My 71 Firebird Formula/TA Blend

[Alponcho]

... I'm rethinking my idea of replacing the entire RH quarter, just after my experience with the Taiwan metal on the door. I may just do what I didn't want to, and cut out the damaged area and butt-weld the new section in at the back. I think the less thin Taiwanese metal I use, the better.

The new full quarters that are now available for 70-73 cars are terrific. I used these on my '70 Formula and couldn't be happier--and I bought them when they were more expensive (I think they're less than $400 now). They still needed work/adjustment to get lines perfect, but no more than an NOS quarter. The photo below shows what they look like with no filler, before blocking. The partials/skins (which you appear to have) need a lot more work to make them fit and look halfway decent…even little things like the side marker and the lower shadow line behind the rear wheel need to be worked quite a bit--and even then there's something "off" about them. If you're interested, I do have that RH used quarter section available--I think I showed this to you…it would be better than that skin you have…I also have a used full RH quarter (and a LH as well).

[CampbellshotrodsAZ]

Hey Jeff, thanks for the feedback! I contemplated a whole quarter, but the only real damage is the rear 16" going down to just under the beltline. I'm still on the fence and trying to figure out the best plan, so I'm just working on other parts of the car in the meantime. How big is the quarter you have? I should have taken a look at them at the time, but maybe it was because I really didn't get into the damage by then. Even if it's just the rear section, that'll be better than what I have and it will at least be all OEM sheetmetal. The entire quarters are still over $500 from what I have found, and an entire quarter replacement is more than this car needs. But yeah, I'm interested!

[Alponcho]

I'll post some pics in the morning for you.

[Alponcho]

Here is the partial and full RH quarters I have available. The full LH is similar to the RH one in the photo. email or call me if you're interested. if you lost my contact info, my email is [email protected].

[CampbellshotrodsAZ]

Thank you Jeff, I'm definitely interested in that complete quarter. I'll send you a text later today.

[CampbellshotrodsAZ]

Finally got enough stuff done to post another progress report. After my last post of being dissatisfied with the repop quarter, I did buy the above original quarter from Jeff. I'll get to that in a second, in the meantime I'll post my photos from my photobucket in chronological order.

Welded up ANOTHER passenger's door lock cylinder. After being dissatisfied with the door skin job, I decided to hunt for a usable original. Luckily there was a good one in Tucson, about a 1.5 hour drive away. The skin I tried to install just didn't flatten right at the bottom, the lower character line looked too soft, and the overall skin was just way too flimsy... there were two long dents from the body stand from me working the skin on! Rather than have an easily damaged skin, and live with the fact that it's a non-original skin, I decided I'd only be happy with an OEM door.


Started pulling the wear and tear out of the driver's door. I was able to work out most of the dings with a hammer and dolly, but the area in front of the door beam I had to use my nailgun on. One of the best investments I've made.



Bodywork is roughed out, and a skim coat of filled is applied. It's not as heavy as is may look, this was just necessary for the little dings and imperfections that couldn't be worked out with a hammer/dolly.


1st coat of primer sprayed!


Now it's getting serious! It took me awhile of debating this, since I've NEVER done anything this serious on a car. I've done partial fender/lower quarter repairs, but never to this extent. After buying a skin, and realized how much work it would be to splice along a main body surface, I decided to go full quarter. Alponcho had a fairly rust free original that would do the job well. It wasn't perfect after I had it blasted, but it was a good foundation, and definitely workable, better than my original quarter which had numerous sins (main obvious damage to rear side, poor dent pull/drilling in upper B-pillar, odd contour above wheelwell, rust behind wheel)... basically enough stuff to warrant a replacement. I didn't want to go into the jambs, and cut into the original spot welds, so I decided to splice it into all the jambs, about 1/4" into them to be exact. The spotwelds in the wheelwell and lower rear were drilled out, and will be plug welded.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/Y3eQAo]

Luckily everything was very clean and solid underneath. After this everything was covered with either a rust converter, or weld-thru primer.


And it's finally tacked on! I started at the most critical gap, the front edge adjacent to the door, and it lined up perfectly automatically, then tacked it. Worked my way up the jamb, through the window, then got the trunk gap where it needed to be, and just tacked my way through. I figure once those are good, the hard part is done. Everything else, under the car and wheelwell, isn't dependent upon matching an adjacent panel, so I can address those last. But this was the part I was stressing about. It took me weeks of trimming just to get everything just right... it just took so long because I didn't want to rush it, I wanted to do it at a pace that wouldn't tire me, or make me cut corners. I'm very happy with the result, the gaps and lines on this quarter are actually better than the factory alignment on the driver's side! I need to do some pie-cutting to the window channel to make things line up better. So now I get to take my time stitch welding everything, and now I can resume bodywork!

[Alponcho]

Looking good! Glad the quarter worked out for you.

[keepat]

Great job on the quarter install! Love the 2nd gen Pontiacs!
Good luck with the build!
Pat

[CampbellshotrodsAZ]

Thanks guys! I've finally got the quarter welded fully. Fought me a little bit since it was a bit trickier butt welding into the jamb, instead of going deep into the original spotwelds, but it's looking good. I can start grinding welds down now, and build a filler for the original lead seam, and do another patch below under the rear wheel. Seems crazy to cut this panel off and do another patch panel, but I wanted to get everything lined up as rigid as possible before I cut into the quarter skin. There aren't many pinholes honestly, but it's rusty enough from the backside, that I question the strength of this area if it were to see something like a cone perhaps.

Another project of mine this last weekend was to design a new dash panel. I didn't want to do a generic flat piece of material and drop the gauges into it, but I rather wanted a more 3D looking setup. It'll start as a large chunk of 0.5" billet aluminum, and will have everything at different depths, and angles (the RH gauges are angled towards the driver). It's not 100% yet, and things will evolve as I get the actual switches and parts in to verify measurements and depths, and generally change as I decide if the details are where I want them to be.



And to go into this pod is this set of gauges I've just ordered from Speedhut for their Labor Day sale. I jumped the gun on these since I didn't really need them yet, but hey, it's only credit right? I'll pick my 5th 2-1/16" A/F gauge after I determine what wideband I'm going to use. I'll also probably install 2 more gauges in either the A-pillar, or console... oil and trans temp gauges.

[NOT A TA]

Nice dash panel design!

[CampbellshotrodsAZ]

Fall is here, and we're finally in double digit temps, so now I'll start hitting it hard!

Quarter was fully welded on. My splice into all the jambs worked well, now I can grind the welds down, lay down a skim coat of filler and you won't know the difference from stock. (Edit- seem to not have the fully welded pic from Photobucket on my hard drive... so here's a tacked pic)


My replacement original quarter still had a little rot behind the rear wheel, but even still the overall quarter panel was worth the effort, even with the patch. Had to splice in a piece of the original quarter inner structure that wasn't rotted.


All trimmed, wire wheeled, painted/weld thru primed, and ready for the outer skin.


New patch is fit, flanged, and ready to install.




The trunk gap tapered by 0.020" toward the rear, so I did a piecut throughout the length and re-welded to create a perfect gap. I normally would have welded some rod to the trunklid, but I want to leave this open for the possibility of an Anvil Carbon Fiber trunklid possibly in the future.



Did as much hammer/dolly work the the one area of the quarter that was damaged as I could. Not perfect, but now it will require minimal filler compared to before.


Starting to get the body roughed out in All-Metal... a filler similar to plastic filler, but is more aluminum based instead of plastic, and doesn't absorb moisture, and should shrink down less. Unfortunately as much as I try and can't quite yet get dead smooth metalwork like the bigshots, so the reality is that filler has to be used! By roughing things out on the metal before I even get the first coat of primer on, it will give me a good foundation to start with.


Sail panel wasn't perfectly flat, having the vinyl top holes didn't help.


It's getting there! The quarter panel was a lot more work than I've ever done, and now I'm starting to finally get satisfaction out of it! I'll keep roughing that and the roof out over the next week, then hopefully 2 weekends from now I'll lay down some primer!

And to end this post on a shiny note, my new gauges are in!

[CampbellshotrodsAZ]

Not a whole lot to show picture-wise for the last couple weeks, a lot of applying All-Metal, then sanding it off. Applying, then sanding it off. Repeat a half dozen times, and it's finally roughed out to where I wanted. This way once I spray the primer, the body is pretty much where it needs to be. Then when I longboard it, I'll use the filler primer to my advantage and get the car nice and flat pretty quickly.

And I finally got it primed tonight, late enough to where my neighbors are already home, but early enough to where I don't violate the noise ordinance, haha.






Did a coat of primer on the driver's side before any bodywork just because I wanted to get the car in primer and protected before I get sidetracked on a couple other things in the upcoming weeks.


Not the best pics, I know, but I was just excited to see it in primer, and luckily it looks really good. I'll get it out this weekend, and try and take better ones.

Next step... now that this is protected I'm going to start working on the driver's side of my 63 T-bird, which luckily needs very little. I'll get that done and primed so I can swap places with the Firebird, so I can work on the driver's side of it, and the passenger's side of the Tbird. That's the problem with working out of a packed garage, got to be a little creative, haha. But next for the Firebird is to work on the driver's side, and rear valance, then I can start working my way forward!

[keepat]

Body lines look great! 2nd gen usually have large door gaps but yours look nice!
Pat

[cbpldc]

Looking good!

[rohrt]

Nice work

Subscribing.

[NOT A TA]

Looking good Josh! Keep at it!

[CampbellshotrodsAZ]

Thanks everyone! It's always hard to keep the momentum going in the earlier stages, just sanding the bare steel and All-Metal gets tedious, and it's hard to see if you're actually making progress. But to see it in wet primer and to see nice flat panels, it all starts to come together! Now I can give it a good month to cure, then I'll do the first blocking and see how I actually did. Not too bad for my first quarter panel install, if I may say so!

[AtomicFirebird]

Sweet Bird

[CampbellshotrodsAZ]

Not so much an update on progress, but build plans. It was a great week at SEMA, and an expensive one! Walked away committed to buy a set of Billet Specialties Forged wheels, the Hydro with the brushed smoke clear centers. I just need to determine the sizing for sure along with rearend specs and get back to them within the month to finalize the order. Started the quote for 18x10 and 18x12's, but I'll have to do my research to make sure it will all fit with my stock subframe. I believe the rears will fit fine, but I'm not sure about the 10's on the front with the stock subframe. I might change my order to 18x9/10's instead, so I can have a staggered wheel arrangement, but not be too different in widths. I'm excited though, I wasn't planning on getting my forged wheels quite yet, but Billet Specialties had an introductory offer I couldn't refuse!

[cpd004]

I am running a 10" wheel in front with stock sub frame. The tire will rub the sway bar at full lock only. I don't find it to be a big deal so far since I rarely need to go full lock.

Great wheel choice BTW!