Archive: 1967 Pontiac Firebird

More trunk bracing.

Tagged: Body, Preparation
12th September 2008
In preparation for mounting on the recently purchased AutoTwirler (still waiting on the leaf spring mount brackets) I’ve braced the rear end. This (paired with the prior support braces) should stop any corkscrew-ing or sagging when the car is rotated. Once mounted, it is off to the ‘blasters for cleaning, then when it gets back it’ll be time for putting together the new arse-end of the car. For this, this…
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Assembling the AutoTwirler.

Tagged: AutoTwirler, Body
4th September 2008
The AutoTwirler (car rotisserie) arrived (rusty). There’s not much to assembly…   You get two of these ends. Three wheels for each. The wheels are on plates that slot into a seat, then a single bolt holds them in.   These three bars are to tie the two ends together. They come packaged inside the swinging t-bars.   Now it’s assembled I can see that I’m gonna have to either…
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Cut up the door skins.

Tagged: Body, Disassembly
1st September 2008
In preparation for the blast cleaning, I cut out a large section of the door skin, to expose the hidden side of the interior door wall. I’m trying to maximize what needs cleaning gets blasted, and minimize what doesn’t (as in what needs to replaced for sure).   Before / after of the right hand door:   …and the other side:   Not much left of the car now…  …
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Some more cutting.

Tagged: Body, Disassembly
28th August 2008
Decided to cut away the strip of the boot pan I had previously left on top of the box section. I would not be able to weld to it, like I had originally planned, it is of too bad a condition. I had concerns about it providing structure to the box section, but now think it is strong enough and is supported at either end to under the body and…
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Something’s missing…

Tagged: Body, Disassembly
26th August 2008
Cut out the trunk pan. Before:   The cut out trunk pan: Note the the upper corners. I had to cut slightly differently than what I planned, as underneath there is part of another panel that overlaps right in the corner, so I had to avoid cutting this.   To maintain structural integrity, a strip of the trunk pan which is spot-welded on top of the box section was not…
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Removed right hand wheelhouse and filler panel.

Tagged: Body, Disassembly
22nd August 2008
Cut away some more of the quarter panel and proceeded to drill out the spots welds holding the inner and outer wheelhouses to the body shell (to the rear seat pan, trunk pan, rear seat back rest, filler panel, inner side panel, trunk hinge supports and sail pillar support). An area down near the rocker panel is causing problems as to how to remove the wheelhouse spot welds from there,…
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Drilling out the trunk support straps.

Tagged: Body, Disassembly
20th August 2008
Drilled out all the spot welds between the trunk pan and the support straps in preparation for removing a large section of the pan.   I started by dot-punching and drilling a 2mm pilot hole (with a Cobalt drill bit) from underneath, then from above drilled the hole to 10mm (with another Cobalt drill bit). I didn’t worry about putting a hole in the strap, as I’ll be welding them…
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Temporary structural support for the rear.

Tagged: Body
18th August 2008
Quickly knocked together some tubing to try and give structural support to the rear end. It should at least stop the back from crabbing when the entire trunk pan is removed. It may not even be necessary with the frame rails, tail panel and remainders of the quarter panels, but it won’t hurt anything, is easy to remove and doesn’t get in the way (too much).   The bars stretch…
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Current state of things.

Tagged: 1967 Pontiac Firebird
17th August 2008
Progress hasn’t exactly been in the forward direction.   The subframe isn’t complete for the following reasons. The upper control arm shafts need replacing, the threads inside each of them are not good, and when one bushing end cap was torqued to spec, the bolt sheared. These will be replaced with the better design “nut-ends” where the control arm shaft end is threaded on the outside and a nut hold…
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Where to cut?…

Tagged: Body, Disassembly
17th August 2008
Been working out where to cut, how much to keep, what to replace et cetera.   I plan on cutting the whole pan out along the blue lines (apart from to the right side, I’ll cut along the white line – this is the frame rail). Then cut out the filler panels on the red line (but not over the white line). Then the new boot pan will take the…
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Removed filler panel.

Tagged: Body, Disassembly
16th August 2008
Removed filler panel through drilling out spot welds to the top of the trunk pan, the bottom of the remaining quarter and also, unnecessarily (causing me more problems by doing so) to the tail panel.   Before:   After:…
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