I thought it might be neat to post a few pictures along the way during my project. I need help staying "inspired" to keep working on it. When I look at it now... it seems that I have such a Looooong way to go. But if I go back through some of the older pictures, I feel like I have actually made some progress. My hopes are to have it on the road this summer..... even if it's not totally done. But who's car is ever "totally" done anyways? o No: :laugh: Anyways... Page 1: I bought the car on ebay from Florida in Jan 2003. There were only 3 pictures, none of which were worth a crap. The description was VERY short, and basically said "it needed some work"... so I jumped on it. here's the ebay pictures... #1
2nd and 3rd ebay pics.. I could see that the seats weren't right, and it had a nice dent in the drivers door... but that's about it.
looks like ya got one thats all there...front end looks good in first pic :TU: then again when i got my gs , it looked like show on the outside...but the internals ou:
It took a month or so to get it shipped up here to Ohio, so I had time to get a space cleared out in my shop to work on it. When it arrived, I was completely disgusted about how bad I was ripped off. This thing was a pile of crap. First thing I found was that I couldn't open any of the doors, or trunk. Every single lock and handle was broke. I had to get it through a window. :af: When I finally got in it, I couldn't get it to start. It seemed like the engine was froze. Turned out that it was. FROZE... like ice, not rusted or blown...just frozen. It was full of water. Not a drop of antifreeze. 3 freeze plugs were popped and the water pump was frozen. I yanked the engine to fix that, and got caught up in the "while I'm at its"... You know.... while I'm at it, I might as well detail the engine bay, might as well drop a 455 in it, etc..etc.. Upon further inspection: The front end needed redone The wheels had a 5x5 pattern. Yes, a 5x5 pattern POUNDED over the 5x4 3/4 studs. The rear end was bolted in with 3/8" dia bolts (yes, thats waaay too small) The seats were drywall screwed to 2x4's which were lag-bolted to the floor The back seat was out of a honda or something... not even close The ONLY thing electrical that would work was one headlight I could go on and on. Matter of fact, I just did. But I'll stop now. :laugh: Anyways... here's a few pics from when I forst started tearing her apart in March of 2003...
By April, I had the entire front end rebuilt. Every single part was brand new, includign ball joints, a-arm bushings, and all the brake hardware. I replaced the studs while I was at it, and threw on an old set of rally wheels.... :Brow:
By Mid-April, I had a shiney new 455 about ready to go in her. I got it from Jason Hise (BOP Connection) as a good running engine. I disassembled it, checked the bottom end out (looked good), threw a small TA cam in it, and topped it off with some better heads I had, an old Edelbrock intake and Poston valve covers that I've had laying around for about 10 years. I also picked up one of those goofy 67 air cleaners... p :Brow:
Then I dropped her in for a test fit. Looked good. I was starting to get excited. A 67 GS ragtop has always been my dream... This is still April 2003 remember....
Fastforward to Dec 2005... yes 2005 - 2 1/2 years later! We bought a new house a few months after I dropped the engine in the car, and it's been sitting just like that last picture ever since. Until Xmas/Newyears season... I decided to sell it on ebay. I wasn't working on it, and I figured I might as well get rid of it. I started the auction, and then in the next couple days I dug the car out of hibernation to get better pictures and clean all the dust off... As I cleaned it up and dug out all the new parts that I had bought for it, I changed my mind. I cancelled the auction that day and started working on it. I mean jeeze... I have an entire new interior for it, good 67 bucket seats, engine, trans, I bought a posi rear for it, the front end is new, etc..etc... It's practically done right? :laugh: So I got serious in Jan 2006 about it, and have been working diligently on it almost every night. Here it is Early January..
First thing I did was enlist a "body guy". He's a friend of mine that is pretty good at it. He's no pro, but the price is right, and he'll do a 100 time better job than I could. First thing he tells me is to strip the entire car to bare metal, before he'll even start. If you've never stripped an entire car, you're in for a treat. NOT! I bet it took me 80 hours of D/A sanding to strip the car. I also used a little stripper on the real curvy areas where the D/A wouldn't work very good. The entire car was covered in at least 1/8", mostly 1/4"-3/8" of Bondo. I've never seen anything like it. I've attached a picture of part of the rear wheel well lip. (note how nice it is) Remember, this was hidden under alot of bondo for some reason...
By mid Jan, I had most of the car down to bare metal, and my body guy said I could sell the aftermarket quarter panels that I had because he wouldn't need them.. So off to ebay they went. They didn't make reserve, but I did get an offer from the high bidder and agreed to sell them to him... But while I was waiting for his check to come, I got the passenger side ground down, and found that it was completely gone. By the time I got the 3/8" of bondo ground off, there was nothing but air left. :shock: So now the body guy wants one quarter panel ou: So I send the buyer about 4 emails over a week asking if I can back out of the deal. He never responds to my emails, and his check never showed up. Deadbeat buyer.... thank god! :laugh: So we used them! This picture is last Thursday night (2/16/06)
You guys snuck some replies in on me. p Yes, this thing is definately a full fledged project. But I'm excited about it again, and really plan to be driving it this summer. This should progress pretty quickly from here on out! We hung the quarters yesterday and I worked on the floors all day today. (I'd post pix but my camara is still out in the shop) It really needs new floor pans, but I'm not going to put them in. I'm just patching whats there. This isn't going to be a show car, and I don't plan to sell it, so I don't really care that the floor is patched. I had the doors down to bare metal, and he's starting putting a little mud on them in a few spots. First thing he had to do was weld shut the trim holes along the bottom since this will be a GS clone... The doors are pretty solid though. Nice clean lip all around the bottom.
Thanks for the pictures Rick.Nice to see it coming along.Keep us posted and don't be shy with the pictures.Can't wait to see it finished. :TU:
Rick My 67 is a very similar story to yours. I bought it in March 2003 expecting to change the rusty frame and drive it for the summer. Wrong! The frame I got with the car was also rusty. I then found a California rust free GS frame and it was at that point that I decided not to do any "band-aid" fixes and went for a full frame off resto. It is finally coming out of the paint shop tomorrow, three years next month since I bought it. I've never driven it. Its been off the road since I bought it. But now the exciting phase of putting everything back together begins. I've got everything ready to go so I should be on the road by the middle of April. Good luck with finishing yours. You've a ways to go, but by the looks of things you are doing it right! :TU: :beer Harvey
Thanks for the replies guys! Harvey, at least I drove mine once. The semi that brought it up from FL wouldn't come to my house, they only came to the edge of town (5 min from my house). So my little story about the broke doors, frozen engine and everything when I first got it, actually took place in a big parking lot at the edge of town! ou: :laugh: I have a couple more pics of the progress... This one shows the "flange" we put on the new quarters so they would nest behind the original quarters. (with about a 1/4" overlap) I bought a little air tool that puts that flange on. It's a pretty neat little tool. It can also punch little holes for if we wanted to plug weld the panels together....
Here's the drivers side with new skin tacked in place. :bglasses: We used "weld thru" primer inside the seam. Not sure how important that was, but it didn't cost too much, and I've read about some people using it. My body guy had never used it and thought it was stupid, but did it anyways just to shut me up. :laugh:
Just for kicks.... I snapped this pic tonight. I've never been a "numbers matching" guy or a "crayon mark" guy... but I found this crayon mark when I took off the drivers fender on the side of the cowl. It says "208". I'm not going to paint over it, even though I'm changing colors on the car. I'll leave that spot blue. No-one will ever see it... but I'll know that the 40 year old mark still lives inside there. :laugh:
