[oz07]

Hi All-

Thanks in advance for any advice. Here is my situation and my questions and please forgive the long post but I wanted to give you the complete picture. I have a 67 GTO outside and interior are good but the engine compartment is crap! Wrong color on the block, very poor spray can job on the inner fenders and firewall - it's peeling and flaking off in spots. It is an AC car and the core support had rusted on the bottom where they hold water and someone did a "patch" job - looks very bad in appearence but functions fine. The core support is good everywhere else it just the bottom where the radiator sat. I have a replacement that I picked up that is near perfect since I knew someday I would get to this point. Now I want to make it where I can actually open the hood and not be laughed at. My experience level is not a lot - In over the years I've swapped out a few engines but never went any further than removing the hood to get it out. I can build you a house, remove and replace parts on an engine and have a decent mechanical ability but nowhere near an expert when it come to cars. Here are my questions:

What is the smartest way to go about making it nicer under the hood? Remove the engine? Can I get a decent job without removing it?

For the core support will a non experinced person such as myself be able to remove the fenders and replace it and get all things back in alignment without scratching the exterior all up? Should I just have the old "patch" job cut out and welded back with the piece from the other support?

I don't want to miss driving the car this year so I want to be careful how much of a project I tackle. I do want it to look nice though.

I'm not loaded with spare cash but I thought of checking around the Ohio area to see if I could find someone but based on things I've heard IF I could find someone would probablyy cost at least $800 (for engine in) and up. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks