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Norwood · 11-12-2011, 04:29 PM

Leigh, know you can get Tazz to do you a set of Custom Carbon Fiber wheels....and by the way that motor looks GREAT

LeighP · 11-12-2011, 08:47 PM

Yeah....I've been drooling over the idea of those carbon fibre Honeycomb wheels...and they can be any offset I need.....

shakerz · 11-13-2011, 05:54 AM

This is a little darker maybe:

NPD used to show off a dark blue 71 Formy they owned with the solid color and clean look of trim accents you're talking about including the door edge guards. I can't locate the pic yet. Your interior is going to be black vinyl inside that green?

LeighP · 11-13-2011, 06:05 AM

Yep...black interior...leather, please!!! lol.

LeighP · 11-21-2011, 02:07 AM

Well, dropped in to see the project, and against my expectations on body shops, they'd hauled into the job.
Most of the car is disassembled and stripped of paint. Body still has some small sections down the bottom to strip, but its looking pretty clean so far.
The shop owner said he's pretty happy with the doors and one fender, but the other fender will need some work as it's had the typical 70's-80's repair to some dents then smothered in body filler to make it look nice....its fixable, though, which is good.

LeighP · 11-23-2011, 07:42 AM

Ok...so now they've got the door cutouts and cowl sides clean, and the lower body.....car is looking pretty good.

Not bad for a 40 year old, eh?

Door have got their first coat of primer on them.

RicksGTO · 11-23-2011, 11:19 AM

looks great Leigh! That's quite a rust-free solid body.

LeighP · 11-25-2011, 12:57 AM

Found another old repair...bottom of the LH rear quarter and the bottom of the back valance on the same side...seems to have been an impact repair rather than rust...it's been roughly pulled then filled over....so that'll be another fix.
I came in today and the owner had spent a lot of the day file finishing the roof and correcting small defects in the panel.....old school stuff.

Heres the LH fender where it had been poorly repaired and filled up....

All in all, when I see what some guys are going through repairing cars, I'm pretty happy with what we've found.

Formulabruce · 11-27-2011, 04:05 AM

Looking great!! The Body is in sweet shape!
What amazed me about mine was that It had zero tail panel rust, just small dents. My Other Firebirds had a sign on the tail panel that said, "Im rusting cant you see??" hehe

LeighP · 11-27-2011, 09:15 PM

Yep, seems to be exceptionally clean....I'm lucky.

Just finished cleaning up and repairing the front and rear windscreen trims and the hood rear edge trim...a couple of dents fixed and they're good to go.

Norwood · 11-27-2011, 10:24 PM

SOLID...

LeighP · 12-06-2011, 02:01 AM

So I'm slowly pulling interior parts out of the pile of pieces that came with the car.
I decided that the original rear side panels and sail panels are just not going to cut it with the full resto....so I'll be buying new ones of these, which luckily they reproduce for 71 models. Same with the headliner retaining side trims...I have two sets and both are just too UV damaged at the front to go with a full restoration. I was fooling myself that they'd be OK.....doh!

Anyhow, I'm converting the car over to the solid headliner board style, rather than the correct early soft headliner. The car came with a late 73/74 headliner, that had seen better days, but it was salvageable....so out comes the fibreglass repair kit and it came up pretty good. I'll be getting my interior guy to retrim it in the correct black perforated vinyl and foam.

Had to completely rebuild this corner

There were some splits that must have happened while the board was sitting around out of the car.

LeighP · 12-09-2011, 01:14 AM

The panel shop has finished up those annoying "before Christmas" jobs, and they're back onto my car.

They found that the rear window opening didn't really line up nicely along the edge of the window trims....so they've been working those edges to get things right.
I dropped the front and rear screens down today so they can trial fit the glass to make sure the molds sit correctly all the way round....these guys are really going to town on this and spending some serious time to make it look right.

First skim of filler ....got this just as they were applying it.

LH side of the rear window, where he's been working the body line....

And for some reason, I'd accidentally spun the selector knob on the new camera to video....so heres a few seconds of MP4

LeighP · 12-09-2011, 09:37 PM

Saturday - the guys are hard at it...fixing poorly done old repairs.... they hope to have it in primer Monday or Tuesday

Heres the RH side sail panel area after reworking it...the LH is half done.

shakerz · 12-10-2011, 03:01 PM

Wish we had shipped more 70-73's to Austrailia. They would all be as clean as yours. Gonna look good in primer!

LeighP · 12-10-2011, 10:39 PM

Mine only arrived here in 1990.....its an ex Cailfornia car sold new in LA.

Formulabruce · 12-11-2011, 12:02 AM

Looking Great!! I wonder how that headliner was affixed to the older style roof though....

LeighP · 12-11-2011, 04:14 AM

I had a look at the body, it has the holes for the push in pins for the side trim moldings, and I'm using all the trims moldings including the A pillar covers out of a later car. Other than that, the centre dome light is the same and the seat belt upper mounts also hold it in place. I think it'll work fine.

Spent the day today stripping, cleaning and polishing the stainless roof gutter molds (covered in paint and undercoat) and repairing and painting the side window seal retainer strips...I hate buying a car in pieces...the two short B pillar strip holders are missing in action. A friend is chasing down a pair for me.

LeighP · 12-12-2011, 02:57 AM

Work continues...they are hoping to have the shell primed tomorrow or wednesday.

Undetected previous repairs that had to be reworked currently stand at....
- Left and right sail panel areas where the vinyl roof had been removed and the leading had cracked
- rear LH quarter bottom and rear valance from previous accident damage
- LH lower B pillar at the bottom edge above the sill, looks like a small rust repair poorly done...not rusty, just not real nice work.
- RH front fender dents from old accident damage

LeighP · 12-14-2011, 03:07 AM

Well, almost there (primer)...looks like tomorrow now. They've got one more spot they want to work then it'll be ready to prime. Doors were in the booth getting guide coated when I was there today. Rear inner fender lips have been rolled and the fender lip trims trial fitted to make sure everything will work OK.

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