A few weeks later and I was pretty ambitious, did some roof repair and fender repair, got the wheel unstuck, got some taillight assemblies.
From there I didn't do much except try to acquire parts. I got a 59 Biscayne 4 door and a 1960 Bel Air 4 door from a field in Iowa I think it was. They didn't have a whole lot of good left on them but I saved extra gauges, gauge pods, a radio, steering columns, and pulled a 283/turboglide out of the 60. I saved alot of linkages and clips and other odds and ends stuff you can't really get anymore. I wish I had pictures of those cars but I regretfully didn't take any. I still have a TON of old postcards and roadmaps and tourguides i saved from that 60. I wonder if they are worth anything? In retrospect I should have saved a whole lot more off of them before sending them both to the crusher. Lesson learned.
I also managed to grab a 327 with a 350? trans out of a 67 Chevelle to use, since that ol' 283 ended up being locked up tight. I did save the valve covers off of it though. This round of pictures was taken when it was all thrown together to be moved from the shop (where we didn't have room) to my house at the time. I did start to do more to it there, including having it completely off the frame and on jackstands, starting removing what undercoating was left underneath, and starting to disassemble and clean the frame components. Well then I moved from that house to another, so it went from a bare chassis and a body, back to a complete car with full driveline and body parts installed in about 8 hours. These old cars sure are easy to fix compared to ones today. Needless to say after having it completely apart and then back together again, I was less than ambitious to start over in a new smaller garage.
I had also bought ANOTHER 60 Biscayne parts car from ebay. It was cheap, and a 2 door. I was able to keep the front seat out of that one, along with ANOTHER set of gauges, pods, steering column, wiring, etc. Sadly that too had to go to the crusher with way more on it that I didn't get to save, just for the lack of room for it. Believe it or not, this thing had sat for 30+ years, and was an inline 6 with a 3 speed on the column. While I had it at the shop taking it apart, just for the hell of it I threw a new battery in it. Would you believe the lights still worked? Then the kicker of it all.. I didn't have a key, but I used a power probe to mess with the ignition switch wiring, and after a few thuds... the motor actually turned over! The gas tank had rotted out and it was missing plug wires, so it wasn't going to run, but it was still good. I regret crushing it. Here are some pictures of that car...