[The "A" Team]

Hi everyone, thank you for having this forum, and hopefully somebody can help me. I apologize in advance for the long story.

I live in Northeast NJ and many years ago father belonged to the Asphalt Angels Car Club here where he showcased his '49 - '50 Packards and 1930 Ford Model A Coupe. He unfortunately passed away this past November and while he sold his Packards a few years ago, he kept the Model A (he probably bought it in the late 70s, early 80s when I was a kid). He graciously left me the Model A in his will, and I definitely don't want to get rid of it and would like to start trying to restore it in the spring.

This is where it gets a little tricky. The car needs some MAJOR body work as around 10 - 15 years ago my father took it apart to paint it, but only got as far as painting the fenders, and right now the car is still in pieces (basically the body sitting on the chassis), and the body only has a coat of primer on it. It was also stored in a garage that had a leak in the roof and any exposed metal has a good amount of rust along with the seats, steering wheel and door panels having a slight film on them (mold?). He also took the car’s roof off and there is definitely some weakness and wood rot in the roof slats, and both the headliner and interior cloth material are trashed. He also had the engine rebuilt, but it’s been sitting on an engine stand for years without any oil in it, and is showing signs of interior rust. I moved it to my garage a couple of weeks ago to try to prevent more rusting.

That being said, I just don't know where to begin. I'm pretty handy with tools, as I was taught by my father, but I'm not so good with body work, especially with this car. I'm not sure if I should get a running chassis going before attempting body work, or do the body work before attempting to reinstall the engine, transmission, etc. I also need a reference of what the chassis looks like with the engine, transmission, etc. removed, because for example, it looks like there's a "sheet metal" plate below where the engine goes that's in two pieces, and I'm wondering if it should actually be one piece. I bought a bunch of Model A restoration books that were published from the 30s up to the 2000s, and while they have a lot of information in them, I just don't see enough about body work.

I did look around for shops that do body work and/or restoration on antique cars, but with my available funds being very minimal, it just doesn't seem feasible.

I attached some pics I took of it in my garage, and I may have some better pictures my mother took as we were moving it. I'll try to get them asap. I had to put the pics into a PDF document because the files were too big to insert as actual pics.

If anybody can help me with this restoration, please let me know.

Thank you everyone.

John