[ZeGermanHam]

Originally Posted by randy1966GTO

I have some rust at the base of the A pillars and across the front of the windshield opening as well and glad to know that repro parts are available.

When I took all the HVAC parts off to install the Vintage Air I was expecting a lot of rust but had almost none. Amazing how much heavy stuff came off and how little parts went back on with the Vintage Air, are you going back with stock parts?

I decided to do my seats this summer and have PUI upholstery on order with 2 months to go. I'm going to follow your progress on the metal work and maybe dig into that next year.

Cheers

At this point in my thinking, I'll probably go with a Vintage A/C system rather than stock. Part of that decision is based on the fact that the fiberglass box under the dash has been cracked and glued together by previous owner(s), so it'll need a fair bit of resto work as well. It's fixable, but I'm not sure it's worth it. I suppose one decision to make will be if I use Vintage A/C rather than stock, is whether I should weld in steel block-off plates to fill the big holes in the firewall. Of course, companies sell non-permanent block-off plates, and I may go that route, but they don't look as clean as if the holes were permanently filled. Part of me thinks it's a no-brainer to have them permanently blocked off, but another part of me recognizes that A/C cars were not terribly common and allowing the car to reverted back to 100% stock at some point (by someone else, after I'm gone...) has its place.

I don't strictly need A/C, since I use it maybe only 3-4 days out of the year living in the Pacific Northwest, but I plan to take the GTO on some long-distance road trips once it's restored, so being able to cruise down the highway with the windows up (i.e., without wind noise) would be nice.

Surprised to hear that it's taking so long for you to receive your replacement upholstery. Is that a normal wait time? I was planning to use PUI with my car as well.