69 Bird resto

[Sixtynine_Bird]

Now the last part of the body work for repairs, the inside!
first we did the rear section, got some pin holes here and there, so we thought that it wasn't necessary to replace it. So we made some patch.
But the front section wasn't the same, a lot of pin holes it wasn't possible to just patch it so prefered to replace it, sadly AMD doesn't make those pieces we needed but no choice we bought from another brand (don't remember the name sorry).

Here the pics with the repairs ont the crossmember and the frame and the floors:

 

[Sixtynine_Bird]

Now the front part

 

[Sixtynine_Bird]

Before welding back the floors lets do the fun part! The "Y" torque box, so first we did a straight bar welded on a plate each side of the extremity. With one plate in a "L" form and a sraight one. The "L" forme one, is welded on the bottom of the frame rail and the straight the inside of the rocker. Once it welded on the car, we took an other piece of a bar of bare metal and welded it on the top of the frame rail and the straight bar to form a "Y" with the torque box, lets see the pics

 

[Sixtynine_Bird]

After that here comes the time for the subframe connectors here is the fab process, for the handlebar from the bicycle I forgot to took it in picture when it was finished, so took one after I welded the subframe on the car hope you'll see enough, not an easy shoot! but you'll see the channel that it makes for the e-brake cable

 

[showard]

A lot of tedious work. Your doing a great job. Looks good!

 

[Sixtynine_Bird]

Welding the sub co en the car was a real pain! Wish we could have a rotisserie instead of the jack stands, it would have been easier. But we do with what we have that is the rule!
The "U" form parts with a lot of holes are the parts that goes on the rear frame rails and support the end of the sub co.

 

[Sixtynine_Bird]

And finally once everything were in, we finally could do the floors, and that is not finished yet:

 

[Sixtynine_Bird]

Hello guys just saw and remember that I haven't posted here on my thread for a while now, more than a year! I guess it is time for me to post some pics again.


A lot have been done since last time, but the car isn't on all 4 yet. I think we'll need a year or so to complete the car.


Floors are in, homemade torque box as well as subframe connectors are also in.


Once the floors were in, we decide to finish the body work and moved to the front end of the car. We mock up the fenders and the hood. Make sure the gap were correct and everything fits “perfectly”.


Hopefully we did that, because we bought a new passenger front fender from AMD and once on the car we saw that it doesn’t fit. The gap was to large between the door and the fender, and the shape of it was too curved.

To reduce the curve we had to grind the spot weld at the bottom of the fender (were it is attached to the rocker) try to massage it to stretch and then reweld it. That was one problem sold. After that thanks to keepat for the inspiration, to reduce the gap with the door we welded a welding rod with a diameter of 2mm on the edge of the fender. Now we have a nice and decent gap all the way down between the fender and the door.


The car was then completely sealed! Needed some more adjustments on the rear quarter extensions for lenses etc etc.


We rebuilt the manual steering column also with new bearings from year one.


The car went to the paint shop on January 2018, then came back 5 months later because the paint guy had to move from his shop to a new one bigger and had a lot of other project so that was pretty long and add some delay.


But that was no matter, we had to do a lot of other things like the steering column like I said, disassembled the rear end, sand blast some parts etc epoxy primed a lot of things etc.


What about the dash? The dash has been tearing down, hand sanded bare metal. No cracks or whatsoever, so we epoxy primed it. Then finished it with black satin color, and on the top of it where the vin is attached we did flat black to limit the sun reflection on the windshield and did some "texture" effect with the spray gun.

The upper dash pad I think it is new from the previous owner, but lower ones have been heated with the heat gun to reshape them then repainted with the same satin black. Turned out pretty good and we are happy with it. The inside of the glove box door has been refilled to smooth it out.

The ash tray, we remove the lighter and replace it with a switch for the electric fan we will install. So everything is hide and keeping the stock looking.

Lets see some pics

 

[Sixtynine_Bird]

Here is the interior with the floors in place :

 

[Sixtynine_Bird]

Once everything was in place we epoxy primed the interior.

After we drilled the holes for the rear trim window, then seam sealed the car.

 

[Sixtynine_Bird]

So now lets move to the front :

 

[Sixtynine_Bird]

After that we finished the body work with the tin of the quarters were it meets the roof and the rockers with the quarters.

 

[Sixtynine_Bird]

Then we removed the panels once everything was mock up and we were happy how everything fits and epoxy primed the hood.

 

[Sixtynine_Bird]

The car was then ready to go to the paint shop :
That was the longest 5 months ever lol

 

[Sixtynine_Bird]

During that long period we worked on the rest of the car, like the dashboard, the rear end, the door locks and all the rods inside the door for the door handle. Everything was cleaned and wrapped waiting for the car to come back from the paint shop.

 

[threewood]

That is looking sweet!!! Thanks for the pics and the update.

 

[JB400]

Looks good

 

[Sixtynine_Bird]

Forgot to take pics, but we repaired the vent window "chassis", then cleaned the seal of the vent window, because the previous when repainting the car in yellow the paint went on the seals too
But they are in pretty good shape so just took a lot of time but now it is black again! Then we polished the moldings and did the the same on driver side and passenger side window. The next step for those is to change the plastic stuff that goes into the channel of the windows.


Finally we started the dashboard and some other little parts related to it or not that you will recognize in the pics.

 

[Sixtynine_Bird]

There is the following process :

 

[Sixtynine_Bird]

Once everything was painted we started the reassembling process on the dashboard.
Also we cleaned up the speedometer and gauges, repainted the marks in white (long process and very tedious), repainted in orange the needles. Oh I did put back the odometer to 00000 miles. The car is new so lets start again like in 69 with 0000 miles on it
The little red marks you'll see on the white marks are just some landmarks for the main speed limits in France (50km/h - 70km/h - 90km/h - 110km/h - 130km/h).