Say Hello to Project "SurpriseBird" (FINISHED) ...Updates Pg. 7 on 12-2-11

[The70RT]

You the man 

[69bronzeT5]

Wanna do my Charger next? Seriously dude, you have skills!

[billssuperbird]

 

[70Sbird]

Justin,
You are amazing!
It took me over a year to get up enough guts to rip out my rusted trunk floor and weld one in.
I would likely never have the stones to attack a car like you are.
I'm glad there are people that have your capabilities, so many of us aren't body/metalwork savvy enough to do what you do

Keep up the good work and keep the pictures coming I love these threads!

[GL#10]

Corndog

Great work  ,   it will be ready to roll next week right ???   having the new metal  to use instead of original rusty bondo junk sure does save some time .
As always great job  , look forward to seeing this one done ,  tell your Boss he needs to convert one of his shops into handling older  classic cars  ,  im sure you would get people all over coming to get your quality workmanship done on there vehicle .

K.c

[hemi68charger]

Holy putting-her-back-together Batman !!!!!   

Looks like everything's lining up.......... How was the fit from up-close and personal?

Troy

[69*F5*SE]

Justin, you say the new AMD quarterpanels were "wavy". That doesn't sound good. I guess even the new panels will need some skim work.

[CornDogsCharger]

Everything actually fits pretty well for an aftermarket piece.  This is the first time I have worked with any exterior sheet metal from AMD.  Sure it needed a trim here or there to make it fit better, but all in all it did pretty well.  As for being wavy, I called a friend of mine who has used AMD quarters before (for a 69RR) and he said his parts didn't come in really wavy.  The only thing I can guess is maybe since these were from the first batch of '70 panels... maybe they were rushed in shipping and roughed up a little.  All in all, I'm happy with them.  A VERY thin skim coat of putty and a coat of primer will take care of everything on them. 

Justin
"CornDog"

[CornDogsCharger]

I guess I need to update this topic..... been a while, huh?  The car was off to a great start then it slowed down a good bit because I had to scrape all of the undercoating off the bottom of the car by hand.  That took FOREVER!  I wish he would have opted for soda-blasting like we did on the other Bird.  Oh well, it started off as a "detrim, sand, paint" project then snowballed.... so we all know how that is.  Anyways, I'll try to pick up where I left off and start updating the page again

Justin
"CornDog"

[69*F5*SE]

Ahh yes, scraping undercoating. That was an "on my back" job.  Glad it's over.  I need a rotisserie.     Anyhoo, thanks for the update.   

[BigBlockSam]

 

[hotrod98]

On the AMD quarters, how did the side scoops fit? On the old repro skins they didn't fit the contours too well. I hope they've corrected that on the new full quarters. I'll be installing a couple of those in the near future.

[CornDogsCharger]

The scoops fit very well considering the skins were not OEM.  There was just a very little amount of work that I had to do around the edge.  At least on one side (possibly both) I had to slot the hole a little bit.  The stamped holes in the skin had the piece sitting about a 1/8in too far forward.  After I slotted the hole and reworked the curve a little bit, everything looked great.

Justin
"CornDog"

[79JON]

I think this thread needs an update Justin (corndog) ha..     

[redrider]

any chance that the ac unit that was in it when you got it is forsale or if anyone knows were i can get one

[CornDogsCharger]

I don't think he will sell it... he's never gonna use it, but doesn't intend to sell much of anything.  I'll ask him if he's interested in selling but don't get your hopes up.  Heck, after the first Superbird was finished I asked if he wanted to sell the 15in Cragars that were on it and he said he thought he would hang on to them.  Go figure.

Justin
"CornDog"

[CornDogsCharger]

Ok..... This is WAAAAY Past due for an update...

Here you can see the body is pretty much stripped down to a shell and the new panels are being welded in place.

Justin
"CornDog"

[CornDogsCharger]

Since the car was wrecked back around '78 and repaired then, the repair wasn't really the best quality.  As you can see, the floor was roughly patched and seam sealed together.  I cut the floorpan out and got it ready for the new AMD panel to go back in.  Before I could do that I had to re-repair the inner and outer rocker panel on the driver side.

Justin
"CornDog"

[CornDogsCharger]

[CornDogsCharger]

After the inner and outer rocker were repaired the floorpan went in place.  As I mentioned earlier, this project really snowballed as we went along.  It started off being a "detrim and paint" project.  If we knew at the beginning that this was gonna be another full resto then we would have soda blasted the whole thing... but we didn't... and I had to physically strip every panel.  While doing that, more surprises were found.  Oh what fun!

Justin
"CornDog"

[CornDogsCharger]

At least one good thing about physically stripping a car is when you find all of the interesting markings.  Here are a few that I found.

Justin
"CornDog"

White "S" on right front rail




Yellow line on upper cowl panel, right side.  You can also see where the "dip primer" stopped on the firewall


Black "X" on inner frame of right fender

[redrider]

thanks

[CornDogsCharger]

Back to the quarters.... You can see here how the quarters fit.  They seemed a little wide in the sail panel area.  I had to split the panel and cut a pie out.  Also you can see where I was able to save the original VIN in the trunk gutter rail and work it into the new piece.

Justin
"CornDog"

[CornDogsCharger]

Since the curved trunk gutter pieces aren't being reproduced yet I had to re-use the originals.  The left piece cleaned up fine but the right piece needed some patching. 

Justin
"CornDog"

[The70RT]

Looks great, your quite the metal magician