It was decided to replace the whole rear clip including the roof. It was brought to a body shop where it sat for 2 yrs..the only thing done was the that the clip was replaced and put into primer...then it was learned the body shop was going bankrupt so the owner ran over with a trailer to get his car...well...most of it... back before the banks and lawyers stepped in. When he arrived there was no sign of the dash (with vin plate) rear bumper, or fuel tank....he grabbed what he could find, threw it inside the gutted interior and took it home. In the meantime, he was getting a hard time from the insurance company and learned he had only insured the car for the blue book value and not the "agreed upon" value of a collector car...After all the insurance and body shop headaches, he decided to cut his losses and put it up on ebay which were I found it..I drove down and trailered it home and this is what it looked like.........then came the task of trying to convince my father-in-law to come out of retirement after selling his body shop, and help me finish putting this baby back together...

Well I was able to talk my father-in-law into coming out of retirement for awhile. The shops new owner (his cousin) agreed to help with the project and my car would be a filler project for when they didnt have other repair jobs at the moment. I told them that was fine and I wasnt in a hurry to get it back..(liar).. but I wanted it done right too....So I trailered it to his town which is a 4 hr drive and they started working on it. The floor and truck had some very small pin holes which they patched up. The only draw back to the rear clip was that it came from a car with opera windows in it..Oh well, too late now...but they had to redo what the old body shop had done..not very good work....It didnt take long however for my father-in-law to realize he was 69yrs old and hasnt done any body work for over 10yrs. I heard "my aching back" and "my bad shoulder" I told him to go easy on himself but he realized he should leave most of the work to the current owner..so that took awhile longer.....   

fenders and doors in red. Only the inside of the jams were finish at this point, ready to bolt back on...I was alittle worried when I first saw them, thought the red was way off but I was assured it was the 2B and that it would look quite different once the finish coats and clear are on

It looks like the floors and trunk were in really good shape.I know damn dust collects on everything if you don't wrap it up.You can have a new door jamb sticker made by martiauto works.I think it was like $25 and a report is like $40.They did mine and came out just like original.

fenders and doors replaced and alignment checked, found out driver's door hinges were bad, got those replaced

When the previous owner had the accident, he almost had a stroke when his insurance company said they would give him something like $3500 which is what they thought the "book" value was for the car at the time, a basic '76 2dr Gran Torino. Luckly he got some help from starskytorino.com who was able to give him some documents to show his insurance company the actual value of the collector car..he must have been a good costumer too because they came to an agreement to pay for the whole repair. Then after getting over that headache, the body shop went under before the job was completed and he gave up and sold it...He learned a valuable lesson on having a old car valued for an "agreed upon" price for an auto policy.

We went with pure toner for the stripe (another Ralph tip) I told my father-in-law to call me when he had it marked off. I had to make sure it was exactly where I wanted it.

red coats are on, paper removed from stripe ready to shoot the whole thing in clear. Thought about just leaving it like this...............not. 

Well, its finally out of the paint booth. Its been sanded and buffed and has a fantastic shine!! Side mirrors, front bumper and grill put back on..I wish I could take some credit for it but I've been leaving it up to my father-in-law and the guys at the shop. They're the pros. Instead of bringing it back home, its going to stay in storage there until the snow melts..I know.. its kill'n me.. Especially the other day, we broke a record with 50 degrees in Green Bay..Getting the bug. But winter isnt over. And I dont want to trailer it for 4 hrs on the salt dusted highways..I may have a lead on an enclosed trailer though so I may use that..The undercarriage isnt going to be anything special. Just going to reundercoat it. The interior is still gutted out. I ordered an interior kit from Dearborn, seat covers, carpet, headliner, armrests, and a bunch of other goodies to install but I'm going to have an interior shop take care of installing most of that. I've got enough $$ tied up already and being somewhat of a novice at restoration I'm going to leave some of the big stuff to the pros..Dont want to have to pay for something twice, thats for sure..

Time to come home!! Those Uhaul car transports work pretty nice...

One of my first jobs is to take the dash completely off,  need to clean everything up and probably put in a new heater core while I'm at it. Also painting the lower dash black..Got a tilt column to put in as well.

Ha, you funny man Ralph!! I got the battery recharged. hows that? lol...I checked out some wheel dollys at Fleet Farm today, $90. a piece, to put under the tires so I can push the Torino off to the side and get our other two daily drivers inside in case there is a storm. I'm paronoid of hail storms, my wife had her brand new car hailed on years ago, 3 days after driving it out off the showroom floor...For now mine is staying outside.

I had my painter go 1/8" wide to keep it more subtle looking.The leak is probably the front pump seal,its cake to change once the trans is out,but you should inspect pump bushing behind it if the seal is out.If thats to worn,you'll leak even with a new seal.