70 Hemi Superbird Restoration..................errr.....scratch that........

[Hemirunner]

Am I seeing right? That you did away with the box under the dutchman? Or do RRs not have those? I've had 70 RRs but can't remember. I like the idea of getting rid of that waste of space if that's what you did... I'm wanting a Glasstek trunk and hood, let us know how you like the lid. Great project you got here. My dream after the car I'm doing now and after I hit the lotto, would be to do what you're doing but to a 69 charger and make a dayclona. Then take it to Bonneville and get in the 200mph club. Love the winged cars! They really do rule!

As Phil pointed out, no box under the dutchman on these. I'm doing this one for quarter mile racing, street cruising, Drag Week and the Maxton mile just to avoid the salt! I'd like to run 170mph in the quarter and hit over 200mph in the standing mile. I'm sure it'll be several years, but I'd like to do it all before I turn 50.

I have a Glasstek hood and a pair of front fenders that I ended up not using and their workmanship and fit is excellent. The hood is really nice as it bolts on with stock hinges and has the underhood bracing like a stocker.

Since I widened the tubs 3", I had to subtract that much from the hinge support braces that fasten to the tubs so here's a stock one next to the shortened one.

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I worked all evening and have both supports for the dutchman panel and both hinge supports welded in. I modified and welded one of the support braces.

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I still have a ton of grinding to do on the welds in the trunk area alone. Tons of work.

 

[HYRDGOON]

Looks great though. I've said it before and I'll say it again I love seeing progress on this monster!

 

[68 HEMI GTS]

man, this is a great thread. very nice craftsmanship!!! that will be one awesome car when your done

 

[Hemirunner]

Thanks guys. I'm hoping it turns out well.

 

[Hemirunner]

Worked all day today, just patching in the floor around the front leaf spring mount boxes and straightening out some alignment issues with the passenger side quarter panel/rocker/door arrangement and got that all worked out. Nothing photo worthy, but also went and picked up the front fenders from the blaster. They need A LOT OF WORK! lol. Never ends!

 

[Hemirunner]

The blasting really took everything off the fenders but also showed how rough they really are. They'll be useable, no problem, but will require a lot of work.

Doug hammered out the cave in on the passenger side fender and it looks much better afterwards.

This was completely caved in. A little more working and it'll be ready for bodywork. There's still a ton left to do on this car. I filled in the floor pan around the front spring hangers. It doesn't look pretty, but the top will be covered by carpet and the underside will have bedliner sprayed on it so no big deal. I started to do the rear spring hangers. I measured them out and notched the frame where they need to go.

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The rest of the frame will have to come out to mount these as they'll need to tie into the cage above. I made these boxes to mount the sliders so that they could be removed and replaced if the need arises.

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Here, you can see how the slider mounts to the box. I used some cut off bolts as locating pins and welded nuts on the back side.

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Here's the backside showing the cut off bolt heads and the nuts.

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It looks as if my TIG welding is rusty again..... practice, practice, practice!

 

[Hemirunner]

Almost got the second one finished but had to stop and clean up before calling it a night.

 

[Hemirunner]

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I removed all of the unnecessary items under the floor including the shock crossmember, the pinion snubber reinforcement, the seat belt nut plates and all the little clips and brackets. I'll be adding on the gas tank strap j-bolt pieces as I'm running a stock tank. The new shock crossmember will be above the sheet metal.

 

[Brandy]

I just read the entire thread. Very nice work on a worthwhile project. Looking great and i'm subscribed! Merry Christmas!!

 

[Hemirunner]

I just read the entire thread. Very nice work on a worthwhile project. Looking great and i'm subscribed! Merry Christmas!!

Thanks and welcome to this thread! I'm hoping to make some big progress this year.

 

[Hemirunner]

So, today was a day of floors. Not only was I working on the floor in my office, prepping it for tile, I was cutting out the floor of the superblackbird. The floor in it wasn't too bad, in fact, I had considered reusing it and selling the AMD floor. Today, I decided to use the AMD floor and sell off parts, or all, of my old floor. I figured this would also let me get rid of the outer seat supports since I won't be using those mounting locations and I'll have chromoly chassis bars to mount the seat to. Less weight, good!

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I decided to "quarter" the floor to make it easier to pull out. I cut the seam so that it was over the trans tunnel in case anyone wanted to use the floor pieces, the seam would be hidden. All in all, it came out pretty quick. The hardest work was at the pinch weld between the firewall and floor.

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Here's the final shot with the floor out. I still have a ton of prep work to do before I can put the new floor in. I'm waiting on the tubing bender as I'm going to put in a tube cross member and cut out that big, heavy, torsion bar cross member.

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Old floor

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Leftovers. These aren't going back in. Hopefully, with all the pieces I've left out, it offsets the weight of the cage. These are just what came off the floor.

 

[Phil McGrath]

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Often overlooked so this is just a reminder.... Did you test fit a spring with the slider on it to make sure the spring eye was parallel with the slider? I would hate for you too get down the road and find out that it binds up after you flip it over and start putting weight back on the rear.


You know what they say about a ounce of prevention...

 

[Hemirunner]

Often overlooked so this is just a reminder.... Did you test fit a spring with the slider on it to make sure the spring eye was parallel with the slider? I would hate for you too get down the road and find out that it binds up after you flip it over and start putting weight back on the rear.


You know what they say about a ounce of prevention...

We did, about 14 different times, and also measured everything at least that many times! I even flattened out one of the mono leafs to get the true total center to center length so that I could mount the rear of the slider a tick farther back than that. It should be righteous!

 

[Hemirunner]

I finished out the "other" floor today!

 

[Hemirunner]

Today was a day of welding up unneeded holes in the firewall and inner fenders. I also started on the left side front frame. There was a small rust hole on top of the frame under the shock tower. I cut it open to find the frame full of mice nest. After cleaning that out, I patched it in and ground it all smooth. I'm removing all the folded seams on the front frame rails and boxing them in.

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Removing the fold where the upper control arm mounts should eliminate all the crap that gets trapped in that spot, hopefully reducing the chance of anymore rust in that area.

 

[daytona kid]

Great idea with the boxing, wish I'd thought of that!

 

[Ron 73]

I agree!! COOL keep up all this great work!

 

[Hemirunner]

Thanks guys! I ordered tubing for the cage, today so we're moving forward!

 

[Hemirunner]

I keep accumulating parts as I go and one of the parts needed was the trunk lid. I sold the steel one off of this thing to a member here. It was in nice shape but needed the usual work. My plan was to buy a fiberglass trunk lid but I didn't want the usual pains of a flimsy lift off lid. Another member here mentioned that his lid was used for the pattern for the bolt on trunk lid at Glasstek so I ordered one. It showed up today so here you go.

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I don't have it mounted yet, but I'll get to work on that as soon as time allows.

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It mounts using the stock hinges. You have to cut the openings for the hinges to fit in and drill the bolt holes to do so. This thing is much lighter, should look pretty indistinguishable from a steel one, and best of all, will never rust!

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I guess it turned out to be delivery day at my house. Besides the deck lid, the "Billy BA" Heavy Duty leaf spring perches and U-bolt kits also showed up. I have to get the rear end in to figure out where the drive shaft loops will need to be and also how high I need to raise the drive shaft tunnel since the car is lowered.

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The fact that I'm using a ford 9" under this car will help as the pinion seems to be lower than the Dana 60 I was going to use. You might note that the U-bolts and the Perches are for 3.25" tubes, and here they are. Heavy duty 1/4" wall 3-1/2" axle tubes to clear the 40 spline gun drilled Strange Axles that will be going in it.

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Speaking of Ford 9" rear ends, mine also showed up today. I think I'm supposed to shake the box and it assembles itself, or something like that....

 

[Outlaw525]

Nice progress- this thing is going to be wicked!