My Son and his 71
 

My son rescued this 71 parts car that I had when he was about 6 ( his is about to turn 15 in a short bit) and decided he wanted to restore it too. Turns out it was actually an interesting car 71 Lemans sport 400 4bbl, 4spd, air 3.36 gauges car in silver. Well it needed a bunch and we bought a shell to donate some parts from a board member and he has been tearing into it. So I guess it is the start of another project to go with the 2 I am working on now. He is motivated to do it and seems to be borrowing my parts quite well but I am glad he has an interest in it too.

That 3rd pic looks great.New metal or did he paint it? I would be happy to donate what ever parts i may have for his project.

400 4spd LeMans Sport, that a rare one. Way to keep your son involved in the hobby.

It is a fairly rare car, non endura. I have a correct date motor for it that came from poncho mike, the body shell came from a board member, one of my local friends gave him a carpet. He has one NOS fender and the other is really nice, a decent trunk lid, the car has all it's interior it is not great but it is all there. I bought him a header. he is on the hunt for a core suppt. and valance panel eventually and I will keep an eye out for a driver quality bumper. Overall he has most all he needs and he has been plowing driveways with our Kubota to pay for things. Mom keeps him out of the college acct, a buddy of mine is going to let him do so work and teach him (he is a plumber) so he will have some cash so he has a strategy. Another friend gave him a set of 15 inch rallys and my brother gave him a set of tires. It is fun seeing him work through it and learn and thanks for the offer of parts he may need it as I don't have everything for him. Mark

That floor is the original, he cleaned it to absolutely spotless in 2 days and painted it.

hi, guys I'm the kid who owns the car and thanks for the help offers! i will certainly need all the help i can get. Mr. Joe, the floor has been painted by hand in Por 15 black rust protective paint. thanks again for the help. Jon

Nice job!Hard work pays off and it shows!

i parted a 71 4 speed Lemans Sport a few years ago..it was a loaded up car.

i have grilles if you need them..for free if you use them, maybe some other stuff when ya get to the point ya need them...send me a list...id like to see the stuff get used..

thank you for the offer of the parts and the praise on the work. the goal is to have this primed and some more of the dents pulled out before the end of thanksgiving so it can get put away in the garage. i will upload pics when its ready to go in. if you guys want to upload some reference pic, that would be helpful. thanks, guys. Jon

some more pics of the kid in action

we pulled most all of the major dents with a stud welder and welded some old slide hammer holes in, hammered and dollied out the others that we could to minimized filler and with the good weather were able to put it in epoxy primer followed by a layer of high build primer.

Damn that's looking good! I'll poke through my hoard later this week and see what I have that you could use. I have to run up to Cape Cod in the next week or two and could probably drop the stuff off.

:thumbup:

that's great! i can use all the help i can get. thank you. Jon

I am excited to see him growing up and trying to be responsible, it is tough with all of the distractions out there. I think a goal and working towards something is important, I did this when I was a kid, I was given a 52 ford 2 door sedan (it was really too rough to do anything with but I tried (and failed)). My dad gave me some parts and a really cool dealer light up sign that I still have. I learned about car guys and started making some really cool friends and continue to meet interesting people through the hobby. It is nice to have a network of people (my wife says enablers) to lean on for knowledge and parts to put one of these back on the road.

I see the motivation too. Your car lineup is appealing to him I bet....start on this one and dad will let me do a roundy next. Seriously you have a great kid there!

We have our issues but he is actually a great kid, volunteers at the VA to take the hospital bound vets out on outings and does a bunch for my elderly family members when I am not able to. The weather is getting harder to deal with here so he has slowed down for a few days. We are going to work on it this pm a bit and over the weekend carve some space in the garage for him to get in and work on it. He has to fight his sister for the cars, she worked on the judge with us a bunch. He likes the 70 and wants a blue round port TA. The daughter likes the GT-37 and the 70 Judge. Funny they are both not killing each other over the 69 judge or the SD? He will be and has been involved with restoring all of them, I have a picture of him at probably a year old trying to drive the GT-37, the huge smiles tells the tale. I will have to post that one on here as it is funny.

I took out the already cracked windshield as practice and started to clean the lip around where the new glass will go. I also started tearing into the old donor car yesterday, and i will post pics of that after i finish. after finishing the windshield area, then comes the cleaning of the frame and fire wall. i have fenders that need to be stripped and reprimed and a passenger door as well as the trunk lid, but the driver door is stuck shut and is nice but won't come off without taking off the junk fender. oh well, such is life. the nose is wrong on the donor, but the bumpers are ok and the dash came out with 3 minor cracks. the next project is to find a decent core support. the shell has found its home in the barn. Jon

Rear bumper is ok as a core, front is rusted through, most likely not even good as a core. He has it inside so things are moving along for him and he can work better this way anyhow. Mark

Is there any rust or holes in the windshield rail? I had a couple of pin holes that had to be filled.
I'm reassembling the 71 Convert. Can you take a picture from under the car? I need a good pic of how the fuel lines attach to the body. They meet above the rear axle in the center. There should be a total of 4 lines going to the tank. One attaches to the end of the tank going to the front. I can't find the pics from before I took it apart and just want to make 100% of their locations.

I have a couple of pics of my son who was 14 when he bought this LeMans He's 33 now. He was doing the exact same thing as you in the interior!!

Hi I will try to get some shots from under the car later for you, Things are busy yesterday and today and the kido has been very busy with homework so not too much being done in the shop in the last few days. Mark