COMET CENTRAL

After selling my '64 Comet when I moved from CA to AR, I really missed having a Comet around to work on. I knew it would be hard to find a car in AR that wasn't rusting away (one thing I miss about CA!), so I accepted the fact that I would be doing lots of body work & started searching for a new car. I found this 1965 202 an hour away for a whopping $300, so I decided to pick it up. The old owner had started to swap the suspension over to V8 suspension, so I figured for the price it was at least worth it for parts. I never like to part out a car, so I decided to take on the challenge of fixing the body on this one. I am still new to body work & have never really done any major panel replacement (except for the roof on the '64), so this will be a fun learning project for me!

Here is how the Comet looked when I picked it up, the suspension was only partially bolted together which made it difficult to move. We used a tractor & come-alongs to load it onto the trailer:





We removed the hood & lifted the front using the tractor & a chain, & backed the trailer under the front of the car. I didn't get any pics. during the operation as I was focused on the task at hand!



On the trailer! As you can see the front end is not completely bolted up & is missing the driver side strut rod so it would not roll.



We used an engine hoist to lift the front of the car so we could move it into the shop:



After getting the car up on jack stands I began to disassemble everything. I plan on media blasting this car in the future so I am stripping the body completely down.



The Comet fits nicely between the offroad trucks, I actually sold my first 1965 202 about 12 years ago to buy the Toyota T-100 to the right in this pic. At the time the Toyota was completely stock & was my daily driver for college! As you could probably guess, the Comet will also be getting a roll cage...



Needs a new floor





The rear quarters are the worst part of the car & I predict these will be the biggest challenge to repair:



I don't think the dent in the passenger side door will buff out



Once I had the car mostly stripped down, I started straightening a bunch of areas in the front end. I will post some pics. later today of that work.

To be continued...

Woot! I think that Comet found a good home.

See Ya,
Mike

Nice work so far. I am in the same process with mine. Will be following along.

Next I took all of the front suspension & steering off & started cleaning/straightening some areas.

Here I scraped the undercoating off of the inner fender areas:



Straightened the lip on the front cross member (some of this was from the tractor/chain loading we did!)







The core support was bent on the passenger side, so I used a scrap piece of tubing & a tie down strap to straighten it:



Front all stripped down:



Removed the broken windshield:



After this I moved on to the interior & removed the dash trim, gauge cluster, heater, wiring harness, etc. I don't have any keys for the car so I couldn't remove the ignition switch, so my plan is to take one of the door locks to my locksmith friend & have a key made & hope it fits the ignition!



I plan on getting a new wiring harness for the car, but I marked everything on the original dash harness so I can use it as a reference. Unfortuneatly I dont have any of the rear or under hood wiring




Next I moved on to the rear of the car to start some of the major body repair work. The guy I sold my '64 to added me to some Comet facebook groups once he saw me buy the 202, & I was able to find a nice tail panel from a guy on one of the groups (if you are a member here thanks again!).

Here you can see how banged up the tail panel is:





Rust:





Next I cut the spot welds, the hardest part was finding the spot welds! I used sandpaper to find some of the hidden ones. This car has a lot of spot welds!



Spot welds cut & the tail panel removed:



Old vs. new:



New panel mocked up, it looks so much better now! I still need to work on the rear crossmember behind the panel to get it straight, and right now my welder is not working so this is where I have stopped. I have some time off work for Christmas & New Years so hopefully I will make some more progress then!



Here is a sneak peak of my next project, the rear quarter panels. I bought these patch panels from a guy on ebay, they are not perfect but they are a pretty good start. The lip on the wheel well is slightly wider than the original, but since I plan on doing both sides they will match.

Lookin good! I've been down that tailpanel road, lower quarter road,floor road,,,,most all the roads your traveling ! Too bad you aren't a little closer, I have a pretty good windshield for a sedan that I would let go cheap!

Only a couple of things come to mind, right off the top of my head; Wow! and I am glad you are here! That is about it

See Ya,
Mike

Hey guys, can you hear the youth in this thread? I ran outta breath just reading it to this point!
Keep the pics coming and keep up the great work!
Fred

Where's that like button?

lavron wrote:Only a couple of things come to mind, right off the top of my head; Wow! and I am glad you are here! That is about it

See Ya,
Mike

Yep, ArkansasComet has my respect and admiration. We'll all get a few years younger watching this project move forward.

Keep it coming. You've got the makings of a great how-to manual here.
Jim

Thanks for the nice comments everyone! You guys are really motivating me to keep moving on this project! I work full time & help run a small business on the side, so I am usually working 6 days a week which limits my time to work on this car. I'm afraid my pace will slow down now that I have posted everything I've done up to today, but I will do my best to keep moving & update this thread with more progress!

ArkansasComet wrote: I'm afraid my pace will slow down now that I have posted everything I've done up to today, but I will do my best to keep moving & update this thread with more progress!

GOOD!
The rest of us can relax again,, thought for a minute I would have to go out to the garage and do somethin,,,
Being that 64 hardtops are thee most beautiful car on the planet,,, too bad you had to sell it,,,,
Fred
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Nice to see another sedan about, and in my year too!

SASSY wrote: Being that 64 hardtops are thee most beautiful car on the planet,,, too bad you had to sell it,,,,

I agree, after owning the '64 hardtop I told myself I would never own another sedan because the hardtop is so nice looking! But this 202 was too cheap to pass up & reminds me of my first car (shouldn't have sold that one either!) I am saving up for another '64 hardtop now

Here's a pic of my first sedan when I sold it, all it needed was a headliner & paint!

Hey Ark, I was just stirring the pot, there is a BIT of a rivalry between the 64-5s.
Im sure you will be drawn into that discussion at some point, enjoy the ride!
Fred