07/14/2008 - The Teardown Begins

First things first. Time to get the canopy and rear end off the car. Lets see what I am up against.

Happy 4th! Time to get to work!

The windshield is almost falling off. Since it is NOT broken, time to carefully remove it and set it aside.

Success! It is now safely plopped on top of my Amphicar. The screws holding the front of the canopy frame were rusted solid. I had to cut them off. Something tells me that I am going to end up replacing all of the nuts and bolts on this car.

On to the canopy. Typical conglomeration of slot and philip head screws. Lots and lots of rust. Hopefully there is enough sheetmetal to work with.

Another view of the canopy screws. I am going to remove the top frame later.

I ended up drilling out most of the canopy screws. Off it came! I now have a much better view of what is going on here. Still a mess, but oh so clever. Those two lines on top of the remaining floorboard are the battery cable and the fuel line. I think I can route them through the center tunnel of the new floorboard.

Rear section next. Oh, this is gonna be tough...two rusty c-clips!

A nice view of the rear suspension. The rubber suspension has been taken off, which creates a swing arm. The big shock/coil spring is going to have to be replaced. I don't know if you can tell in the picture, but the spring is held on by muffler clamps!

I just added this to show how much it looks like a old race car with the canopy removed. This is gonna be a fun project!!

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