A real Barn Find instead of a story-The Bird in the Barn for 43 years!)

[fc7_plumcrazy]

1

the rust won't get worse unless you store it wet or drive it in the salt which you probably won't do.

If you choose "2" it will be "just" a driver as many others (which don't get driven on the other hand, too by most)

Carsten

[alfaitalia]

Of course the rust will get worse....only takes the moisture in the air to feed it. Never known a rusty car to stop rusting just because it was moved into somewhere warmer!

[ACUDANUT]

Of course the rust will get worse....only takes the moisture in the air to feed it. Never known a rusty car to stop rusting just because it was moved into somewhere warmer!

I agree. They call it Cancer for a reason.

[MoParJW]

Of course the rust will get worse....only takes the moisture in the air to feed it. Never known a rusty car to stop rusting just because it was moved into somewhere warmer!

It will, but it will progress so slow, we'll be all long gone before you could notice... if the car is kept dry.

The only exception I can think of is when moisture gets trapped in the rust, under the carpet or under paint for example.

just my 

[Harper]

very nice! i saw one in my lifetime back in the late 70's in person thats the only time ever! well other than at talladega when they have the winged day deal

[aerolith]

Happy New Year Taxspeaker and family!

Its your car, so you do what you want with her, but I'm sure there are other Folks that don't have a Limey Bird that would love to restore her!
(That would be 'my worry' owning a rare Bird and not having the money to restore her).
If you already have a lovely Birdie, I can't see any mileage in 'busting a gut' doing another?

Resto is a ball of string scenario, its all about levels of RESTO!

To me new quarters and an engine rebuild is an acceptable level of resto for me!
To others that would be a BARE minimum and NOT acceptable!!!

The only person that it really matters to, is the 'current owner', others can have their say but ultimately, its not their 'TIME and MONEY' at stake...

[taxspeaker]

Thanks for the comments! A lot of interesting input and varied opinions. We are slowly proceeding on step 1 and hope to get the engine out this weekend to start the rebuilding process. I continue to be unable to get a local bodyman to follow up on fixing the body and repainting it, so we are continuing to slowly work towards our own mechanical restoration, we started on the brakes over new years and will follow up on fuel lines after that, but slowly over the next several months, with a goal of running by summer.

Bob

[aerolith]

Hello Bob,

This is beginning to have all the hallmark's of a 'double' resto, mechanical now, bodywork laters.

Once the motor is out then that's the time to do the bodywork, as any 'unibody' car is only as good as its Bodyshell.
If there are holes in the Quarter skins then its time to face-facts and say its got 'lots of rust' issues.

Find someone with a HD rotisserie and get it upside down and have a real 'butchers hook' and the rails etc.
Its lasted nearly 50 years, it ain't gonna last another 50 without proper SURGERY...

If I was in the Great US of A I would help you in a heartbeat, its not about the money, ITS ALL ABOUT THE CAR!!!

Limeys need to be saved, we are a dying breed lol...

[aerolith]

Is this an option?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 only pullin ya leg BoB

[ACUDANUT]

Hello Bob,

This is beginning to have all the hallmark's of a 'double' resto, mechanical now, bodywork laters.

Once the motor is out then that's the time to do the bodywork, as any 'unibody' car is only as good as its Bodyshell.
If there are holes in the Quarter skins then its time to face-facts and say its got 'lots of rust' issues.

Find someone with a HD rotisserie and get it upside down and have a real 'butchers hook' and the rails etc.
Its lasted nearly 50 years, it ain't gonna last another 50 without proper SURGERY...

If I was in the Great US of A I would help you in a heartbeat, its not about the money, ITS ALL ABOUT THE CAR!!!

Limeys need to be saved, we are a dying breed lol...

Well said. 

[fc7_plumcrazy]

Hello Bob,

This is beginning to have all the hallmark's of a 'double' resto, mechanical now, bodywork laters.

Once the motor is out then that's the time to do the bodywork, as any 'unibody' car is only as good as its Bodyshell.
If there are holes in the Quarter skins then its time to face-facts and say its got 'lots of rust' issues.

Find someone with a HD rotisserie and get it upside down and have a real 'butchers hook' and the rails etc.
Its lasted nearly 50 years, it ain't gonna last another 50 without proper SURGERY...

If I was in the Great US of A I would help you in a heartbeat, its not about the money, ITS ALL ABOUT THE CAR!!!

Limeys need to be saved, we are a dying breed lol...

Well said. 

face some facts: A unibody car with rustholes can still be driven and enjoyed for many years.
If it is stored dry it will not only last for 50 years but even more !

There is no doubt that a total bolt&nut resto is something nice when you look at the finished car.
But looking at Superbirds&Daytonas exspecially more than 70% of the existing cars are restored to a high level already.
So cosmetically untouched cars or cars wearing a 70s custom paint sheme are rarely seen today.

I think it would be great to leave an original paint car "as is". If it is freshened up technically it can be used and enjoyed.
No concours condition 1 is driven.

So every owner should consider HOW he wants to use it in the future, too.

Carsten

[bish]

I love this story and I would vote for 1. I also found my bird in a garage in Elkhart, in. in 2003.

[wingcarenvy]

Bob, as said before its your car do as you wish. I am sad but feel a large relief that I now don't have to sell my soul to buy a rusty Bird haha. My plan was option 1 for a few years and have fun build up some good memories and attachment to it. Then its off to number 2 or what I call a 80's resto. I would fix the rust using new panels and paint the car and make it look great while keeping the original interior and engine compartment, well probably paint the compartment in option 1 since the motor is out. That way its not a show poodle but its a clean driver. If I may speak freely, please O' please don't do another resto mod of a rare and desirable car. I don't have a Superbird and it really pains me to see the trend lately of cutting up these cars to make resto mods out of them by people with deep pockets. If you'd like to do the resto mod thing I have a clone you can start with. Anyways I am glad to see it getting its proper due either way.

[taxspeaker]

That picture Aerolith-wow!

Update-we now have the engine out and will start rebuilding it in a week. The transmission is out and has been sent (with shifter) to Brewer's transmission. We have the power booster back from Booster Dewey. After 3 weeks soaking in various brake fluid and parts cleaners we were able to free up the master cylinder and have rebuilt it. The carb is partially freed up and soaking in solvent. I have sent the wiper up to Bill Meerholz. We want to rebuild every part rather than replace-they are better than the replacements, original and we know what we have inside and out.

By the way I maintain a list of parts restorers with comments, prices and contact info if anyone wants it, PM me.

We have had to pull the emergency brake arm and are trying to figure it out. We did get it unfrozen, but trying to figure out the cleaning and re-installation, this is a piece I have never worked on before.

Chris, the rust is everywhere on parts and bolts and everything is taking 5 times longer than planned. I want to rebuild, not replace and the surface rust has frozen so many things over 40 years that were unexpected. We have still been unsuccessful getting any local body people to work on it, and are still "on the list" to send it to Mark at Magnum Restoration for paint.

We bought a media blaster and will drape the car in a tent and plastic to blast the underside next week. We have removed the hitch (had to to get to the gas tank) and are finding that every brake and fuel line is rotten too, so we ordered some new ones. The seats have been recovered and are also just awaiting re-installation.

I have sent the gauge cluster to Dave Patik, but his wife is sick so t may be awhile. Rather than buy new dash bezels we are carefully re-doing them ourselves in our own shop since they are originals.

Dissassembly is almost done now, but we can't reassemble until I get the body rust fixed. As you can tell I have decided NOT to do a resto-mod. The rust issue on the car led to the obvious conclusion-it is not safe to drive it without repair, so we are doing the resto as much as we can ourselves. I will post a few pictures when I can but I travel for a living and am on my 30 day Australia/New Zealand rotation until the end of February and have left the car in the care of my boys and a friend. The mice issue has been everywhere with the biggest surprise being inside the carb (!!) and under the intake manifold. The wiring, which seemed fine, has proven to be so brittle that the safest thing here is to also replace it, which I have done on other B Bodies for 40 years, so that's what we are doing. Not sure about the headlight vacuum lines, but that is way down the road.

The only unknown now other than body work is the suspension. The front is obviously shot, and the rear springs and shackle bushings are dryrotted and brittle. Our local spring shop tells me not to re-arch the springs so until I get back we are postponing that decision because the cost of new springs is so high.

That's it for now. The problems are more than we expected, but that's ok if I can just get the bodywork fixed and live long enough to get it back together while I remember how!
Bob

[ksquared]

We have laid out 4 different courses of action, listed in order of preference:

1st: Fix, rebuild or repair anything broken or safety related, rebuild the engine and drive it as the rusted hulk it is; or

2nd: Do all of the first goal and have a local body shop that we trust fix and repair the body and paint to an acceptable good quality driver; or

3rd: keep all the original stuff we can and make it an excellent driver ..., while keeping all the original parts if a purist wants to restore it after I am gone.

4th: Last choice-do a full restoration on the car. But then it would be another Bird nobody wants to drive, and that doesn't seem to be acceptable to me.

Bob

I guess #1 is OFF THE LIST!!!

Now I'm wondering if #2 and #3 will be crossed off at some point, as I think taxspeaker likes everything to be perfect.  But, paraphrasing a now ex-president, "that depends on what your definition of perfect is."

Some had said, "Leave it as is, rust and all, it shows its age, but that also shows its history."  It is a valid point.  Others have said, "OEM, if it isn't as it rolled out of Detroit, you've come up short."  That is a valid opinion too, as striving for perfection is always a worthy goal.

Looking at the Concourse OEM cars is spectacular, and the investment in them makes them closer to artwork than autos.  I'm thinking, as taxspeaker did actually drive his Superbird to Alaska and back, he knows the balance.  But if it can be restored to Concourse OEM, and somebody has the resources to do it, does that mean restoring it to merely spectacular isn't good enough?

A great memory was from a car show they have right here in Lakeland, the Lake Mirror Classic.  It has really gotten to be a top-tier show, they even had a Tucker there one year!  But several years ago, I was walking away from the show with my son, and we're going up the slight uphill on the sidewalk, and coming down right at us was a yellow Superbird!!  I was telling my son about how special that car is.  I didn't need to open the hood and check if the radiator cap was from an authentic Superbird radiator, or if it was from a, gasp!, '72 Valiant, and it didn't matter if "the numbers match" or not at that point, it was beautiful paint from where we were at, and the car was driving!  We saw and heard it!!  How often does that happen now?  And he had driven it to the show for others to see a true part of automotive history.  And I was always thankful to him for doing that.

So I suppose, speaking to taxspeaker, I'll appreciate your efforts no matter what choices you make.

[held1823]

Bob, I have a close friend here in New Castle that would be interested in discussing the paint and body work with you. He is who I will eventually turn loose on the Daytona once I take that plunge.

[Chad L. Magee]

Of course the rust will get worse....only takes the moisture in the air to feed it. Never known a rusty car to stop rusting just because it was moved into somewhere warmer!

True, but there are tricks one can play to delay the further oxidation of the metal by using redox chemistry:

One trick is to remove the water from the air surrounding the car (good dehumidifier and desiccant around the car) to cut back on the rusting rate.  Water is needed to create hydroxide ions from the oxygen molecules in the air (with hydrogen gas as a byproduct).  This process helps to strip electrons from the iron atoms in the metal, creating what we refer to as rust. 

Another is to electrically attach a sacrificial anode to the body of the car.  Rusting will occur in the metal surface that is the easiest to remove electrons from.  Magnesium (or zinc) loses electrons easier than iron, so it would be a good choice for an anode material when working with iron objects.  Once the sacrificial anode has completely oxidized (time to replace it with a fresh one), watch out though because the iron will then start to rust again since it is no longer being protected. 

Still another method is to connect the object to a electrical current in such a way as to create a continuous negative charge on the metal surface.  Any electrons that become dislodged from the metal atoms will be constantly replaced with new ones.

Is not science fun?...

[aerolith]

Not sure why you would drive/show any car with rust holes?

In the UK that's not gonna happen, as we have stringent MOT laws to prevent that.
Then there is the suspension/steering and brakes to consider.
In theory a car that can do in excess of 140mph needs to be in tiptop condition.
I was driving Charger R/T's in the 80's that were borderline safe?

I think we are forgetting the 'passage of time' with our old Mopars...

The danger with IT is IO.  'information overload', too many ideas and there is only really one correct course of action.

[aerolith]

They thought it would be alright after 50 years underground?

Your Limey Birdie isn't as bad as this, barns are a much better idea...

[aerolith]

Hi Bob,

I know a Superbird expert and a supersonic Birdie metalwork man too.
Yep they is in San Fernando Valley CA and they is doing birdies, all the time!
Just done this one and another one coming in a week or so.

[taxspeaker]

FInally no snow-moved all 3 outside today and let them run for 45 minutes. lime one has engine and tranny out, but many repairs and rebuilds done to get it driveable-no body work though!

[taxspeaker]

My favorite today

[tan top]

  good picture

[Stevetona]

Awesome!

[WINGIN IT]

Reading from left to right " y outh Daytona"
Hmmm....