Ok, I think I'll be closing this thread down after this as its too far from body and paint now. So with that I wanted to add a couple old pics of the 71' from shortly after I first got it and pulled the engine. Needless to say I was pretty heart broken when I saw just how stuffed the frame was :-( It was pretty sad for sure, as you can see below.

Shortly after puling the engine, what I started with 6 years ago:

Contrasted with what she looks like now

Notice the frame isn't quite straight here....

Not like the drivers side....

You can see the rusty battery tray area and the kink in the frame just behind the cross member, if you look closely at the second pic you'll notice the TC rod nut is only tightened down about 1/2" to try to compensate for the wheel being almost and inch too far back. Must of had a wicked clunk under braking and really sloppy steering. Evidently they drove the car like this for a long time before breaking an axle in 2000 and parking it outside in that oh so healthy for cars Oakland, CA by the bay sea salt air!

And the core support hood hinge area resembled straightened out crumpled paper...

I don't have a picture of it but the car looked like it had had a stroke, right headlight droopy, bumper sloping to the right, odd angle on the hood and right front tire. Someone took a BFH to the hood latch support and displaced it 3/4" to the right so the hood would latch as it didn't sit straight on the car anymore. Poor thing.....

Well the hood latch is straight now and I expect the hood to close just fine. There will no longer be any droopy eyes for this girl. Things are looking up for sure!

Stay tuned for my new thread as I rebuild the engine and get her on the road, then I can start a going through the car and fixing all the little things. Thanks for all the support and kind words, as always the guys and gals on Classic Z are the best!

Edited May 12, 201311 yr by er34gtt2000jp

You can see the rest of the story here:

http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/open-zcar-discussion/49530-getting-close-my-71-a.html