'69 Firebird - Project Reconciliation

[Blue Bayou]

My project isn't going to be as high end of a build as most I see on here, but I'm building what I like on a budget. So a few years ago I purchased a 1969 Firebird.



I've attached a few pictures of the car as it was when I purchased it and the last picture showing how far it had settled into the dirt.

Restoration has begun and I'll be adding pictures of the progress that has already been made and the final product when completed soon. Let me know what you guys think.

[Blue Bayou]

Both rear quarters had a small amount of rust around the wheel wells that were patched, both front fenders needed small patches at the bottom of the fenders, the passenger door had a small patch in the front bottom section of the door, the rail along the back glass was patched and the floor pan was replaced with a new 1 piece pan.

[Blue Bayou]

The car was disassembled and hung on the rotisserie for the under carriage to be painted and sealed.

The rear end appears to have been replaced in this car at some point in time with a GM 8.5 10 bolt.

[Blue Bayou]

The firewall was smoothed. SSBC disk brakes added for woah power and paint applied to the pans.

[Blue Bayou]

Additions to this point:
2" drop spindles
Moroso big block coil springs
WS6 Power steering sector
New drag-link, pitman arm, idler arm and tie rods
1.5" drop rear multi-leafs
G-tech high performance front and rear sway bars
rear shock relocation kit
kyb shocks
energy suspension bushings
SSBC front disc brakes with 12" slotted rotors
C4 corvette discs on the rear with 12" slotted and drilled rotors
subframe connectors
heavy duty traction bars

We mocked the front fender up and put the wheels and tires on to get a feel for the ride height. I was less than pleased. Notice the raised height with the new 1.5" drop leaf springs... After everything is back on the car I'm going to see where the stance ends up and have the springs de-arched. Opinions?

[Blue Bayou]

'74 Trans Am 455

[Blue Bayou]

'69 m21

[Blue Bayou]

Pictures of the body painted. Still quite a bit to do!

[dug]

hey, expensive build or "budget" build it don't matter. You've done a lot of nice work it seems so far. keep it up. As far as the leafs go, kind of weird.

[LeighP]

Wait till its all together...mine changed its stance when everything was back on the car...plus they settle a little, too.
Nice job!

[T_Raven]

Looks really good so far

[70Uglybird]

Looks amazing budget or not looks pretty thorough. Great color, whats great about 2nd gens is if you can pull off the right color and spend some money on rollers you can pull off the high $$ look for relatively inexpensive. Looks like a well thought out build that will be a blast when its done! Can't wait to see how it goes back together!

[ehummelman]

Sweet, another 69 Bird! The rear will drop a little more, but honestly not that much. I would get either 2 or 3" drop leafs in the back. Also definitely move your battery back there, that'll add a bit of weight.

[Blue Bayou]

It's been a long time since I've updated this thread so I thought I'd put out an update.

After several months of little to no progress on the car I went and picked the car up from the shop it was at to finish it myself. Once we got it back to my friends shop we discovered that the repairs that I was told had new sheet metal welded in was just bondo'd over and had rust bubbling under the paint, major runs in the paint, DA marks visible in the paint, visible dents in multiple places on the car and the list just went on and on.

We decided to take the car back to bare sheet metal to know exactly what we were working with and to straighten the body and crisp the lines. Here are some pics of what we found...

[Blue Bayou]

At this point we had sanded both doors, trunk and roof down to bare metal to check everything that was supposed to have been fixed. At this point, of the 2 patches we had found, they were bad fitting rusted pieces of metal that were patched in. Small rust holes as indicated in the previous picture I posted were found in a few spots. The rust that coincided with the dent in the passenger quarter made us to decide to go ahead and use the short quarter panels I had for the car. (really glad those didn't sell at the swap meet over the summer)

Here are some pics of the work that had been re-done to this point.

[Blue Bayou]

Here are some pics of the car with the first guide coat applied. I also added a picture of a patch that we cut out and replaced on the fender.

[Blue Bayou]

Here are some pics of the second guide coat. At this point the subframe and rear suspension had been removed and the car placed on the body jig. Both quarters were replaced and the drivers side pedastal on the rear spoiler had to be built up with some fiberglass to fit correctly.

[BirdsThaWord]

Nice! She's gonna be one nice 'Bird when your done. Dig the color!

[CodexGigas]

I would've Raised Hell in that Body Shop for that hack Job, I would've wanted My Money back. No way was I Walking out of there.

[Blue Bayou]

Thanks Bird! Definitely making good progress on the car now.

Codex - I was thankful to get my car and the majority of my parts out of his shop without having to get the law involved. I believe a few of my parts had been swapped with items from his buddies '69 bird, but then you have to prove what was yours and what wasn't. In the long run it really wasn't worth it, again I was just thankful to get my car and most of my stuff and be done with that shop.