First is my Assessment/Evaluation of my Comet, and a few pictures of my car I took today as she sits.
Starting out I want to say a big thanks to everyone again for the work they have contributed to Comet Central, it has totally changed my evaluation of my car, you have taken a lot of mystery out of the work I need too do.
These are as glamours as it gets for my little '64, I have owned my Comet since 1979 and the paint looks about the same as when I bought it except I have sprayed some rattle can primer on it here and there and have sanded on the hood and never primed it, I am not really into the patina look and someday I would like to see her with fresh paint, but I will talk about that later.
The drivers side;
And passenger side;
My current engine is the original 170 cid that has been bored 30 thou. over, matched pistons, Clifford 264 cam, Mallory dual point, Clifford split header, hardened valve seats, with new valves and guides, and the Offenhouser triple setup with 3 Autolite 1100 one barrel carbs. The engine actually does not have that many miles on the rebuild but want to change it out and I am thinking about keeping this engine intact to maybe use in a different project one day (have to finish this one first)
The few other modifications on my car currently are; 1 inch sway bars front and rear, 8" 4 bolt rear with 4.11 gears, 3.03 3-speed with a Hurst floor shifter, by the way, with this combo the car has no trouble taking off
Now the bad, and that equals RUST, actually very little has changed on the car in the last 30+ years I have owned it as far as rear quarter panel rust, what has changed is where I used to have a perfect trunk floor, I left my car sitting outside for 5 yrs and the trunk seal leaked onto the ultra cool green shag carpet I had in the trunk and rusted it out before I discovered the error of my ways, the same for the front floors, while they contained rust already it is now worse and my torque boxes are rusty on the front, amazingly enough the rest of the floor survived pretty good because I caught it in time and ripped out all the carpet in the car (not green shag).
Trunk rust, both sides next to the wheel wells.
Left side

And right side

As well as ruining my gas tank it rusted in front of the tank, I did not remove my plywood here that is covering the gas tank hole, but you can see how far forward the rust reaches here.

The frame rails are rusty too underneath, not sure how bad but I know they are rusted.
And what caused the trunk rust, besides the carpet? The leaky (dried and cracked up) trunk seal, which also rusted the trunk lip in the front, the rest is ok.

The last bit of rust in the trunk is the bottom of the trunk lid, it is rusted badly on the left rear corner, only on the inside not the outside the rest of the trunk looks fine.
Inside the car both front toe boards, and the driver floor.
Passenger side you can see the rust goes through all three layers of the floor, there is a little rust on the front edge of the floor as well.

Drivers side toe board and the floor is pretty bad in the corner, and I have a mouse nest

The rest of the floor is ok as far as I can tell, but I will examine it further when I get to work on the car.
Obviously I will have an issue with my cowl vents being rusted out and will probably cut the ends off to look inside like a few others here have done.
The outside of the car has the classic case of rear quarter rust.
As a teenager I attempted to slather some fiberglass and bondo on the right rear quarter, I am not too proud of my work

The left side I thankfully left untouched.

There is a small spot of rust on the lower front passenger fender but the picture was more my finger than the rust so I didn't upload it, I also attempted to repair it when I did the rear quarter, but it actually doesn't look too bad, it still will need repaired.
The only other really bad spot is on the right front core support and frame and the bottom of the battery recess, the frame is rusted right at the strut rod attaching point.
That is my Assessment, while I do not like the current condition, I know they are all fixable. Currently the car is, in my opinion, not safe to drive on the highway (besides not having any taillights, interior, brakes or gas tank) because of the rear frame rails and the front frame.
My next post I will begin to lay out the plans to get it back on the road, what I have and what I am considering or looking for, I will be looking for some input on that phase for sure
See Ya,
Mike