So this is a customer car I’m starting on tonight. Just rolled off the rollback last night. It’s a 68 formula 400 firebird clone project. My customer was the body shop that did all the work, and then wound up with the car after it was partially reassembled. His entire goal is to get it put together enough to sell it, and let someone else finish it. To that end, were working on a strict budget. With me being me, I’ll do everything I can for the next owner, so he doesn’t have to redo anything, or worry about anything.
Car started life as a simple 350, auto, air, ps, pdb car. Was apparently painted a metallic blue at some point as I’m finding some remnants of the paint on uncleaned parts. It has been rotisserie soda blasted, straightened, and all metalwork completed. Doors were hung and adjusted, as well as deck lid. Underside soda blasted and bed lined. The previous owner took it back on the body dolly, and “reassembled” the car. The 400 was rebuilt from the block up with ram air heads and exhaust manifolds, edelbrock intake, Holley carb. Other than that, I don’t know what’s in it, but all the engine builder documentation is with the car, and other documentation totaling about 25k worth of receipts. Th400 was built, rear end rebuilt. All this was put back in the car, along with a fully rebuilt suspension and brake system. Somewhere in here, all work stopped on the car, and bill acquired it. After a brief examination, I’ll be double checking ALL work performed prior to his obtaining it. I just don’t want to put my stamp of approval on it until I know it’s right.
Supposedly, bill got all the parts to finish the car with it. So far, I’ve figured out were going to need a distributor and radiator, as I can’t seem to find them in the car. Also going with a full painless f-body harness.
Before I go any further, I figure id give some advice to others thinking about buying other peoples project cars for pennies on the dollar. It IS a good deal, based on a few variables.
- Assume nothing was done completely or properly. Especially torque specs on suspension, brakes, etc. the safety stuff.
- Make sure you buy a car with a large enthusiast following, large restoration documentation, or that you know very well. Boxes and bags and cans of parts that you didn’t take off, that you don’t know the condition of, and that you don’t know where they go are intimidating, motivation killing, and expensive things. I have never built an f-body, so I’m in this boat now.
- Assume that nothing but the car is worth keeping. Write off all the boxes of parts as useless junk. Most of it probably will be.
- (These are remembered from a car craft article in the 90’s) always buy paint and body you can live with. That’s the most expensive and time consuming part of a project car.
- Never buy a car you can’t hear run. Money demons flock to dry cylinders.
So, now that some history is out of the way, I'll outline the general plan for this car. It’s meant to be a resto-clone. The engine treatment already throws that out of the window pretty quickly, so were going resto-touring. No money that absolutely doesn’t have to be spent to do it right. It is, after all, a resale car. So we will be restoring the parts that are in the car, buying what we have to to make it run, steer, and stop. Pretty much we want to sell this car as a drivable project that needs the finishing touches. I’ll be making sure to do everything that I can for the next owner to make the finishing and tweaking much easier on them. Like sound deadening and insulating under the dash before putting it all back together. Probably won’t do the floors, so we can show off the perfect floor pans. I’ll be rebuilding the HVAC boxes, new radiator, alignment, etc. pretty much restoring what we have, buying what we have to, and tweaking it all to work better than it did from the factory. I want this to be a great driving, dependable, capable car. Don’t expect wildwoods, hotchkis, etc parts on it. Expect slight but meaningful modifications where it counts, and solid resto tech. expect LOTS of questions about “what is this, and were did it go?” expect cleaning original fasteners and re-finishing them before buying bolts. Expect aggressive alignment. Expect over engineering of electrical. Expect extreme attention to detail. These are the things that make a car more valuable, that just take time to put into them. Sure, it takes some money in supplies as well, but not as much a buying the resto parts would.
Anyway, onto the pictures. Remember, we pulled it out from under the cover where it has been sitting at the body shop for the last 6 months, put it on a rollback, and pushed it off at my shop. First step will be getting the cobwebs and body shop dust off, cleaning out the interior, and figuring out what I need, want, and what is the next guy’s expense. Step one will be cleaning and a good once over. Step two will be double checking all previous work. Step 3 will be everything that mounts to the firewall. Step 4 will be finishing the braking and steering systems. Step five will be getting it running.
i work it in the best i can like that, and then start to put the fasteners, etc in the holes. easiest on a firewall to either leave them in, or poke an awl through from the other side. this car, im doing the awl, as i have no idea what goes where yet. i also will put a slit with a razor kife wherever thers a sharp coontour change or opening at this point. i then rework it with the heat gun and j-roller. now, as a sde point to remember: doing 80% of the surface wity get you 90% of the bbenifits. after this, its diminishing returns. so thats why im bnot too concerned about slight gaps in the deadener.
this is where your at by the end of step 2.
this car, with a welded solid dash that is sheetmetal, i did the top and vertical fromt surfaces of the dash as well. went form tinny/rattly sounding to nice sold thing anywhere on the dash or firewall.
reasaon i do this, is i like a nice solid feeling and solid sounding car. woth no drafts or rattles. so this is always uder whatever is getting bolted to the structure of the car, thereby making those jointrs less prone to squeaks/rattles. just makes for a more quality feeling car. 
