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Comment by Jason Edge on December 14, 2015 at 5:04pm

Here are some details I shared on my FB page I thought I would share here. I was asked about what I had done and the cost. Here were my replies:

Left side was straightened and repainted from LH rear qtr to LH door to LH front fender. Fender skirt was reinforced and upper and center grill pieces painted. This completed a 12 month project where my body many started in Jan with RH front fender in Jan, RH door in Feb, RH rear qtr and decklid this summer, and then put back in the shop Nov 10 to complete the repaint. I had had it painted in 2003 but had some waves and picked up some nicks of the years.

Regarding cost:

 I think it was $50 / hr. The owner of Lee's Collision in Clayton NC took this on as a side project and worked it in doing most of the work himself. He was real meticulous on the hrs showing me his log sheet whenever I would stop by, and this past time was 30 hrs which was $1500. I think he actually enjoyed having the car in the shop, as he does mainly insurance work like most shops. We are both good ole southern boys with similar tastes and have complete trust in his work. He had fixed a few mishaps over the years, but does not have the extra help or time to just take on the complete car so we did it in stages. It kinda let's me budget it better also by spreading it out.

Some of the things he did that I might include in a future newsletter was to reinforce the fender skirts as they have a very weak spot along the lower lip where they often bend and he reinforced it with some extra steel. Coupes also have a slight ridge if you follow the valley from the door rear ward, where the rear door of a sedan body style would end. I think other wise the body below the beltline is very similar if not the same from this seam rearward. Phillip (Lee) told me he could take the ridge out and make it perfectly smooth...improving a bit on the factory design. I had to think about that for a bit, but said go for it and now there is no ridge down in that valley. So we did some things like that.

OH. A Biggie. He replaced the original door hinges (with 164K miles on the body) with some I had removed from a 41K mile sedan. The front sedans and coupe hinges are the same, and of course support much less weight. The door is now perfectly straight with no drop whatsoever.