69 Firebird Build

[69TAPoser]

Curious why it was necessary to disassemble the body as much as you did?

John

Floor was riddled with rot covered up by bondo, cheater panels were put on the qtrs and they were warped, rot behind the seam in the firewall (covered by seam sealer), rot on the inner rockers (welded rightr over), I could go on and on....

Phil

[69TAPoser]

It's been a few weeks since I posted an update, but I have been working on her! The fresh air dash vents are restored and installed, the stainless front brake lines are in, the brake/clutch pedal box is in, the dash wire harness / fuse box are in, and I also installed a new Ididit chrome column. A few pics...

Chrome Ididit column:


Air vent:


Front stainless lines from Inline Tube (waiting on my dist. block):


More pics here: My Build Site.

Phil

[restomodbird69]

looks good man,i caint wait to see it complete

[69TAPoser]

Few new updates:

I know many here may not like the stock dash and the beautiful fake burlwood, but I like the contrast of old and new and decided long ago to keep the interior stock.




...The leafs were a pain! All the bushings and brackets are new and the repop eye brackets needed to be grinded down a bit to fit and the frame bushings were a beyotch to install! The leafs are DSE 3" drop and I also used their bushing/shackle kit.

Up next is the Ford 9" and finish up the dash wiring.

Phil

[Roger Poirier]

Few new updates:

I know many here may not like the stock dash and the beautiful fake burlwood, but I like the contrast of old and new and decided long ago to keep the interior stock.




Phil

I like the idea.

R.P.

[Jagarang]

I can't believe you had to replace more panels than I did! You really are sick. Find a good psychologist and get on medication quick, before you loose your mind and soul FOREVER!

You work looks to be top notch and it's really nice to see another Pontiac restomodification from the ground up. Are you doing the jig work and everything yourself , or hiring out ?

Great job on the dash carrier, and I(like Roger) also favor the stock dash set-up. I kept mine looking stock, but changed over to real wood with the stock instrumentation. My only stumbling block with this decision so far has been my FAITH in the stock gauges, even after they were restored. It's hard to rely on them to monitor the vitals on a motor that you've put tons of time and $$$ into! In trying to keep things neat and tidy, we fabbed up a panel to hold several autometers in the useless glovebox. This is tidy but not very practical, and will probably need to be changed at some point.

Let me know if you run into any supply problems or if you need some hard to find parts. If I happen to have some left over your welcome to them. Pontiac stuff is hard to come by!

[69TAPoser]

Thanks Kevin...I think. Your car has actually been an inspiration and I have the link to your Yahoo! gallery in my favorites for reference.

I wish I could claim that I had the skills required to rebuild the shell. I was fortunate to find a guy 15 minutes from me that rebuilds 1st Gen Shells (what are the chances?). Tony at Musclecarmetal (www.musclecarmetal.com) really took care of me. He is a dist. for Dynacorn and Goodmark and I ordered qtrs through him and stopped in to pick them up. Once I saw his work and realized how bad my shell was, it was a no brainer to have him do mine. I had already purchased all the metal, so he assembled it for a lot less $$ than you would expect.

I replaced the speedo with a repop, but do have the concerns that you do. Mine only has dummy lights and I will be going with a hood tach too.

Pontiac FB stuff is getting VERY hard to come by. Especially for '69s. Thanks for the offer, I may be pinging u in the future! My car was a dissambled project car when I bought it and I know there are missing parts!

Phil

[dropit69]

i like the stock guages too but am with you about the vitals..not sure what im gonna do with mine ..the glove box sounds like a good idea...how about a guage cluster in front of shifter like the camaro ..im sure someone could fab one that looks stock..that would be killer..hmmmm

[69TAPoser]

There is a guy producing these for the stacked gauge area of the dash:



...either color for $100, includes the gauges, screws, and back plate!

He is selling them at: http://gaugegear.com/

I may have to make a purchase before I get mine buttoned up.

Phil

[68firehawk]

What a slick idea. looks much simpler and cheaper then going with one of those full guage cluster mods.

car is looking great!

Jake

[Motown 454]

Hi Phil Looks great. You do nice work. Must feel good to see it coming along so nice. Wayne

[formula98]

Hi Ron-

What quarters are you looking for (year and model)? The guy rebuilding my shell is a goodmark dealer and has over $30K of panels in stock.

Phil

Hi Phil,

It's been a while since I have looked at your post, but I have to say what a great job you are doing. I'm getting closer myself, but still a long way off. I finally got my quarters a week ago. I'm not ready yet as I have been developing a C4 IRS cradle for my car. I will post my progress in a few weeks or so.

You are making great progress and I'll have to look in more often.

[69TAPoser]

Thanks for the compliments guys.

I got my rearend set in place! Axle pads need to be welded on, brake line tabs need to be welded on, and pinion angle needs to be set. Once this is done, it will come out and I will have the housing powder coated:





I am pretty psyched I got this in tonight!

Phil

[restomodbird69]

you are moving along and it looks great!!

[69TAPoser]

A little more progress...





Phil

[69TAPoser]

No new pictures yet, but the TKO-600 Deluxe Kit from Classic Chevy 5 Speed showed up today!

Over the next few weeks I will be working on aligning my Lakewood bellhousing, getting the clutch installed, mating the tranny to the bell and dropping in the motor!

Phil

[69TAPoser]

I have been working on getting the Lakewood bellhousing aligned properly. I ordered a Browell Bellhousing Alignmnent Tool and I gotta tell ya, this thing is the pretty cool. Once I had measured how much the bell was out of alignment, I ordered the correct offset dowels and installed them using the Alignment Tool. It took me all of about 20 mins to get it "dialed-in."





...Success! The ring fits into the bell.

If you want to read more about the bell alignment, go to my page here.


Up next is the clutch install, tranny to bell install, then dopping the motor in!

Phil

[ProTouring442]

I love your injury page! If I did one of those, it might run upwards of 50 pages! No stitches, yet... though there has been at least one that should have had stitches!

I agree on the dash, the factory look is nice. On my 442 I went with aftermarket stuff, but my goal was to make it look like it "could" have come from the factory that way. My favorite compliments are when someone asks if the dash is factory!



I love your build, nice color too! What sort of interior stuff are you looking to do?

Shiny Side Up!
Bill

[zman1969]

TAPoser - I have been following along on your project and I am impressed looks really great IMO that car was too far gone but you get a A in my book for going that far with the shell , my T/A clone project has been pretty idle for last 2 years at my buddys shop - pretty discouraging but says now hes moving to Tulsa Ok so he says mine should be done in a month and a half so Maybe ill be rolling again - hope i dont get rush job ,as far as your dash - im keeping mine stock too but im adding the repo 69 TA stack guages, my other 69 had rally guages and hood tach and after a year of having it the tach quit - had alot of coments on it but I dont like it being out in the weather. whenever I get some progress ill post up - hopefully soon . Keep up the good work!

[jpdeuce]

That alignment tool is cool. I think I gotta have that. Did you purchase it directly from Browell? How much are they?