My dad then stripped the frame and mounted it on a simple, homemade frame turner that allows him easy access to sandblast every square inch of the frame.
Next came hours of priming and sanding to fill in rust pits. It didn't have to be perfect, but he wanted it to look good if someone ever looked under the car.
The car originally came with power drum brakes, but he decided to swap to factory style front disc brakes. Of course all the lines and hardware were replaced. My dad liked the QA1 coliovers in the front of my '72 Skylark Sedan because you can adjust the height of the car, so he ordered a set for his car too.
The car originally came with a 3.64 posi, but the original 8.2" rearend was long gone. My dad liked the Currie 9" rearend that is in my '72 sedan, so he called and ordered one for his car. It's a basic bolt-in 9", has 31 spine axles, 3.50 gears, the big Ford drum brakes, and the optional drain plug on the bottom. He asked for it to be left unpainted so he could paint it himself. This is the most expensive single item that will be purchased during this entire restoration. I think it was right at $3k delivered to his door. It took a while to save up for this one. The handbrake cables are reproductions that are for a '69 Chevelle. They worked fine.
To get the pinion angle correct he had to get a set of adjustable upper control arms. He looked at a couple of different brands but went with Metco because they would clear the grease fitting that is in the bushings in the rearend for the upper control arms. At least one of the other brands would have sheared the grease fitting off. He also went with the 12-way adjustable QA1 rear shocks because they are a nice part and they also look good.The rear sway bar is from Detroit Speed and is similar to the HR Parts bar. Up front is a big sway bar they he found in the trunk of a Chevelle parts car. We are fairly certain it is from a WS6 Trans Am. After making sure it would fit, he had it powder coated black, and stuck the extra Detroit Speed sticker (from the rear bar) on it . The tires are just BFG TA Radials, P255 on all four corners, with the blackwalls turn out. In these photos he's about to roll the chassis back under the body.
This is one of the most impressive restos here as for all the rust repair. When I see all the rust damage from the beginning of the first post to where it is now. Just WOW, Great job. Love the ford 9".
Getting it back on 4 wheels makes it seem like a car again. At this point my dad is really getting excited. Can't say that I blame him. He lifted the body off of the rusty frame he had temporarily mounted it to (see post #99) and mounted the body onto the finished frame. My dad does all of this work by himself without a helper and puts bodies back on the frame in the basement of his house instead of the detached garage. He reinforced a few of the floor joists under a couple of the bedrooms and uses them to lift the body at the front (at the bottom of the firewall) and rear (through the package shelf openings). A bare body doesn't weigh very much so it works fine. After lifting the body, the jack stands are removed, the frame is put into position and he slowly lowers the body in place, gets all the bolts started, then torques them down.
Next he masked everything and sprayed the dash. The top portion at the base of the windshield is flat black, and the lower face of the dash is painted a semi-gloss, like original. I assume that GM painted the top portion flat black to reduce glare. After getting the dash painted he installed the kick-panels. The original kick-panels were totally junk as you can imagine, so he simply bought a set or reproductions from Ground-Up since they are the same parts that were used on a Chevelle. This car came with carpet on the kick-panels originally, but my dad prefers the smooth look of no carpet, and since this is not a show car or a car intended as an original type restoration, he did not install carpet on the new kick-panels. Next he beadblasted, painted, and installed the brake pedal assembly and parking brake assembly. He also installed the firewall pad and the restored heater box. The original heater box was too badly rusted to use, so he found a better "core" from a donor car. He painted it back a hammertone color since the originals appear to have originally been that color. Of course a new heater core was installed.
WOW, amazing work Gary. Your Dad is an artist. Do you do resto work also ??? Are you going to keep the rebuilds going when your dad hangs up the wrenches ???
Man, he makes it look so easy, but I know first hand that even the heater box is a lot of work to prep and paint that nice. :TU:
Amazing build! Just beautiful. Are the colored body mounts made out of polyurethane? Why did you go with them and where are they sold?
I do some resto work, but only on my own cars. Lately my cars have been sitting because of our 2 young sons (ages 2 years and another one that is 2-month-old) as well as a major house renovation and addition that took all our time and money. The body mounts are just the regular reproduction rubber style. He colored them because they were color coded from the factory. The colors you see here are not the correct colors however, so if any concours resto guys are looking at these, don't duplicate these colors. Consult the assembly manual for the correct colors for each location. You are right, he makes it look easy. I'm not sure, but I'll ask him tomorrow.
I'm always running behind with the updates, but here are some photos that I took on 7/24/11. At this point the trunk lid has been installed as well as the passenger side door. The driver's side door is ready to install but he will wait until the dash and some of the interior installed. Easier to just leave the door off rather than have it in the way and always have to open and close it while working inside. Also has installed the rear window. It's beginning to resemble a car again.
The trunk harness is installed, rubber weatherstrip in place with the alignment marks that were on the original (reddish/orange and white to ensure that the seem was not centered at the bottom) and a new piece of flat rubber across the lip in the back that is mostly covered by the rear bumper.
Up front most of the stuff has been installed on the firewall. The booster, master cylinder, valve, and all the lines, are all reproduction pieces. The voltage regulator is a new electronic version with an original Delco cap installed. The wiper motor is a rebuilt unit that he bought at an autoparts store that comes out of the box painted solid black. He strips the paint off, sprays clear on the aluminum, and polishes up the end cap. He has a stash of washer pumps with the white ends, so he installed one of those too. In this photo the ID sticker had not yet been installed on the wiper motor. The heater box is a slightly more gloss black than the firewall like it was originally. In these photos the wiring harness clip is on the upper stud like a mid & late production '70 models. He later went back and changed it back to the uglier setup that is correct for an early car which is to drill a hole in the dimple on the right side of the front face and mount a clip on the front of the box to hold the wire. The wiring harnesses are both new reproductions. The frame and suspension are all dusty here but you get the idea. The front sway bar is from a WS6 Trans Am that he had powder coated glass black. At this point I think I looked in his log book and he had about 700 hours of labor invested in the car, and the cost of parts and materials so far was about $20k.
Shot of the bottom from the rear with the body installed. Obviously itstill needs a gas tank and exhaust. Note that the body drain plug shown is not painted black. The factory installed them after the underside was painted, so they were originally unpainted with white seam sealer visible. This plug will not show after the tank is in place but the plugs in the floor pans are visible and even though he's not putting this car back to original, this gives a more detailed appearance than just painting it all black. The rear sway bar is from Detroit Speed. It is very similar to some of the others on the market like the one from HR Parts. The reason he decided to use the bar from Detroit Speed instead of one of the others is that the Detroit Speed bar curves rearward and goes behind the center section of the rearend, whereas the HR Parts bar curves down and goes under the rearend. We both agreed that the Detroit Speed bar therefore gave a much cleaner appearance. We both thought the HR Parts bar was rather, well, ugly when a car is viewed from the rear because it hangs down so far. We hated to not use the HR Parts brand bar because they have provided sponsorship to the Buick events over the years, but just couldn't live with the appearance.
