70 Hemi Superbird Restoration..................errr.....scratch that........

[Ron 73]

Thanks 747! I use whatever I can find to get the job done!

Truly words of wisdom,,,, and inspiration for so may others, OH, my name is "others" YES sir, whatever it takes we do! You are another showing this idea works well!!!

 

[TDawg]

Mighty fine work there, Hemirunner.... so are you using a cold can of beer to get the swelling down on your finger?:grin:

 

[Hemirunner]

Truly words of wisdom,,,, and inspiration for so may others, OH, my name is "others" YES sir, whatever it takes we do! You are another showing this idea works well!!!

Ron, wisdom isn't what my wife would call it! Lol :eusa_whistle:

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Mighty fine work there, Hemirunner.... so are you using a cold can of beer to get the swelling down on your finger?:grin:

Hey TDawg, yes sir! I do what works. The ice pack didn't fit my hand very well, the beer fits perfectly!!:VB toast:

 

[Hemirunner]

My buddy 'Joe' stopped by.....

 

[Hemirunner]

Tonight started with a better fit up of the tail panel and the goofy quarter panel extensions. To get this all to fit right, these trunk gutter pieces need to be at least clamped in place. I also had to do even more trimming to the tail panel to get it right. Luckily, I have a finished 70RR sitting right beside this project to measure off of. I cannot imagine trying to get it all right and not knowing if you're as much as 1/2" off. All of these sheet metal pieces can move around alot and still "look right".

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I also had to add a clamp here to pull the quarter panel in to fit the profile of the extension.

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Next I fit up the extension. I wouldn't describe the fit on either side as "perfect", but when comparing them to my other car, they look just as good if not a little better.

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It took a half dozen times of removing and reinstalling these to get to this point. Wore me out mentally!

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The right side of the panel looked a little low when viewing the tail light socket area as you can see below.

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This close up shows it a little better. I put the box behind it for clarity.

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I had to remove the extension yet again and raise the panel up a bit to get that to look more even. The left side looked real good.

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Here, you can see if fits a bit better leading me to believe some of that is in the adjustment but a part of it might be just how the panel is made.

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You can never clamp everything, but the more you clamp, the better you can make the 'fit up' of the panels which leads to a better finished product. These long clamps do well at clamping the angled corners.

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Once I had all this clamped together and had the trunk opening clamped to the proper width, I started welding in the rear panel along the trunk floor seam.

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Now it's starting to look like a car. If you can believe it, I didn't even have any beers while fitting this up!! And it still looks good!! LOL

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I finished welding out the seam to the trunk floor and decided to call it done for the night. This weekend I'll put some tack welds on the quarter panel to tail panel joints from in the trunk, then unbolt the extensions and weld up all the plug welds. Now I need to ice my index finger.

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More inspiration and yes, I know this and 'Joe's' car are Daytonas:tongue:

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Here's the next piece of the puzzle that I need to order.....

 

[HawkRod]

LOL, that 3rd from last picture looks good! The car looks great.

I do find a beer or two are great companions to building my car (just not too many or I regret it later!)

 

[Hemirunner]

Thanks Hawk, I can't wait to be on the downhill side of this thing! Yours is looking good! Brings back memories of restoring my FJ5 70RR.

 

[Hemirunner]

Just a passing thought on what I've done so far: The order of assembly seems to be the real key to putting these things together and I really think that I might have done it all wrong. It would seem that I should have put the quarter panels on first, rather than last. Then everything could have been matched up to those and then capped with the tail panel. This would have made everything much easier to line up. The rear crossmember extensions should have been installed after the tail panel was in, nearly last. Having to do it all over, I'd do it much differently.

 

[Hemirunner]

Welded out the left side.

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I'll have to reinstall the extension a few more times to get it to fit like I had it.

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Two of these intercoolers showed up today on the big brown truck!

 

[satman72]

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Now it's starting to look like a car. If you can believe it, I didn't even have any beers while fitting this up!!

If it makes you feel any better, I had a few just reading this thread!

 

[Hemirunner]

If it makes you feel any better, I had a few just reading this thread!

I hope you enjoyed the thread as much as the beer!

 

[747mopar]

Does Captain Morgan count? Great job, your doing some outstanding work and building one cool *** car in the process!!!!!!!! I'm curious to see the turbo go together, I'm not a fan of all the plumbing taking up the engine compartment but it looks cool when it's done right and you can't complain about more ponies!

 

[Hemirunner]

Does Captain Morgan count? Great job, your doing some outstanding work and building one cool *** car in the process!!!!!!!! I'm curious to see the turbo go together, I'm not a fan of all the plumbing taking up the engine compartment but it looks cool when it's done right and you can't complain about more ponies!

The beautiful thing about the superbird configuration is, that there will be little to no plumbing in the engine compartment!! The turbos will be underneath the front of each fender. The turbo exhaust will be right out of the fender as will the waste gate exhaust. Each waste gate will be under its respective turbo. The intercoolers will be approximately here as shown below. The only plumbing in the engine compartment will be the tubes going to the throttle bodies. I can tell everyone it's a cold air kit on a naturally aspirated, EFI hemi!!:headbang:

You can see the hole that the tube will travel through from the intercooler to the throttle body. I'll use a v-band bulkhead flange on the radiator yoke. http://www.racepartsolutions.com/index.php/categories1/part/v-bands/3-50-aluminum-firewall-flange-pn-jod-697035-race-part-solutions

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You can see in this side shot that there's tons of room for the intercoolers. This configuration will let me build the nose mount so the nose can be easily removed. Then I can walk right up to the radiator yoke and work in between the intercoolers. You can't get that close in a standard b-body with the grill and front sheet metal mounted.

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Oh by the way, Captain Morgan counts! LOL

 

[747mopar]

That's awesome, that's always been my biggest hold up with turbo's but the way your doing it and having the extra room created by the nose will really clean it up. I'll be watching

 

[usaroadrunner]

i cant keep quite on this one, just thinking of a twin turbo HEMI lurking so close to me. i got to see this thing in person when you get this done HEMIRUNNER. your doing an awesome job so far.

 

[Hemirunner]

Thanks usaroadrunner, I'll bring it up to Byron when it's done!

 

[Hemirunner]

Finishing all the welds out this weekend. Lots and lots of hours with very little appearance of progress:disgust:

 

[Hemirunner]

After all the grinding, it was tiime to clean up. I piled all the tools back on the cart and swept.

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After I cleaned up, I kept staring at the nasty 'hook' in the left front fender and decided I'd better see what I was working with. I stripped off enough paint and primer to find the nice, big pancake of filler in the front.

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Notice that I stripped it right down to the body line that fits up to the coronet front valance. I measured 1-1/8" below the body line and made a cut line with the marker and zipped it off. Then I folded the remaining metal up right at the body line like so.

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Here's what it looks like from underneath. The tab will get shaped some and a couple of holes drilled to hold the superbird front valance. The two notches in the tab are clearance notches for my folding pliers. I guess I need to buy a bigger pair!

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The result is one useable superbird fender. Next, I'll make some patches for all the rust holes around the side marker light.

 

[Hemirunner]

The other side took about 15 minutes. Grind, measure, mark, zip and fold.

 

[Hemirunner]

Tonight was part prep night. I had to strip all the E-coat off of the parts prior to welding and then put in all the holes to plug weld. I got a little carried away, LOL.
Here are the right side trunk gutters.

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Down the quarter panel to weld the gutters on. This is where I went a little overboard. I figured smaller holes, might need more of them. I wanted all the holes in the top so that I could get to the plug welds to grind them. The smaller holes will make for much smaller, easier to grind plug welds.

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There's no way my trunk gutters are coming back off!!

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I prepped the dutchman panel as well. I still need to do the left side quarter panel and trunk gutters. Before I weld the Dutchman panel in, I have a bunch of welding and grinding to do in the trunk. Leaving the panel out will make it easier to get in there and get the job done.

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The slit in the rear of the quarter panel is to improve the fit of that area. It was too wide and hung into the gutter. It's real tight on my other car. The only way to make it fit is to slice and dice.