[72projectbird]

Some of you guys might remember I posted picking up a 77 SE a while back. It's time I finally did something with it.

The short story is I found it listed online in Maine, and bought it from the son of the original owner. His Dad bought it new at a local dealer, and spent its life up in Milo, ME. Somewhere along the line it was lightly customized by having the original striping hand painted, along with the bird being hand painted and gold leafed.

It's been sitting since 1995. It was shuffled from garage to garage, before being stuck in the woods and forgotten. We made a deal and after a 7 hour round trip it was in it's new home.

It still retains all its original panels, although will need some work on the quarters. Everything structural is perfect. The floor pans need some help, but I have a one piece floor for it. The trunk, rear rails, and tail panel are great.


I dropped the gas tank and surprisingly it was fine. I changed all the fluids, power washed the entire bottom of the car, threw in a fresh battery and a good carb I had laying around, and it fired right up. Great oil pressure, no smoke, no top end noise, nothing. Pretty cool.

My plan is to put it on the rotisserie and completely do it over, but currently my 70TA is on it, and I have a 78 W72 Y82 currently being painted, so instead of this bird sitting in the garage waiting its turn I decided I'm going to drive it like it is for a while.

I'm in the process of installing FiTech fuel injection, getting new tires, and giving it a once over. I'll be sure to document its journey back to life after 25 years of slumber in the woods.

The pics of it on the trailer is when I picked it up. The one of it up on the lift is after buffing the paint back with some agression compound on a rotary buffer. It actually shines up pretty good. lol