'64 Fury Pro-Touring

[rapidtransitric]

i see your having fun bob

 

[carnalsupply]

If spending money and getting spatter burn is fun then I'm having the time of my life!

I've got some family obligations this weekend but I'm going to try and get in and prep the front A-Arms for bead-blasting and powder-coating, which means pulling all the bushings and removing all the casting flash.

 

[carnalsupply]

Well fella's, I've been searching for just the right pieces for my Fury, and now I believe I've found it!

You know how the '69 Daytona's and '70 Superbirds command all the big money and attention? Well, I'm going to join the "aero-wars" too, and to be competitive at speed I'll be mounting this bad-boy on the roof, just forward of the rear window!

What'ya think of this?

Don't be hater's, I'm happy to share my source :icon_rendeer:

 

[Sneke_Eyez]

I love pro-touring builds!
I recently met and talked to a guy who is in the middle of doing a pro-touring build on his 1970 Chevy Caprice Coupe. Pretty interesting build. By the time he's done, he wants that old land barge to be able to run with Vettes, and from all of the work he's done so far and the rest of it that he has planned, I'd be willing to bet it will!
Your work looks top-notch, I can't wait to see more updates.

PS: I'm glad you're kidding about that wing!

 

[carnalsupply]

A full size Caprice? Running against Vettes? And I thought I was playing outside the box! I wish that guy a lot of luck.

BTW - who said anything about kidding? I doubt I'm getting the spelling correct but look at all the press the Benecke's are getting putting together winged cars that never existed, like the '71 they just completed?

If anyone ever sees my Fury with a wing on it I beg you to please hunt me down and KILL ME!

 

[Superfreak]

On your vertical welds are you welding up or down?

 

[HEMI-ITIS]

Well fella's, I've been searching for just the right pieces for my Fury, and now I believe I've found it!

You know how the '69 Daytona's and '70 Superbirds command all the big money and attention? Well, I'm going to join the "aero-wars" too, and to be competitive at speed I'll be mounting this bad-boy on the roof, just forward of the rear window!

What'ya think of this?

Don't be hater's, I'm happy to share my source :icon_rendeer:

Maybe the "HOOD ORNAMENT":headbang:

 

[69R/Tcharger]

holy cow man you're really into it there. looking great so far keep up the good work!!

 

[carnalsupply]

Thanks for all the kind input, I really appreciate it.
Hood ornament? Hmmmm, maybe I'll buy 2!

Hey Super, I'm welding upwards. One thing my buddy Jimmy has been trying me to do is slow down and move the tip farther to the left and right: he says it looks like I'm nervous and hurrying, both of which are pretty fair assessments. I also need to slow my wire speed down again. Any thoughts?

 

[carnalsupply]

Damn, does life get in the way of fun or what? What with work and holidays I've been delayed for weeks again :banghead: but I'm not giving up yet, especially because my fiberglass body parts arrived today (save for the Hemi hood scoop) from Sled City.

The parts may have taken a LONG time to get here (better than 5 months) but I have to say their product quality and packing is terrific. All the various holes and mounting locations appear in their correct locations (as much as I can tell at this point) so hopefully a great deal of the guess work will be taken out of the reassembly.

One thing I have to make note of here, and it is NOT a surprise to me: the body parts I purchased are EXTREMELY light, especially in view of their physical size, so if you decide to buy parts from Sled City don't think you're buying heavy duty, high-wear pieces: they're not. When I unpacked everything today the sun literally shone right through, and while I don't mind I wanted to make others aware of the fact.

On to the body parts!!!!!

Hood, minus the Hemi Scoop - 19 lbs

Trunk Lid - 11 lbs

Fenders, WITH light buckets completely molded in - 14.5 lbs

Detail of light bucket

Doors (outer) - 16 lbs

Doors (inner)

Bumpers (front and rear)

I haven't weighed all the stock parts yet, they're stored around the shop, but I will during the next couple of weeks and post the weight savings.

Hopefully next week I'll get back to work; the cowl is now completely stripped, we have all our exhaust paraphernalia, and the U-Bolts and lowering blocks arrived, meaning we can get started on the floors, the firewall, set and lock in the pinion angle, as well as work on the radiator support area again.

 

[rapidtransitric]

does this mean a heavy duty weekend?

 

[HEMI-ITIS]

Could you post a pic of the underside of the hood???

 

[carnalsupply]

I wish it meant a heavy weekend of working/playing with the car, but today (Saturday) I have family obligations and early tomorrow I fly out of town AGAIN on business. Like I said, life just keeps getting in the way :-(

Sure, I'll be happy to take some shots of the underside but they'll have to wait til sometime next week or so (see above).

Have a great weekend

 

[carnalsupply]

Hey Hemi,

Here are the pix of the underside of the hood and trunk you requested. You'll note there is a bit of strengthening pad worked into the fiberglass matting as well as some reinforcing ribs near the perimeter.

​

 

[fury0us]

Hey Hemi,

Here are the pix of the underside of the hood and trunk you requested. You'll note there is a bit of strengthening pad worked into the fiberglass matting as well as some reinforcing ribs near the perimeter.

​

build looks good!
Are the hood and deck lid pin on?
can't wait to see how they fit.

 

[carnalsupply]

Wow, I didn't realize it's been a couple months since my last post, but with holidays and work I've had only a limited amount of time to work on the Fury, but I have been keeping busy on a bunch of mundane, behind the scenes kind of tasks that must be accomplished before we can move on to the more visible or tangible steps, so here's a brief look at what I've been up to.

A couple of weeks ago Jimmy came over and we finalized the rear housing position (side to side, pinion angle, etc.) and tacked on the billet perches. We then started looking at the coil-over mounts, which from the start Jimmy didn't like; he felt they were far bulkier and space wasting than necessary so he came up with an alternative that will mount the lower end of the shock directly to the aft end of the truck-arms. This solution is actually pretty eloquent and will save a GREAT deal of space for the Watts linkage while also adding about 1 1/2" of shock travel by moving the lower mounting point that much farther below where my original mounts would have. Sorry, there are no pictures of the mounts at this point but once everything comes back from powder-coating I'll get some shots.

Once we got the rear housing done we moved on to the exhaust routing. If anyone ever tells you truck arm suspensions are difficult to package, TRUST THEM! As noted in an earlier post I decided to run the exhaust out the sides, which I would have done whether I ran truck arms or not, but still, packaging is TIGHT! While I worked on the doors (more on that below) Jimmy set about lining working on the headers, tubing, v-band clamps, and cutting the holes in the frame.

The first step was cutting off the flanges of the TTI headers so the ends would be perpendicular to the frame then tacking on a v-band ring and lining up the first piece of exhaust tubing. From there we figured out where we wanted to cut the holes in the frame, which Jimmy did using my handy little plasma cutter. It was the first time Jimmy (a VERY accomplished fabricator) had ever used my cutter and he was stunned at how well it cut, comparing it to his FAR more expensive shop unit. Below are a couple shots of what we ended up with:

View from above through the drivers door:

View from below at about the same location:

Once we get the headers back from coating (we're using this trick looking Titanium colored coating) we'll go ahead and solidly mount the stainless exhaust tubing in the frame, then mate up the mufflers (as shown in an earlier post) and other stainless tubing.

Like everything else I've encountered with this build I end up having to do things in what would seem to be a very strange order, but like any puzzle there's really no alternative other than to work through the steps logically and in order. What I'm talking about are the doors, without which I can't move on to the fender and cowl placement, both of which are upon me, so I've been working diligently to build out both doors, and while on the surface that may sound like a quick transfer of parts from the originals to the glass replacements, it's anything but.

The glass doors are remarkably detailed, and if this was a track only car I could simply bolt on the pieces I need, but since it's a street car I felt the glass was far too weak to simply bolt on the striker, window cranks, door pulls, etc., so I've been dissecting the original doors and sourcing the metal to use in the glass doors. While I wish I could simply use the donor metal as backing material that isn't always possible, so in places like the striker I have to carefully line up the donor metal, remove the fiberglass, then meld the metal into the glass door. It's actually been pretty enjoyable, but just another unforeseen layer in the build.

One thing I found that's really aided in the process is a 2-part structural adhesive from 3M, part number 051135. This stuff has a pretty short pot-life but it seems to be EXTREMELY strong while remaining less than brittle.

Here are some shots of the doors and the work that's had to be done.

Striker area:

Outer Door Handles:

Inner Door Handles:

With all the rust damage I decided to get a replacement cowl (detailed in an earlier post), so we had the replacement cowl blasted and luckily found only minor rust issues which we can easily repair. I began prepping the replacement cowl by removing the inner-most layer of steel (there are 3 layers that make up the entire cowl) because this inner-most layer is the only remaining part of the original left on the car; you can see it in various pictures throughout my post. What I'm hoping is to simply marry the replacement cowls 2 remaining layers right on top of the single layer remaining on the car, finally leaving me with a usable structural mounting point.

One thing I was uncertain about was how far our engine set-back REALLY was, what with the fact there was no cowl, no front sub-frame, no nothing to really gauge things from. Well, I guess pictures are worth a word or two because the pictures below pretty much tell the story: 50/50 weight distribution shouldn't be an issue, especially when you combine the set-back with the fiberglass hood, fenders, and bumper!

Yes, that's the original firewall sitting on top of the intake port for #8 cylinder:

Here's the view from the right side of the car:

And one from head on:

At this point I'm going to massage the replacement cowl and get it to line up nice and sweet, replace the rusted area with a patch panel (already have it), and begin to figure out WTF I'm going to do for a firewall. One idea, believe it or not, came from the Ring Brothers; they suggested using a wheel-barrow! Think about it, what a great contoured shape, it's heavy gauge steel, and if I can find the correct size it might just work, so I'm off to Lowe's to see what they have.

Thanks for all the support and I appreciate your keeping tabs on my progress.

 

[carnalsupply]

Hey FuryOus,
Sorry, I forgot to answer your question in my post!
The hood and trunk are intended to be pin-on but I don't know if I'm going to go that route or not. The hood on my Vette was intended to be pin-on and I fabbed it up so I could use hinges, which is my preference. I don't like having to pull pieces off and lay them aside for routine maintenance, unless of course I owned an original A-12!

 

[carnalsupply]

I just noticed in my post where I attributed the "wheel barrow" idea to the Ring Brothers, when in fact the idea came from Prodigy Customs. Sorry for the brain fart.

 

[carnalsupply]

You know how in every job there's always some really necessary part that's boring, tedious, and downright crappy? Well that's been my life over the past week while I repaired the rotted end of the cowl. I knew I couldn't go any farther without the cowl and repairing it after installation would have been WAY more difficult, so I've spent the past week drilling, grinding, cutting, filing, and welding, all to end up with a mere shell of the cowl I started with.

Regardless of my whining the cowl repair really did come out pretty well and I'm happy with the results, so now I can begin working on getting it permanently installed then move on to the fire wall, doors, fenders, etc.

One thing this part of the project taught me was to lower the power setting of my welder as well as the wire speed: the spot welds came out fantastic by doing so. A lesson I won't forget going forward.

Well here are the shots of what I've been up to.

When I look back at my early posts I notice this part of the cowl looks exactly like the original, which is to say "F*#&#d Up"!

Not that I had any real expectations of the replacement sheet metal actually fitting well, and I wasn't disappointed: the replacement corner had to be cut apart like a pie then welded back to get it to fit:

Once I got done with all the cutting and splicing I ground down all the welds and cleaned up the repairs:

Then got busy with the Cleco's (got to be one of the best inventions EVER!) and welded it all together:

That's it for now.

 

[Propwash]

top notch work Bob......Looking really good