1969 Sportsroof Build

[mts23]

First off, let me say how much I appreciate all the knowledge and support that is available on this site and how freely it is given. I am starting this build thread in the hopes of not only getting ideas for the build, but also to get advice or suggestions from other people who have done this before. I am fairly mechanically inclined and not afraid to tackle a large project like this; hopefully I can get it to a drivable stage within my deadline. I will be working within a budget, so somethings may be done differently then I would prefer,but I will try and not cut corners with the important stuff. I am working in a small garage, with limited tools and have limited fabrication and welding abilities and this is my first attempt at working on a car that is in completely unusable condition.


My goal is to save a‘69 Sportsroof from the crusher, while turning it into a nice,modernized driver with a full frame and couple of hair driers. I searched for a while to find one that was far gone enough that I wouldn't feel bad about hacking it up. The car was the cheapest ‘69 Mach 1, with a title(more on the title later) that I could find. It was a complete car,all interior, trim,engine rear and trans were there, but in the shape one would expect from a car left sitting outside in Missouri for 30 years. The floor pans and frame rails were in the final state of ruination and completely unusable for anything. The front suspension components were mostly usable, but not what I wanted to go with.


I commenced the partial tear-down, while coming up with a front suspension solution. After reading the Ron S. $5K Mustang build thread, I decided to use a C5/C6 Corvette front suspension, as it seemed to be the best bang for the buck. I set about scouring ebay for parts and ended up getting the entire front, including brakes (minus shocks and transverse spring) for less than 300 dollars shipped. I'd like to run a coil over, but this IS a budget build.

Car being delivered

The moving company was informed the car needed to be delivered to a small cul-de-sac. They showed up with a 10 car transport and called from the nearest Target parking lot. I didn't think we would get the car unloaded due to the passers-by wanting to buy the car and generally ask questions about it.

Car in driveway (Quick, get in the garage before the HOA shows up!)





While the pictures above don't look too bad, as we all know, malignancy can lurk beneath even the cleanest of project cars, and this thing was far from clean looking. I bought the car sight unseen and a ridiculously low price, and was actually surprised that it was delivered in one piece, I knew what to expect and got exactly that (a portion potentially larger then I can masticate) but I intend on saving this car and have already learned a lot and had fun along the way. I knew there would be lots of rust to eliminate once the car was stripped, but little did I realize the mess that three decades of squirrel, rodent and snake families would leave behind.

I'm certain my microbiology classes warned me about things like this. Hantavirus anyone? This is one place where dust masks and rubber gloves are a must.


Squirrels had been defecating in this car longer than humans used it for transportation and it was now my job to clean it.

Thanks,
Michael