Well, with the coming of GG and the bluebird projects, work on RR became sporadic. At times I just wanted to part it out and get rid of it. My dad had different plans for it though. He wanted a nice Mustang for him and my mom to drive every couple of days, or to drive on weekends. He didn't want a strip monster, nor a corner carving canyon racer, just something nice to drive. So starts the epic tale  (HA) of RR part 2. The history of this car gets a little fuzzy, but its in chronological order to the best of my memory. After the hideous accident left it dented and thrashed, RR came home. Off came the front sheetmetal (again) and work on the underside commenced. All my dad's pop rivets held through he 25 mph frontal impact  with said T-bird. To say the least I was impressed. I didn't think they would hold through a gust of wind, let alone an accident. The driver side fender had to pulled and banged back into shape, and the hood had to be straightened. The hood was ruined already do we just sorta straightened it out the best we could. I bought a set of headlight buckets from a friend, and we bolted the wreck back together.
    It now looked like a true junker. The headlight buckets were primer, as was the front part of the hood. The chrome around the grill opening was ruined and not installed. the valence had been banged back into place and was painted black. It was a true wreck. I wanted to just part it out and get rid of it, I had just bought GG and had no interest in this junker any longer. However my father did have an interest in it so we started looking for a new hood. I found one in Campbell, CA at this guy Sam's house. When I got there, I found out he had a whole 68 Stang to part out except the drivetrain. The 289 c-4 combo was getting put into a 65 falcon. What we also found was surprising. The hood was in great shape, he wanted $20 for it. We said great and pulled it off, the rest of the front sheetmetal was in good shape so we him an offer, 100 for the rest of the sheetmetal from the windshield forward. He said great and took the $$ real quick. it took us about an hour and half and we got it all. I also got a 68 gas cap for 10 bucks for WL. Now we had a small problem, the sheetmetal was blue, the car was red and there was no money for paint :-(. To top it all off, this was right around the time we were pulling the motor out and dropping in it WL. So now the car had sheetmetal in the back yard the motor and tranny in the garage, and no time to work on it cause we were busy with other car projects.
    So it sat and sat and sat. Till finally my mother was sick of this wreck sitting in the front yard and told my dad to do something about it. He did, we took a weekend and dropped the motor & tranny combo back in, bolted in new headers to replace (the Heddmen's that I stole off it for WL). It ran again, though not great, the motor and tranny are both pretty tired. They would have gotten rebuilt but RR was the last project to do on a list of many. We took another weekend and bolted the front sheetmetal back on the car. Have I mentioned yet how much I hate working with the body on a car? I hate pulling and reinstalling sheetmetal. It is even worse after its painted, one small movement and you have a freshly painted scratched up panel. This is the fourth time we have sheetmetal off this car, and we haven't even owned it five years yet :-(. Anyway we bolted it on, the car ran but looked like a junker still. My dad didn't care that much though, he drove it all over the place, anything to keep the miles off his Lincoln (a 90 Mark VII). It also kept his Lincoln in the garage where it wouldn't get scratched. The summer of 98 I got tired of having a car that was two different colors, so I decided that my friends and I could primer it, I felt even primer would be better than red and blue and orange and black.
    My brother's neighbor and our friend worked at an automotive paint supply store so we got all the supplies, and started at the trunk. It was a large relatively flat surface I could learn sanding and bodywork on. So we sanded and sanded and sanded... and then sanded some more. We went ahead and primered it, it looked okay, but nowhere as near as good as it I had hoped. About this time my dad decided to just go ahead and find someone to paint it. My friend Frank (who worked at the automotive paint supply house) knew a guy who could do it cheap, and did good work (HA) He wanted 600 to spray it and 400 to fix the quarters. At places the quarters had a 1/4 inch thick layer of bondo. It was put down over the original orange paint even. Both had cracked and looked really bad. The deal was we would sand the car, then Hector (the painter) would do a final prep and shoot it along with the bodywork on the quarters.  So we sanded some more and pulled the bumpers and other assorted chrome. My Dad picked a 97 Ford color, Ultra Red, it was a lot brighter than we wanted it to be. I had a feeling it might be, especially since the name was Ultra Red. On a car with the amount of bondo and body damage this car had, it's amazing it doesn't look worse. I wasn't happy at all with the finish on the fresh paint job. It was real rough and dull. I later found out the Hector had never worked with a single stage paint before, only dual stage paint jobs (basecoat / clearcoat). Single stage is a lot harder to spray, and a lot easier to get an orange peeled surface.  The car really needed to be wet sanded and rubbed out, but we were afraid to do it cause, he hadn't prepped the car well at all and there were primer cracks in several spots. We didn't want to do anything to harsh for fear the paint job would just peel right off. I have gotten better paint jobs at Maaco. Instead of fighting with him about it, my dad just chalked it up to experience, next time we will know better when picking a painter. After washing it (with sillicate free) soap and glazing it, the car looked pretty good. Especially when I put a decent set of wheels on it. They are 15*7 American racing Gambler II's. Picture's can be found here. Now the car was painted and looked pretty good. It needs interior work, a new dash pad and some wheels and the car will be about done. As off 30.8.99 the rear end is out and on the workbench. We pulled the rear axle assembly and swapped it for the one in GG because they suited the cars better that way. The 3.55 gears and t-loc went to the performance car, the 2.79 gears and open diff went to the nice daily driver. However after finishing the rear end for WL we ran into problems with the rearend for RR. The gearset was trash, the pilot bearing had disintegrated (hmm I think I figured out why it was whining...) and the pinion bearings needed replaced.
    I was willing to farm it out, probably to Rearend Specialties in Santa Clara, till I found out about a fellow fordnatic and 5ohnatic's experience there. The archives to both lists are found at listquest.com Click on hobbies, then search key word: Rearend Specialties. Once I found out about what happened, I decided I could do it myself, if it fails, I can find another shop. I have finished work on the centersection, new bearings, crush sleeve and pinion nut. I just have to find time to put it back in the housing, paint it and reinstall it. Thus ends the saga of RR, at least for now.
 

Update 5-6-00
The car is still in one piece. My Dad has it at his house, and drives it as much as weather permits. For now I am just trying to make sure the motor lasts till I can get Cleve-zilla built. We did add a pertronix ignitor to replace the points, since the damn thing will barely run anymore. It has a sporadic and annoying water leak, We are sure it isn't the cowl, or windshield. And we are 99% sure its not the windows either, since you can cover the cowl, the windshield and the side windows and it still leaks. Thankfully  I have all summer to find it. That car has kinda been neglected since I am trying to finish Green Ghost, my cross sport project.

More updates in the future as work progresses.