I actually got rolling on my project T-Bird for the magazine (TRK) and for the past two weekends have been able to devote time to it. It's taken some time just to get it running right, the birth of the shop owner's baby (Brylan Brakovich), and the beginning of car weather on the East Coast, to get to this point, but its coming along now. My first goal of the project was to start with a decent running car. No problem. I had abought an all original 1965 T-Bird from the second owner. California car and a 60K mile stocker that needed brakes. Sold the car to a friend. Bought it back after I sold my Buick. That was last July (2005). Had the car running and stopping decent, and in January of '06 I made the trip (about two hours) to Brylen's place to drop off the car. The 'Bird broke down on me 5 times. Bad carb and a bad alternator were the cause (Found that out later) Spent the next months gathering parts and chasing a vacuumn leak, which on this car was a base plate between the carb and intake that has coolant runnig through it. The idea by Ford was to heat up the carb so the choke would open faster in the Winter months. Anyway, that was one of the many problems I fixed..heres a quick list of what I did: Carb+ gaskets Plugs Wires Points Condensor Cap Rotor Fuel Pump Alternator Hoses Calipers in the front Tires Now it was time to start on the body. Plans are to smooth it out, lower it, and paint job, and a set of Radir wheels. The idea is to create a car the way someone would have if they bought a new T-Bird in 1965 and gradually customized it over the next couple of years, using whatever was available at the time. Nothing radical. Nothing that a guy with a well-equipped shop could'nt handle. These particular cars don't need much. It's more of what you remove than add.. So anyway, yesterday we (Brylan) began filling all the holes we made last week when we took off all the emblems and "gingerbread" moldings. He could have easily used Bondo, but instead the holes were all filled using either the welder, or metal pieces. We filled in the door handles, the antenna, and the "scallop" molding on the side, as well as the hood "bird". That work went pretty fast, but I had an interview to do and that took up some time. I took pictures along the way for the article I'm doing in TRK, but I can't really give that all away just yet. However, I would like to give some HAMBers a little "instant gratification" as I move along by posting up a few progress shots. These T-Birds seem to be plentiful and pretty cheap. Haven't seen them pull in the money the way other '60's cars do, which is fine with me. Any questions? Feel free to ask. I'm no expert by any means as this is my first T-Bird, but I'm always happy to share what I've learned or experienced (There is a difference). Maybe I'll be asking more questions that anyone! Heres a Pic.. Spike
It's nice to see somebody doing something productive........it's 107 degrees in Frestucky today, I'm not leaving the house.
We've had 3 solid weeks of 90 plus heat, I feel bad that I havn't done **** either. But your Tbird is looking good!!
The heat is realy putting the breaks on my project also. I worked on my floor pans a total of maybe 3 hours this weekend. It sure wasn't as much fun to work on my car the last couple of weeks as it was back in March. I made up my mind today that I'm going to continue working on my car, but I'm going to wait until early in the morning or late at night. Doc.
The Heat was bad yesterday until we got hit with another storm! This one almost had me pulling over it was so bad..But I kept going. Ever drive THROUGH a rainbow? Weird experience..or maybe that was just the acid..? Spike
The Jalopy Journal
