[tharkun8]

Welcome to the world of B-bodies.. they are great cars to drive and
I think for the most part they look great..

problem is finding stuff a lot of the time.. as a GENERAL rule, if the
part you are looking for is B-Body only.. no one makes it.. no one
sees $$ in B-body only stuff so you are forced to scavenge. That is
over-simplifying a bit but its a good place to start from.

Anything mechanical or shared with A-Body stuff is usually available.
Body panels and some trim pieces are the worst.. just presume you will have
a hunt finding that stuff.

Makes getting through to the end and hearing it fire up that much sweeter.

John

[MPKind]

What it your experience with auto restoration, and what are your ideas for the finished product? Stock, slightly modified, modified, pro touring?

[MPKind]

Originally Posted by tharkun8

Welcome to the world of B-bodies.. they are great cars to drive and
I think for the most part they look great..

problem is finding stuff a lot of the time.. as a GENERAL rule, if the
part you are looking for is B-Body only.. no one makes it.. no one
sees $$ in B-body only stuff so you are forced to scavenge. That is
over-simplifying a bit but its a good place to start from.

Anything mechanical or shared with A-Body stuff is usually available.
Body panels and some trim pieces are the worst.. just presume you will have
a hunt finding that stuff.

Makes getting through to the end and hearing it fire up that much sweeter.

John

You got that right! 4 hour round trip to scavenge for a bunch of small parts like special fasteners, clips, and other non-repopped stuff. The small parts get ignored until your putting the car together and then you need that special phillips head screw that holds on the headlight bezel on a '65.

[RonBurgundy]

Originally Posted by MPKind

What it your experience with auto restoration, and what are your ideas for the finished product? Stock, slightly modified, modified, pro touring?

Definitely not stock. Honestly the rest is really up in the air. We've been kicking around a lot of ideas but haven't decided a lot yet. One thing for certain is that we want it done right but also want do as much as possible ourselves to keep the costs down.

Obviously I'd love to do a Butler Stroker Kit, Edelbrock Heads, big sway bars, front disc conversion, etc etc. I guess you could say a light pro touring vibe? But the biggest thing to me right now is get the car repaired well and back on the road with a small budget. Use as much of the original parts as possible. And what we do need try to pick up second hand to keep costs down.

Before he retired he did lots of auto body work (mostly painting) and I'm hoping he can show me how paint on this car.

[MPKind]

Will you be removing the body from the frame? Not necessary if the frame is solid, but some repair tasks are easier if you do.

I think a pro touring vibe will make building this car easier since you won't have to track down a lot of "correct" parts. There's a disc brake conversion made by Scarebird that is reasonably priced.

[RonBurgundy]

Originally Posted by MPKind

Will you be removing the body from the frame? Not necessary if the frame is solid, but some repair tasks are easier if you do.

I think a pro touring vibe will make building this car easier since you won't have to track down a lot of "correct" parts. There's a disc brake conversion made by Scarebird that is reasonably priced.

I'd prefer to take it down to the bare frame. The only issue I think we'd run into is space to house everything. Would like to have the frame sandblasted and powder coated. My step father has all the equipment to do this at his employer so we could probably get by with just paying for material costs and doing the work ourselves.

I almost forgot. Look what we found in the glove box. The original protection plan book complete with Protect O Plate!

[MPKind]

Cool documents. Yeah, those cars take up a lot of space when you take them apart.

[Engine-Ear]

Welcome to the PY board - and the DarkSide!

I look forward to seeing your progress on this neat car.

[RonBurgundy]

Here's some of the rust in the rear quarters. Patch or replace?

[Heybuck]

Originally Posted by RonBurgundy

In the deal we received the original 65 hood and 2 (supposedly) 65 front bumpers. Out of curiosity can those be used on the 66 parts already installed on the car?

I'm almost positive the panel below the windscreen is different. 1965 won't fit with 1966 panels and vice versa.
You might need to check on that.

[RonBurgundy]

Originally Posted by Heybuck

I'm almost positive the panel below the windscreen is different. 1965 won't fit with 1966 panels and vice versa.
You might need to check on that.

We got a spare one of those too. If we were smart we'd probably just part the thing out and triple what we paid for it haha.

[MPKind]

The '65 front clip has unique one year only inner fenders, hood, cowl vent and all the rest and won't mix with '66 stuff. You can interchange the doors, and a good portion of the rear quarter up to the tail panel, like I mentioned earlier.

The glass is interchangeable with '66 to '68 Pontiac and '65 to '69 Chevrolet. Door weatherstrip, and inner/outer window sweeps (fuzzies) are re-popped. The fuzzies aren't sold by Ames, but rather a Chev parts house. I found them at Hubbard's Impala Parts. Same as '65 Biscayne/BelAir.

You'll find a lot of what you need through Ames and their competitors. However, many parts aren't re-popped, and you'll be glad if you try to save and catalog everything you take off the car. Take a lot of pictures under the hood and anywhere there's nothing to help you assemble it later. Videos with narration is also very helpful later. Many fasteners are unique to that car, so keep all of them. Most can be cleaned and re-used. You may want to seek a parts car to help with missing parts and to use as a template for assembly later on. Save your long brake line and fuel line. That car has a "C" channel frame, not a closed channel like on a GP. If you can remove them carefully, Inline Tube can make new for you. If you want to check out some '65s under restoration, there's a guy in WI that is painting my car. His business is called Metal Manipulations. His forte is metal patching and painting. Look for it on FB.

[RonBurgundy]

Here are a few updated pics of what we've uncovered. We were able to get the majority of the interior removed and all of the garbage out of the trunk. Looks like we'll be needing at least the passengers side front floor pan and possibly a trunk pan / rear wheel inner fenders? As well as a small section of the trunk channel.

[MPKind]

Looks like you'll need the RH front floor brace too. They do make partial floor brace patches, I put one on my car. It's not the whole brace just the end piece. It worked great.

Inner rears are hard to come by. I patched mine up, it took a long time for me fix them up, but it can be done if you have enough left on either side to make patterns.

Floor pans and trunk pans are made, that trunk lip looks challenging to remove and replace.

Keep the pictures coming!

[Deadhead]

I would SERIOUSLY evaluate what you are getting ready to undertake Vs. what you can find out there that is already a driver. Given the concerns you express about cost, you would save A TON OF MONEY just starting with a car that was in better shape, decent driver or already done. Looking at that car, everybody here knows that you are at minimum $20-30k, doing a lot of the work yourself. These cars done sell for peanuts compared to what it costs to build them. At the very least, you are going to need a second car for all the metal you have found you need already. That will be far cheaper than going and hunting each item you need as you find it. You could rent a storage unit, and it would be cheaper than the time & $ spent on the individual items.

Not trying to pee in your cornflakes, but since you are new to these cars I thought I would attempt to be the voice of reason.

[RonBurgundy]

Originally Posted by Deadhead

I would SERIOUSLY evaluate what you are getting ready to undertake Vs. what you can find out there that is already a driver. Given the concerns you express about cost, you would save A TON OF MONEY just starting with a car that was in better shape, decent driver or already done. Looking at that car, everybody here knows that you are at minimum $20-30k, doing a lot of the work yourself. These cars done sell for peanuts compared to what it costs to build them. At the very least, you are going to need a second car for all the metal you have found you need already. That will be far cheaper than going and hunting each item you need as you find it. You could rent a storage unit, and it would be cheaper than the time & $ spent on the individual items.

Not trying to pee in your cornflakes, but since you are new to these cars I thought I would attempt to be the voice of reason.

Thanks for the heads up but I knew what I was getting myself into when I bought this car. And as crazy as this sounds I'm not concerned about what I'm going to have in this car ($ wise) vs what I could sell it for or even buy one for. Working on this old boat is about making memories with my son and grandfather (his great grandfather). It's as simple as that. No more no less. We've been talking about buying and restoring a classic car for nearly 20 years and this car made it a reality. Working on it is half the fun of owing it. At least for us!

[MPKind]

I agree with Dead, but you also have good points and if you're cool with the challenges to restore this car, go for it!

There's a good support here at PYF, and other Pontiac groups on FB, however, the FB group threads tend to fizzle out quickly.

[RonBurgundy]

Originally Posted by MPKind

I agree with Dead, but you also have good points and if you're cool with the challenges to restore this car, go for it!

There's a good support here at PYF, and other Pontiac groups on FB, however, the FB group threads tend to fizzle out quickly.

I completely agree with the estimated total restoration cost...if we were going for a show quality car. Watch Roadkill by chance? Haha.

[MPKind]

Be patient with your quest to locate useable sheet metal. The interior stuff can be bought new, and it's not terribly expensive for what you get. However, front quarters and inners are a little more challenging. The inners are unique one year only and can be somewhat difficult to locate. Outers aren't as difficult to find, but can cost anywhere from $200-$350 each. Rear quarters are really tough mainly because they have to be cut off a car and you're limited to Cat/GP 2 door. If the forward portion is good you can look at 4 door cars. I've never welded on a rear quarter, but a lot of people have.

[63gpman]

If the front end is decent condition, I would leave the 66 front end on if you are just making a fun driver out of it. Only a few crazy full size Pontiac guys would know the difference and I like the 66 front end.