I traded the beater away. I still have the truck kit, but don't know if I am going to use it on this. The spare engines will get sold to finance this new baja.

Sounds like a plan! That's a good find -have fun in it!

I am moving forward with the baja. I am not going to make this baja into a pickup. The paint will more than likely be UV protected bedliner. Tony helped out with some photo shop images using yellow, black and orange. Take a look and let me know what you think. I'm leaning towards the orange and black or a darker version of the yellow with black.

I have a liking to Chevy Orange.

The driver's side fender and nose are now repaired. I'll sand them tomorrow and fill the minor areas with bondo. I picked up some gloss black Rustoleum auto enamel to paint the nose and fenders- tomorrow or Tues.

I like the black and orange. Let us know if it is a lemon or pumpkin

To me with the dimpled bed liner it's either an orange or a lemon. Can't wait to see what you decide.

YA thats the fruit I was thinking of. You know us old farts cant remember a thing.

The yellow and white stand out.

It's not that old age thing - we live in the South West where we grow citrus so that's the first thing I think of!! Although with the black and orange there is a Holoween/jackolantern thing going on!
Merry Christmas!

I have a lot of sanding to do to the repaired areas. I didn't get the painting done- which is a good thing because I won't be painting the fenders, nose and hood black. That's just too much black!

I will eventually use bedliner on the whole car, but for now will use Industrial enamel paint with a hardner. I won't tip my hat as to the color yet- mostly because I will probably change my mind again!

Since I'm waiting for my carbs, I hope to have the paint on by the time I get my carbs back. Time to find a roof rack as well.

I took the rear fiberglass cowl off and look what I found! A brass name plate that covered the computer port.


On it, is a neat stamping- which dates when the work was done.

"CREATED FOR JODI M. 1999"

The nose piece had a large hole in it when I bought it. I tried repairing it, but I'm not happy with it. I'm going to pull it off and put a nose from our other project on it. It's also a bug eye nose, but is made for pre-67 headlights. I have the big headlights and had the glass for them until I just busted one to take a picture- CRAP! But, that gives me an idea! I'll remove the glass and put a screen on it to prevent rocks from damaging the headlight.

I'll try to properly repair the original bugeye nose and decide at a later date which style I like better before it gets painted.

Also, I changed the throttle return spring and think the bug will run well enough to drive around on a 30 day tag. My carbs should be back from the Kaddyshack next week. It's killing me that I haven't been able to drive my "new" baja! I hope to change that tomorrow, if MVD is open!

I'll change out my plug wires, fuel filter will be relocated to under the tank, and my new cap and rotor. I'll wait to change the plugs until I change carbs. I got Mann oil filters and will change both filters and oil as well.

I started to repair the old headlight style bugeye nose piece. I ground away the cracked area, cleaned with mineral spirits, cut plastic sheeting and taped it to the front of the nose. I then mixed the resin, filled the crack and surrounding area. Then I put a cut piece of fiberglass matt on it, and doused it with more resin. I hope I did it correctly. I use to just clean the area and apply it on top of the crack. A video I watched showed to do it this other method. We'll see how it turns out tomorrow...



I also spend the evening at Home Depot, looking for metal screening to make the headlight protective screens for the pre-67 headlights. Since I'm removing the glass (boneheaded slip up on my part since I shattered one of the protective glass covers tonight), the screen will lay flat against the inside of the bezel. The original glass was domed, and were heavy. I think the homemade stoneguards will be the cats meow. I found a roll of metal 1/4" screen for $11.



I cut out screens for both bezels and painted them with Rustoleum primer and gray paint. I will use some JB Weld tomorrow to attach them to the inside of the bezel.



Here is a sneek peek to get an idea of what it will look like:

I took the baja for the longest drive since I've owned it. About 15 of the slowest highway miles I've driven! I have soooo much power and torque, but the close ratio transaxle (1.48 3rd, 1.21 4th) doesn't like to go above 50-55mph! Aghhhhh!!!!!!

The baja ran pretty good and is powerful! I swapped to a 31" rear tire, but need to regear my 4th gear to drive anywhere! I put out an email to Don's Bus Box and Az Transaxle to see what my options are. I want to keep the strength of the Super Diff, and 1st, 2nd and possibly 3rd gear ratio (17mph, 33mph and 44 mph).

On a good note, my cylinder head temp gauge and oil temp gauge now work.