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69 Bird resto

Thank you for the kind comments and the support!

We have some problem with parts coming from US. It is stuck at the French custom border —´
We can’t reach them by phone or anything... that is boring but we have to deal with that.

Hope we can get our parts soon enough so we can move forward on the project.

I will keep you updated on the progress!
 
Hello guys!
Here are some pics of the progress so far.

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The little switch you see in the ashtray is the switch to force the electric fan if we wanted to make it run manually. Replaced the lighter by the switch so it's hidden and the dashboard will still look stock.
All the wiring harnesses have been put in a "girdle" think this is the right word lol

The last pic is the wiring for the electric fan.
 
Also I have a problem with electricity :BangHead:
Yesterday night I wanted to test the dashboard and lights etc...
I put the steering column laying down on the floor, so I could plug the turn signal switch.
Put the headlights, rear tail lights. The washer button was plug so as the washer pump. Everything was plugged except the alternator, the cable going to the coil and the wiring for the back up light plugged to the A833.

The bumpers were not it place so the headlamps, backup lights and licence plate lamp were hanging by the wires.

There was no steering wheel on the column as it was on the floor so ground cable between the steering column and the dashboard frame wasn't in place.

Now what happened. The dome light lit up when doors were open and turned off when doors were shut, so far so good.
And the dome light button is working great.

Then tried the headlamp switch. The parking light didn't work... But one more click to put on the "ON" position and the headlamp lit up. One click on the foot switch and all 4 headlamps lit up. But still nothing on the tail lights.
Along with that there was no lights on the instrument panel...

Washer button and wipers button when put them on nothing happened.

When turn on the flasher button, the tail lights and the front bumper lights lit up. But didn't blinked just lit up full time.
And on the instrument panel the green lights were on and didn't blink as well. Actually that was the only light working on the dashboard...

Do you have any idea on what is the problem. Is that because every single instrument weren't plug? Why the tail lights didn't work?

Knowing that almost 4 years ago before tearing down the car everything worked...

Oh and also, I did plug the starter and when I tried to crank it nothing happened either...

Any help on that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
 
Make sure everything is grounded well.
 
ELECTRICAL!
I feel your pain.
Sorry, that is something I can not help you with.
 
Hello guys,
Wah, already a year since my last post in here, can't believe it!
A lot have been done during that time. But yet, the car is still not running...

First of all, we finally bought a tranformer Kmember form Magnum Force, with manual rack and pinion, double adjuster viking coilovers. It was a real pain to get it. It was during their moving to Las Vegas, so it added some delay on the preparation etc etc. After 5 months it finally showed up here in France what a relief especially after such an investment. The only thing was that the rack and pinion bushings were missing... So I called them letting them know about that, and I would say that it was pretty cool from them as they recognized their mistake and shipped some right way to me free of charge. Even after 9 months so I was pretty happy about that.


What about the car now :

- Bench seats :
Front one, has been tore down completely
Sanded the shell
primed it then painted in black
Bought some new foam
rebuild it and reassembled it
Put back the upholstery on it as it was new when we bought it
strengthened the spring on the shell to get a firm sat

Same operation for the rear bench seats

- Transmission :
Disassembled (except for the countershaft end play was good and rotated freely)
removed all the gears from the shaft
Changed the bearing as well as the needle bearing in the input shaft
Every single seal has been changed on the levers and so on
Sanded to bare metal the case and the tail
Epoxy primed it
Painted it with metallic grey then clear coated
Fully reassembled
The shifter mechanism is back on and adjusted properly (I presume lol)
Installed the bellhousing too

- Rear end :
Bought everything new except for the main case and third member.
Every internal parts are new
New tapered Timken bearings
New axle shafts from Moser
New axles, flange, plate, carrier seals
New ring gear and pinion from Richmond : it's a 3.73 ratio
New Eaton truetrac
Assembly of the third member is finally done with a good centered pattern on the ring gear tooth
Back lash is set good too between the tolerance of the service manual
With the third member installed we installed the axle shafts in
Set the end play between the tolerance of the service manual too
Rotates freely

- The car :
Put back the leaf springs on the rear end
installed the rear end on the car
Suspension attached to the rear end
Put back the drums & the old wheels
The old wheels will stay on the car till we finish it completely
Once it's one will put the new rims on it! can't wait to see that


Finally the car is back on the rear wheels after 4 years!! What an emotion it was to see her on the rear wheels!


With that done, the car is now in the paint shop for the final stage, which is the flat black hood stripes and the clear coat on the rest of the car.
Then once the car returns from the paint shop, we can start the reassembly process. :)
 
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Next part of rear end pics :
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Rear sway bar installation :
This is the original front sway bar that we modified to fit the rear end. We also made the support for the bushing. The end links, we bought them here in France, they come from a VW Golf if I remember correctly.

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Time to get ready for the paint shop, after a year in the garage working on the rest of the car, it added some dust on the new paint, so it was time for a quick bath before going back to the paint shop for the final stage :

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Now that everything is done on the car, we repair everything we had to repair or refurbish or everything else we could think of, it was time to talk serious and start the engine disassembly ^^
We knew that the motor was shot, the internal parts more precisely. This is our first Mopar true, but we knew when we rode it, that something was wrong with the engine lol.
But we didn't think it was that bad lol.
The engine will done by a French Mopar guru this is the only thing with the paint that we won't do on the car.

When we tore it down, the more we digged the worst it was lol the crank is shot, the pushrod one of them was longer than the others. The crank shaft pulley was shot, the output crank shaft bearing was shot were we slid the input shaft of the trans in (don't know if it is called like that).
We were lucky by doing so "much" kilometers with an engine that shot. We used it like that for almost a year...

here are the pics :
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Now lets see some front end parts :
We ordered it bare metal so we could save like 700$, which paid the import basically. We have good epoxy primer and paint so we wanted to do it on our own.

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