Well. I've sold the truck after 26 years and have had a great 1951 Ford Convertible since January 2002. The car was very close to being a driver, built by my close friend Paul Felberg in Augusta, Georgia. Paul had too many projects going and decided to sell the car so I jumped on it.

After doing a lot of work on it, I been driving it around thinking about all the things I wanted to do to it. Finally, I've gotten up the nerve take it into the garage and tear it down to the frame. It's hard to do that to a sweet running car.

So, I started taking pics today before I jumped into it.

My friend Michael Quinn came over and helped me remove the hood, grill, bumper, associated sheet metal to get to the engine and tranny. The "X" member under the car made it so tight, we had to separate the engine and tranny to get them both out.

The list of changes I want to make to the car are as follows:

1. Pull out the 351W and C4 automatic and put them into my 1965 F100. The engine has only about 7K miles on it.

2. Tear the car down to the frame and start there, cleaning and tweaking. Maybe power coat it.

3. Have the body media blasted where I'll prime it with epoxy paint and have it painted again, same color red, by a friend of mine who is in the paint business.

4. Change the 1951 dash out to a 1950 because it has more of a reto look.

5. Replace the 1951 Pontiac grill with a '53 or '54 (I shutter saying the word....Chebby) grill with all the teeth.

6. Install power windows.

7. Repair some places below in the metal where the body supports attach to the frame.

8. Replace the interior with one from a '64 T-Bird with the wrap

around rear seat. Add a full length console from the front to the rear of the car. Build heat into the front seats.

9. Find a 302CI from a late '86 to '92 Ford and put in a 5 Speed manual tranny. Add a hanging pedal set to move the brake booster up onto the fire wall.

10. Change out the manual rack to a power one, my upper body strength can't take anymore parking lot manuvers.

First things first. Now I have to clean up this engine and tranny and get it down into my truck so I'll have a way to move parts to my daughters garage for storage while I work on this. I'm giving myself a year to get this done, I want to drive it as my every day car. Who needs a new car that only the dealers can work on it? This one is more fun to drive anyway.

Since I'm putting this engine down into my '65 F100, I've taken the heads to a machine shop to have hardened seats installed. They're also looking at the valve guides because I think I'm getting a little blow by so we're probably going to put in brass guides. The heads were supposed to be back last week so guess who's sitting on pins and needles...waiting.