Alan, what a bummer. Kids now a days don't realize how good they have it. I have 6 kids, 3 grown and moved on, 3 still at home. Each one of them have their strengths and weaknesses and it is so disappointing, as a parent, when they mess up. I do think that sometimes Tough love is harder on us. But good for you in sticking by your guns so that she learns there are consequences to their actions. And, unfortunately, this is a big one.

This won't be your last disappointment Alan. Kids want to experiment and they think they know it all. Don't go too hard on her, see if she is willing to work with you so you both get what you want. Teenagers can be real trying, raised 2, plenty of disappointments but they both turned out pretty good and I'm proud of both of them. Just something you have to work through, too bad there's no handbook to tell you how to deal with all the things that will come up.

It's funny. I said I wanted a girl because I didn't want another "me" running around. These girls are the polar opposite of me. I guess I got what I asked for. I'm sure Cora will get another chance at a car. Next time, ..she'll have to work just a little bit harder for it, though. I keep hoping one day soon everything will "click" and she starts kicking it in gear a little harder. I have no doubt Kasie, our middle girl, will do fine. She tries harder at things than I ever did. The youngest is 8. She's always off in her own little world. I hope I can real her in before it becomes a problem.

She will come around, I have 3 and the oldest one gave me a run for my money and he is now 27 and I could not be prouder of him as it took him a while to fiqure out that bucking the system is a no win situation. Good job sticking to your guns on the car as I know it is hard on us to do than it is on the kids sometime. Chin up and keep up the good parenting.

Well said.

I got some rust repair done on the Bel Air.

Look at the eyebrows and around the headlights. They're actually MUCH worse than they look. Someone did some shoddy patch work before. I had to cut out all the garbage and weld in new metal.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...1BelAir005.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...1BelAir001.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...ke68/008-1.jpg

I didn't get any in progress shots, but here it is done. Keep in mind there is NO plastic on these yet. This is just the raw metal work.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...trepair001.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...trepair002.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...trepair003.jpg

...and the driver's side. While this side looked better, it was MUCH worse. Check what was used to back up the inside of the fender so all the fiberglass resin didn't leak through.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...trepair004.jpg

Here it is done. The section under the eyebrow was completely gone. I had to rebuild the entire front 5" of the fender.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...trepair007.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...trepair006.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...trepair005.jpg

..and the headlight assemblies fit beautifully, too. On to the fender bottoms and quarter panels.

Nice work!

Thanks Carpoor.

More metal work's been done on it. Almost all of the rust is gone now. The more I look at this car, the more I'm impressed with it. It is 100% original! I still have the owner's manual in the glove box, the push button AM radio works and the original spare, bumper jack and tire iron are in the trunk. How cool is that?!

I envision that car with a 348/409 and a super t-10, body color steel wheels with dog dish caps. :D

That's funny. I'm half-heartedly looking for a 348 for it. I'll keep the factory 235 if someone would want to make it original again. It had the factory full cover hub caps, but I saw these and had to have them. I hadn't thought about the "poverty caps". That's a good idea.

I really like what you are doing to your car.

There is something about those old W engines that makes them cool. My ex's father has a few 348 & 409 cars. One is a factory 348 tri power convertable with a four speed and air conditioning. I used to walk past that car in the warehouse and daydream about what it would be like to bang gears in it.

So did you ever get to take it for a ride ?

Nope, Dale doesn't let anyone drive his cars - not even his daughter. He rarely drives them, he has 30+ cars and trucks. He would have been the ideal father-in-law.

I would to but another stock Nova.Novas rock.

I like the Novas too. My brother had a 10 second '72 Nova. We would spend every weekend at the drag strip. I miss those days at Detroit Dragway.

My fitst car at 15 was a 69 Nova POS but I loved that old car .

Yup, Novas are pretty cool. I'm always on the lookout for a first gen gasser candidate, but the deals always come around when I can't do anything about it. :(

Last weekend I was at a car show and my dream car pulled in. It was a 2 door Nomad.......Someday I will own one, and I will drive the hell out of it.

Not a Nomad, but I painted this for a guy about a year ago.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...gondone004.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...gondone003.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...gondone005.jpg

WOW ,I like them 2 door wagons ,looks nice.

Thanks, John. I really pulled that paint job out of my butt. The customer bought his own paint. It was dirt cheap. It was crazy toxic, it dried before it hit the surface and the dust and overspray was HORRIBLE!!!! Some areas looked like 80 grit sandpaper. I was able to wet sand and buff 95% of the uglies out. We were both nervous there for a while.

I could "suffer" with something like that. :)

Yeah, but this is how the paint laid out from the gun....

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...agon/57001.jpg

It's hard to see in the picture, but the finish was REALLY bad when I shot it.

I could always have it repainted. :)

I thought I'd share my latest project. I started it about 9 months ago. I have about 400 hours in it so far and all the fab work is done. It's still on the fence whether or not I'm going to do the paint work on it.

A guy bought an old, rotted out '66 F100.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...project008.jpg

He had an '85 Bronco he couldn't get a title for.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...opstuff012.jpg

The idea was to put the '66 body on the Bronco chassis. Some problems arose and to make a long story short, I had to fabricate about 60% of the truck from scratch. ...including using half the frame from the '66 and half the frame from the Bronco. (more or less.) Here's some of the obstacles I had to overcome.

The Bronco frame had a real bad kick up in front of the rear axle.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p.../66Ford003.jpg

So I had to use the rear frame rails from the '66, but the Bronco crossmembers so I could still use the suspension and in-frame gas tank. This also stretched the wheel base a full two feet.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...Chassis005.jpg

Then I tried to put the body on the modified chassis but it wouldn't fit. So I had to fabricate the lower part of the cab, repair all the rust damage and change three support members on the bed.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...removal002.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...eboards001.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...orsdone001.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...support003.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...edfloor001.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...support001.jpg

Then I had to change even more stuff to fit the tilt wheel, pedal assemblies and power brakes.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...gcolumn001.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...gcolumn002.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...dmounts006.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...hanical005.jpg

Finally, I'm left with this....

A 1966 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4. The only one on the planet.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...50BUILT001.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...50BUILT002.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...50BUILT003.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...50BUILT004.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...50BUILT007.jpg

Now, the build was a ton more complicated than this, but these are the highlights.

I love those trucks! Any of them from that era are just awesome, Chevy Ford or Dodge.

I would love to do something similar, but on a modern Chevy drivetrain with a 5.3L

:ntwrthy: Excellent fab work!

wow. that was a lot of work, but I think it is cool.

Thanks! It was a long road for sure. But for a custom, one off budget build by myself, I think 9 months was pretty good. It was mostly financed by selling parts off of the parts trucks we didn't use.

Wow ,nice work and I too like those trucks .

flash, I don't think that you have ever met a Truck that you didn't like.

Nice work on the truck, I had a 64 F100 pu short wide box in college, I have been looking for another one to fix up.

I got a screamin' deal off of Craigslist yesterday, so I thought I'd share. I paid $1,200 for this and drove it home 100 miles. It needs some work to be safe, (it has no brakes :o) but other than that, it drives like a dream. A little bodywork and paint and it'll be a fun cruiser.

1967 Impala all original 283/PG, non A/C car.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps7309ff36.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps9f73b83c.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps7fde6f36.jpg

The matching mags for the rear are in the trunk, I just have to put a set of tires on it and fix the brakes and a couple light bulbs and it's ready for the road again!

Alan ,you should be ashamed ,you stole that thing .You know we want to see more ,that is a cool old ride .