Okay, I spent a few hours crawling all over this car. I guess I'll spare a lengthy post and just summarize. The car has a thousand little things wrong with it, but nothing that worries me too much. Underbody is solid, trunk has some mild scale, can't detect bondo in the known rust areas.
Under the vinyl top where it meets the top of the backlight does have some bubbles, which I know is something to be concerned about, but that could wait awhile. The sailpanel paint is just peeling away showing clean, rust free metal below-no cancer, just peeling paint. The windshield gasket is rotten and the top of the dash shows some water damage-yes, I'm concerned here, too.
Car fired up with just a tap of the starter and idled amazingly smooth. Nice rumble and lope. Can't drive it until Saturday as the 'Cudas need to be pushed out of the way. Shifted into Reverse and Drive without a clunk and no lag. Dipsticks showed clean ATF fluid and oil.
He has a buyer coming from Phoenix tomorrow; I'm in a holding pattern, but if he still has the car Saturday and it drives decent, I'm making a realistic offer.
To answer the AC question; someone was a fabrication artist. A custom panel was made for the firewall, and the AC and heater hoses were routed out the fender well factory cut out area. Looks like a really nice job, but not sure why they took this route on a factory AC car?
I'd give the paint and body a 6 out of 10, the interior a 7 out of 10, and the underbody a 8 out of 10.
Keep the comments and opinions coming. BTW, my wife went with me and she is fine with the purchase, so that alone makes this a go in my mind. Just need to get it at a fair price.
Take care, Bill
