaskets and anything else that was rubber while I was at it. Its drivable now, but it did seem pretty hot after I moved it from my old place to my new house - about 10 minutes drive but very hilly. So I'm thinking that either the water pump isn't going as well as it should or the radiator may need recoring.

I'm not in too much of a hurry, it's a long term project and there's a couple of other things I can go on with - so happy to wait if need be.

Cheers
Henry

Thanks for all the replies!

Haydn - Pm'd you mate.

Neil and Ken - I finally got to take some pictures, so you guys can see what we're dealing with. There are spots of rust you can see on the sills where rocks have chipped the paint but I guess its tough to know whats hiding on the paint.

The car has been in the family since new, luckily for the rust situation its been sitting in a shed in western QLD since 1984. Do you think it would be possible even to just colour match the areas where the panels need straightening out and then rub back/touch up some areas where its cracking or lifting? After I took the photos yesterday, i spent some time cut and polishing the old paint and it came up a lot better than i thought it would.

Cheers for all the kind replies. Excuse any silly questions or comments I make - I'm very new to the hobbie  ;D

Henry

G'day NES,

Yeh I am on a budget, but I'm willing to spend a little extra to get it done right if I need to. My main thing is trying to do as much as possible myself, even if it takes a little longer.

Cheers
Henry

Also looking for some advice as to how to go about the paintwork? I'm thinking about going down the route of rubbing it back myself but I'm also tempted to get it sandblasted. Given there's very little rust, is there any disadvantage (apart from time) in sanding it back myself? I'd like to keep the interior fully intact given its original and still in very good nick?

Cheers
Henry

G'day Guys,

I've been quietly working on a 1959 FC special sedan in brisbane here for the past year and its finally to the point where I can start worrying about aesthetics and body rubbers. It's my first time restoring a vintage car so I'm looking for some advice.

It has dents in the front right corner panel, the left front door and the stainless trim on the left hand side - so I'm looking for a panel beater somewhere in the Brisbane region, that done well for you in the past or has a good reputation.

Cheers

Henry