I'm at a bit of a standstill right now as debate the direction I am continuing with on the front end. The previous black paint and fluffing it received prior, really sucked. Whoever did it sprayed over the top of grease and dirt in many areas including the front suspension and the subframe. Now that I've cleaned the floors and all of the hard lines from the back of the car forward, it's really looking good underneath the car, and that's where my dilemma kicks in.
My concern was with the front subframe and the suspension but that may be behind me now (lol). I've already detailed the rear diff and cleaned up the frame rails which are miles ahead of what it looked like before. In cleaning the front suspension it really dialed it back to a more natural look, but that made for a mismatch with the rest of the car which has already been repainted with the engine and peripherals already rebuilt. Floors look completely natural now and they are fine like that, but the front subframe and control arms didn't match the rest of the car so I changed direction and gave it some freshening with a mild restoration of sorts. Sparingly applied, I dusted the front suspension and K member and blew in some black paint to dress them up and have the car looking a bit more consistent.
Not what the purists want to see (I can hear their teeth grinding) but it's now done on one side and taken in the direction of a soft restoration where I couldn't leave bare metal and the original finish exposed. In either case, I'm rebuilding the front calipers right now and they will go back on once I have finished cleaning up the dust shields and caliper brackets from the driver's side. Not trying to make it look restored or rebuilt, just a light mist of flat and semi-flat blacks to clean it up and cover any bare spots I dialed back. In the end, I think I'm going to keep this car and will be much happier seeing it like this than having a bunch of exposed metal around an area that's already restored such as the engine and the repaint of the car.
In either case...I think I'm OK with this now. Took a few days to settle with me but I think I made the right choice for the car being what it is. Here are a couple of shots of the passenger side suspension after I cleaned it up, and a shot after blowing some fresh black paint onto it. At least the area was cleaned and prepped this time around. All the dirt and grease were washed away before I fogged it black again. (really I am still on the fence about it) If it doesn't sit well when I'm done, I can always dial it back again. Dilemmas dilemmas. (lol)
