71 440 six pack SuperBee

[cdkmbjones]

I’ve been a member of the site for some time now, buying and selling parts for the most part. I have been restoring my 1971 V code SuperBee for about two years now. Today I was thinking it was past time I shared the journey with my fellow FBBO members

 

[cdkmbjones]

I lost all of my earlier photos of the car when I found it in a field of old cars in upstate NY, then after I got it home and started the tear down. The first photo I have is after I tore it down and mounted it on my rotisserie to start the blasting to bare metal

 

[cdkmbjones]

After the blasting it came into the shop (a two car detached shop behind my house) where the floors, trunk pan and both quarters were removed at the factory seams, the seams were cleaned up, epoxy sealed with the rest of the shell, and prepared for the replacement metal

 

[cdkmbjones]

All inner frame and torque box areas were treated and sealed

 

[davek]

thanks for pics,color,auto?

 

[cdkmbjones]

The new AMD full quarters were sealed, sound deadener applied and final painted prior to welding into place. The inner support structure was similarly treated

 

[cdkmbjones]

New floor pans and trunk were sealed and welded into place

 

[cdkmbjones]

Once the floors and trunk were done, then the quarters lightly tacked on both sides, the doors and fenders were mocked in place before final welding of the quarters to make sure the gaps and depth were correct. The quarters were then final welded all the way around and then the roof seam leaded in as OEM

 

[moparnation74]

Very nice car to build!

Metal work looks nicely done so far

 

[cdkmbjones]

One of the biggest obstacles I had was with the hood. When I found this car many of the hard to find parts were long gone but the one year only air grabber hood was still with the car. The problem is that years of water and snow sitting in the frame rotted it away in multiple places, but the outer skin was fine- a few dings and a nice dent in the front corner but all totally repairable. How much easier it would have been to just put a repo hood on it but at that point there was nothing out there. Recently AMD started making the bulge hood which you can make into an airgrabber but at that point in this project even that wasn’t available. So instead I separated the inner frame from the outer skin, did the same on a flat hood I had from a 71 parts car. Used the rusted one as a template as to where to cut or add support from the old hood and made one nice new OEM inner structure and mated it back to the outer skin. Using a spot welder I duplicated all of the OEM welds and using an airgrabber “kit” I picked up I replaced the inner flange and hinge assembly and spot welded it into place. It took quite a few hours - about two good weeks but the end result was very nice and is all OEM except for that hinge flange which was aftermarket but you can’t tell

 

[cdkmbjones]

Next up after the hood was smooth was the trunk lid, doors and both fenders. All body smoothing was completed off the car, the panels were primed, sanded and inside hard to reach places painted.

 

[cdkmbjones]

While the removable panels were off I flipped the car on the rotisserie and smoothed any visible welds and went as far as doing the same quality body work on the underside. One big deviation from stock that I did was adding a set of weld in frame connectors. I was concerned about the added power that was being built into the engine- while it may be overkill since the car came with all of the factory Hemi torque boxes and support being a real six pack car, it just seemed right. So I welded them in to both sides of the frame and to the underside of the floor pans, then went about grinding the welds smooth and adding some light body filler to blend them in seamlessly. They look better than factory

 

[cdkmbjones]

More pics that didn’t load

 

[cdkmbjones]

I am forgetting some steps but I am trying to catch up to where I am today by going through my photos - many of which were lost when I broke my last phone and changed to this one. In any case once I had all welded panels done, the removable panels done and the undercarriage done everything was primed with a high build urethane primer and block sanded multiple times to get everything laser straight. Then much like the guys on Graveyard Carz I pre painted everything in a single stage urethane. All removable panels were painted off the car on both sides. The body was flipped over and painted then the same inside and out. Once everything was cured it was all reassembled and everything final aligned, then any bolts (which were also painted separately) that were chipped during the assembly were touched up.

 

[cdkmbjones]

Damn two of those photos were out of sequence - the ones with the stripes. Anyway about the time I had the car one color and assembled, my engine block and heads came back from the machine shop. I took a break from body work and built the 440. I also sent the K frame, most of the suspension including the rear axle housing, and crates of small brackets to the powder coating guy down the road. Two weeks and $1500 later everything was perfect and tough as nails. I assembled the rear axle after rebuilding the 3:73 489 pumpkin and pressing on the green axle bearings, assembled the Kframe on a rolling cart I made with all suspension completed.
Once the motor was done, using the engine crane I took it off the stand and lowered it onto the assembled k frame. The one item I sent out to be done was the original HD 727 trans. Once I got it back it was mated to the motor with a new 2000 stall converter.

 

[Robndi43]

Nice work .Love that color!

 

[JB400]

Coming along nicely. Thanks for posting.

 

[vintage chromoly]

Nice work.
I love the green!

 

[cdkmbjones]

This brings us up to this past June. Once I had all of the mechanicals built, I covered everything and went back to finalizing the body. The painted body was wet sanded with 1000 to get it flat as possible and to prep it for the final two stage paint. The benefit of doing it this way besides durability and depth of the clear was to get every hard to reach place painted, then after assembly have the ability to go back over areas that might have been marred by the assembly process - like the hood hinges and the bolts to the fenders and doors. I spent the better part of June prepping, painting, clearing, color sanding and polishing the final paint.
Then the fun- installing the complete engine, transmission and front suspension assembly in one piece and from under the car.

 

[cdkmbjones]

Backing up a minute - prior to installing the engine and front suspension I had installed the rear axle and suspension so that I could get the back end on the ground and as low as possible, so that I could make a sling with a chain and some old front bumper brackets connected to the engine hoist to raise the front end as high as possible, giving the necessary clearance to roll the engine and trans under the front of the car. Then it was lowered down onto the assembled K frame. I also installed all of the plumbing, brakes, cables and anything that would be easier to do with the engine out of the car