Michael's Clunker: Sweet KeyLime Progress

To Andrea's delight is it time to start putting the car back together. I must admit I am a little disappointed that most of the metal work is done but there are still lots of things to do.
This is where I left off in the last blog. Engine not pulled but some of the engine bay has been derusted and painted. All the front end body panels removed.

After being quoted approximately $4,000 to professionally paint the car I came across someones blog who was doing a "$50 Paintjob" on his car. This involved rolling Tremclad on the car. I figured for $50 (really probably more like $200 by the time I finish) that I couldn't go wrong. If it didn't work out well I could just sand/strip it off and have the professional job done and barely be out anything. I also figured that I could do a better job using spray paint. This is the result of my $200 paintjob (about $50 in so far). The first piece I put back on is the front valence:

I then remounted the headlights and started re-installing the wiring. The driver's side fender has also been mounted. I still need to get a lip spoiler:

I stuck the old, rusty, hood back on just to get an idea of how it'll look. I might actually use the rusted one sometimes just 'cause it looks sort of cool:

Another view with the fender in place:

I temporarily stuck the kidney grills and the headlight surrounds in place, again just to see how it'll look:

Here is the good hood temporarily mounted, to check the profile of one of the corners. Sadly I dropped it on the points at the back end of the hood and bent one of them up. A little pounding with the hammer later and repainting the corner and it'll be ready for clear coating again.

And...just for you, Chris, here is a picture of the paint showing the reflectivity. It's not quite done being polished since the battery in my polisher died, but, despite the fact that there is still some orange peel, it looks pretty good in my opinion.