Time for the Body

I restarted this restoration project around January 1 of 2016. Although it doesn't look like it from what sits in my shop, I remind myself that a lot has happened in the past 11 months, even with delays here and there.
I'm to the point where there's not much peripheral stuff left to do. Many components have been either restored and boxed up for later, or trashed and replaced with something new. There's still the hood to restore, and I haven't finished the passenger front fender, but by and large, there's only one thing left to really tackle. The body.

The body the last time it was on a cradle...in 1999

I've been pecking away at the body here and there all year. Repair of the passenger A pillar in the summer provided a distraction from other areas, and I just finished two months of work on the trunk and rear underbelly.

17 years later....not much seems to have changed!

Over the last weekend, I began toying with the notion that I might, just might, be able to get the body cleaned and painted by the one year anniversary and install it permanently on the frame. After a good hard look, both at my task ahead and the holiday/work schedule, I think I'll have to give up on that idea.
Last weekend I rolled Old Yeller out into the sunshine once again and devoted my Sunday to sandblasting. Unfortunately, my blaster was acting up, so I didn't get as far as I had hoped. At least I got a good start, though. The driver's side is more or less completely derusted, and I've even spread a little metal body filler on top of a coat of etching primer.

Next weekend's task....the passenger side

I wrote out  list of daily tasks to complete over the work week with the goal of finishing the sandblasting next weekend. Today was a really difficult work day, though, and I wasn't able to get anything done this afternoon. Tomorrow will be the same, so my schedule has already gone out the window.

Things look a little more encouraging from this angle

Nonetheless, I think I can still have the majority of the blasting done by Sunday, especially since I did some badly needed servicing on my blaster, so it should operate better for me.
I still have the driver's A pillar to repair, along with some minor rust holes along the rear window channel. Then it's down to body filler and sanding. Which sometimes is even less fun than the sandblasting.