well its a labor of love... what does your brother know, i bet your wife is jealous.

 

I have NO clue what the hell you are talking about. I've done hundreds of cars and have never had a problem with doors or windows leaks. Since these are all driven cars including drag racing cars that I see often I can honestly say you are way way off base with that comment.

The only window leaks I have seen are from shot weatherstrips or windshield leaks from bad installs at other shops. Door hinges wear out and need to be rebuilt which has absolutely zero to do with the body of the car.

Sorry for the rant but stuff like that which has no basis in truth just ticks me off to no end.

 

No basis? OK, thanks for coming out. I'm sure everyone enjoys you sharing your opinion on how they should build their car.

 

Yes it is a labor of love, helps not having a wife to be jealous! "You spend too much time with that car and not enough with me!"

My brother has a degree in electrical engineering. As for now he helps with the manual labor. But I shall put him in charge of helping wire the car.

 

he'll do you good.
you ouat to install L.E.D. light boards for you makers, cool XF

 

Here we go!

Coronet 500 suggested cutting the flange on the K member. Sounded like a solid Idea so...






I also got in a shipment from summit










Got the K member primed up.


Then a shipment form Rock Auto arrived!


Painted up the new lower ball joints.


And the K member.


Cutting the flange freed up quite a bit of room.

 

My brother arrived in, I put him on the blast cabinet cleaning parts and bolts.


I decided to take a tap and clean out the threads on everything we worked on.




Then I let him torque it on down.









We left off here to go see the new Iron man Movie.

I blasted and painted the rear shackles.


Now its a waiting game for the parts I took to the blasters to get back.

 

saw the movie wasnt that bad IF you go buy the movies alone anyways.

You didn't have to cut that much off usually its only on the passengers side that you should trim it a little for oil pans to clear with 3/4 in.

 

Haven't done much more than piddling around lately.
Disk break brackets for the front.


My dad bought some new media for the blast cabinet. This stuff works great!!!! It cuts fast and doesn't make much dust. I can even blast with out setting up the vacuum.


The door hing rebuild kit arrived today.


With a little bit of drilling and grinding I got everything together with no play.


I didn't take any pictures of the old pins, however they were worn pretty bad.


I have been blasting a few small parts here and there.


I went by the blasters today to check on the parts. They had half of them done. Should be ready by the begging of next week. I also pulled a set of wheels out of storage to set the car on while working the body. Some times it pays to store crap from other projects. The last thing I got on was pulling the axle shafts down and knocking out the bad studs. Got the face of one cleaned up and primed. Need to go to Napa and get some goodies to put it all together.

 

Three days straight, non stop.









Got all of the parts back from the blasters.




Changed out the bushings in the springs.


And started lining everything up under the car.


Put it back together and started letting it down.


New bearings for the front and back.


Touch down on the rear.

 

Working on the front.




Back on four wheels again!


A little touch up work on the passenger door.














Ready to mount!


Now you see the braces....


now you don't

 

Passenger door mounted.


Driver door


Put a coat of pain on the rotisserie to keep it rust free until I need it again.

 

Wow!

That's alot of work!

 

I noticed you installed poly bushings how hard was it to install them any issues?

 

The hardest thing was removing the old rubber ones. At the front of the spring there is a metal OD ring that needed to be removed. I tried to drive it out with the air chisel but it just bent down the edges. So I used that to press it out with the jack press. The front lower control arms also required the use of a press to push out the shafts and push them back in. Oh and the sleeves on the upper control arms were not fun either. All in all not to bad.

 

For $400 I got what you see here plus a crank and rods. 1 440 block with heads + 2 727s, 1 manual transmission and a sure-grip rear end.

 

Got one hell of a deal there. Sure grip alone is worth that. I'm buying a 71 charger se with a 383 soon and I may be back to look at your pics. Thanks for the updates!!!

 

Between work and vacation there hasn't been much time to do more than piddle.



There was a piece of rubber on these strikers. Its gone now and I don't want to pay $20 apiece for new ones.





And we have some dent pulling!

 

Here's one for ya Joe:

 

Wow, That's a mans man right there! He is a bad *** in my book just for riding a buffalo! But punching a cougar?!? That's tough. I laughed my self near to death!

The closest I ever come to riding one was standing on its head when it got caught in the gate. And it wasn't a 2,500 lb bull like that either!

 

Ok time to get serious!

Lets keep those dents coming out!




Trunk Lid!


Needs a little work.




Front right fender looks like hell.








Take everything out of the way.


Cut out the bad.




This should make a nice patch.


Cut it and bend it.


Fit it.


Bend it some more.


Fit it, mark it up, and clamp it in place.

And this is as far as I got today.

 

Lets start where we left off!










Really don't have a better place to hang it to knock out the dents.


But man does it look good on the side of the car!


Back to welding!




And for this piece.


A little pin hole welding and priming!


More to follow soon!

 

Third installment fender restoration!

Get a friend to help!


Take pictures!


I love getting parts delivered! Its like Christmas, or my birthday!


My friend Matt working on a patch piece.






He is not as fast as me, but two hands are faster than one.


Ill handle the welding, you can make another patch!




As I was welding my friend was wire brushing another section. I look up to see that the grinder has stopped working. This is a serious problem because the grinder is my DAD'S oldest and favorite grinder!

All work must stop until it is fixed.



turns out one of the wires going to the switch broke off.


So I cleaned up the wires, cut a new section and fixed it!


Back to the jobs at hand!




We started on a few more patches and then called it a day!


Ill get back on it tomorrow and hope to have this fender fished by Thursday!

 

Ok so its Friday and the fender is not close to finished! God this takes a lot of time!

here is where I'm at.




So I messed up on this one the other day. Nice thing about metal, cut it and re weld it.












I got called into court Thursday so all of this happened Wednesday. I'm hoping I can get this wrapped up this weekend before Work starts back Monday night.

 

You are doing an awesome job Joe! Keep it up!

 

End of a week.

Primed up the finished pieces.


Fit it and clamp it into place.


Got some use out of my spot welder.


A lot of use out of it.




The front of the car had to be hammered back into place for the fender to fit.

 

On to the other fender.








Had to knock up a sketch and measurements for the brace.


This should work for a replacement brace.


Got the bends!


Cut lines.






Start bringing out the sides.




And that's where I stopped I will get back on it next weekend.

 

Some work on fenders.


















I hope to have this one done tomorrow!

 

Finishing up the left fender.







Just a loose fit on the car.

 

Wow...Looking Good...