69 FRONT END WORK with BIRD CAGE REPAIR

[DOC]

Looking very good from here, And once again, thank you so much for the great photos!
Just wish you were closer so you could help me fix mine!

[Bazzas77]

I have a cx3 in Soul Red and it's nice colour but do some searches on how to lay it down.

Not an easy paint process, there are some good YouTube videos showing the steps.

I find some greys very nice on C3's

There was even some satin Grays on the C3 forum that looked amazing.

I found a nice grey for the engine bay now , I already have painted / clear coated the inner guards and they look pretty nice . I will get them out in the sun tomorrow and see them sparkle , I'm doing the engine bay a darker grey , because .......I want to

[Bazzas77]

Looking very good from here, And once again, thank you so much for the great photos!
Just wish you were closer so you could help me fix mine!

Cheers Doc , apart from the engine what's wrong with yours? and I got some colour for the engine bay area ,pics tommorow

[DOC]

Not wishing to steal your thread, # 4 body mounts are rusted away, and a host of smaller projects, but the engine is the big one at the moment,
and now the missus says our 6 months here is about up and she wants to move house again!

[Bazzas77]

Not wishing to steal your thread, # 4 body mounts are rusted away, and a host of smaller projects, but the engine is the big one at the moment,
and now the missus says our 6 months here is about up and she wants to move house again!

Haha , well I have a trailer being refurbished and a new bike in this so don't worry about stealing anything .

Yeah I recognise the c3 list of jobs to-do thing , that's what I did with my 77 , waited until the list got unbearable then committed , but as usual it derailed almost straight away and ended up 5 years off the road .

Yeah renting sucks big time , I have a few stories about being a landlord that are good for a laugh or cry , depending on just what you expect from "tenants" or

[DOC]

Yes , I too have been on both ends of the stick so to say. And I am now, Renting out our house in Brisbane to pay the rent up here.
not wanting to buy up here till we're certain we will wish to stay.

[CraigH]

I have a cx3 in Soul Red and it's nice colour but do some searches on how to lay it down.

Not an easy paint process, there are some good YouTube videos showing the steps.

I find some greys very nice on C3's

There was even some satin Grays on the C3 forum that looked amazing.

I found a nice grey for the engine bay now , I already have painted / clear coated the inner guards and they look pretty nice . I will get them out in the sun tomorrow and see them sparkle , I'm doing the engine bay a darker grey , because .......I want to

I am sure they will look great, post some pics when u can.

[Bazzas77]

well big day here but didn't really achieve much , oh well.

first off put a brand new painted spring in the door hinge , well tried to,


look how much it overlaps the body , its supposed to sit right on the cut out with the flat part , this one only just made it to the edge .


lucky I had a spare , fits better as well.



the difference in length.

that's why some people say its 50/50 ,only half of aftermarket stuff fits.


any way ,




my little helper , makes life a bit easier


close !


looks good , I think ?????


a bit of a gap , but there's no trim inside so is ok.






closer, need some more fiddling on both sides .

[Bazzas77]

ok here's a panel in Twilight Grey and clear coated, I have the code written down somewhere. Its a new Commodore colour.










I know its kinda rough prep , but my thinking is when its together most of it wont be accessible to view anyway.

and here's the finished bond strip , in primer,







just a tad stiffer at the front as its new , so it will be ok as is .

[DOC]

Well I guess you decided on Gray.

[CraigH]

Grey looks very nice indeed.

[Bazzas77]

yes Grey it is , dark in the engine bay , lighter everywhere else.

had to trim a bit more off the surround , I had cut it long then just forgot to trim it ,






after a lot of sanding to get the edges all the same thickness because its hand laid and not perfect, a trial fit , both line up well,







final clean up and wipe down with metho,






the idea was to do both at same time , but I put to much glue on , made a mess so canned the 2 idea and clamped the hell out of one side.



god help the person who tries to get that off !!!!



the Lord Fusor glue gun is easy to use, as well.

[Bazzas77]

glued the other one on at 6 am

[Bazzas77]

had to work another week as none of the back to back crew came up ,pussies !

so back at my home last Tuesday night and have been doing a few things ,

first up putting the no.4 mounts plates on and adding a few shims to get the door gap better ,



a bit better at the top on LH side but the bottom has moved right in so its not finished yet , I made some big shim changes but a small cracking noise while tightening up the no.3 mount bolt put a stop to any more changes last night,



slightly better on the right side but now the door is too high and scrapes across its top when closing, so more to do here,




also put some shims at the no.1's for the first time so I'm just guessing , they WERE so rusty any shims in would just lift the sill plate(s) they were that rotten I'm smiling because that's DONE




so ,as well as twisting the body seemingly every which-way but the right way I got that big bit on ,but that doesn't quite fit as well , surprise surprise ,



one side sits flush with the mount plate but the other wont unless its forced , a bigger hole is needed for more "adjustment " that's not just a guess ,I kept the munted front section and the hole in that is bigger , I tried to get away with a neater effort but no!

[Bazzas77]

so looking at the front left area you might just notice the new part isn't anywhere sitting near the correct angle to be glued



and surprisingly neither is the right side , I suppose its good that they are even ,



my new ended bond strip ,



the original untouched one ,



well It kinda looks more like a car



I thought I would try and make a rivet setting bit out of a supercheap brand air chisel,



practice on the bench is fine , but I need 5 hands to set the inner guard re-enforcements on ,

[Bazzas77]

With the hood surround ,I think it has to do with it being an old one that was just "lying around" so its lost its shape from sitting in gods knows what position , I can force the ends down and they're right on where they should be ,but too short , but as I haven't finished moving the body around I'm not worried too much, yet. My plan is to get the rear door gaps right and work forward from there . Before I go back to work I will put a tie down strap right around the front and pull the panel ends in , leave it for two weeks might help pull them back a touch. Also I haven't even put the inner guards in yet so they might help or make it harder , I just have to figure out the rivet process or just use pop rivets

I have missed a few things that I never read about until it was too late , one was don't grind off all of the old glue from the parts . leave some on so you can see just how much WAS used there so you have a real reference point . point in case for me was that there was heaps of glue , I mean almost 1/2 inch thick , right at the corner of each side at the base of the windscreen , which is a help as that's the hardest area to push down all the way to get the faces close . so maybe I don't HAVE to . Also measuring just exactly where the body was to the frame , I didn't do that until I loosened the mounts and I think the cage closed a touch which makes it interesting to put back together , that why the brace was added , but it may have been too late . We will see .

Anyway , it keeps me busy

[DOC]

Great write up so far, And great photos!

[Wabco40]

Hi Bazza,

The rear door to B pillar can also be adjusted by moving the striker pin. The top of the doors should be flush with the rear deck. If the door is hitting the bottom section of the halo then you should be able to remove a small amount of material from the bottom of the halo. Also when you replace the rear quarter panels you will be able to refine the rear door gap better. Having said that, it is important you get the rear door to B pillar adjusted first prior to doing the front of door adjustments.
With the front clip you will need to mock up complete front end before bonding anything. The inner fenders need to be in place and bolted to the radiator support panel. The hood hinges bolt to the inner fenders so this dictates the position of the hood. The top of the radiator support panel needs to be set at the correct distants form the firewall. The front bumper U shaped mounting bracket and front bumper can also be fitted to get the front of the surround panel set at the correct height.
Basically you need to assemble the complete front end (rad support panel, inner fenders, top surround panel, front bumper and hood) and make any adjustments by adding or removing shims (rad support panel and cross member, inner fenders to rad support panel, under hood hinges). Once it's all adjusted correctly then the position of each part can be marked and bonded. Also when fitting the front fenders it pays to fit the rocker mouldings so that the front of the moulding sits flush with the rear of the front wheel opening and there is a constant gap between the moulding and bottom of the fender.

I hope this all makes sense, I am on nightshift at the moment and trying to write this between loading trucks!!!

Brad

[Wabco40]

Another thing to note is when the hood surround panel is in position the top rear corners sit about half inch below the top of the doors. The corner mouldings then bring this level with the top of the door.
When I fitted my front clip these rear corners where close (within 1/8") to the cowl bonding strips.
I wouldn't try to force the corners down closer to the cowl bonding strip until the front end is fully assembled and adjusted.
The thing about the front clip is any adjustments to one part will affect something else. This is why it is important to dry assemble and adjust the complete front end before any bonding.

[Bazzas77]

Copy all that Brad.
I totally fu...ed up with my rivet setter so I had to repaint my inner guard re-enforcement . I'm going to pop rivet the suckers , I need 5 hands to do it and anyway once its all together you cant see any of them anyway. so I re-painted it yesterday and today I will bolt both of them to the radiator support and have a look .

Also I traced the door end of the original hood surround on some cardboard and cut it out and laid it on the new one and its about an inch short on the door curve so I get to extend that as well now . the guy who made it in Melbourne cut it too short. . I will use the old one as a mould.

also I have to clean up the long hood I have here before I will even use it . I think I will use the wiper door and original short one to get the fit .That way it can be converted back to original if I need to later

But my main focus today will be dropping the fuel tank on my 77 , I smell petrol when I fill it right up and I can see saw stains of the fuel running over the top but it doesn't drip off the tank . I suspect my seal on the fuel pump unit has gone ??? only drama is I have underbody exhaust , I wish I had put sidees on it now

good to hear from you .
Barry

[Wabco40]

I just used short Philips head screws and nuts to bolt the brackets back on the inner fenders. Like you said you can't see them anyway.

Each car is individual and you have to do what you have to do to get the parts to fit. If you take you time you will get it much better then what the factory did.

When are you back to work?

[Bazzas77]

back up on Wednesday for 2 weeks then home for 2 weeks.

I just literally put the fuel pump unit back in the 77 tank , it has one of those vetteworks attachment ring to hold a c5 pump in it welded on (by me, I bought it brand new to avoid welding on a used tank )and one spot weld failed so it was loose and leaked . even though it wasn't a hole in the tank I still purged it all day so I could add some more tack weld to it . I even tried the burning rag as a wick to see if it would go up but , well I'm writing this so I made it



so I will put that back in tomorrow and hope it wont leak .

I will try and get those inners on the 69 again tomorrow.

[Wabco40]

Cool, I am off your next break. Will catch up.

[Bazzas77]

sounds good , I lost all my phone numbers , can you send me yours again . I still have same no. new phone

just going out to put some petrol in that tank and roll it around and see if its sealing .

[Bazzas77]

well been home for a week and not much done , I have changed the plan as I seem to have run out of adjustment with the original frame , not really sure but it just doesn't seem to want to line up on the original frame so ,



got the 78 frame blasted and pickled and primed , so now I'm adding a few welds ,



the cross member was already fully welded by me ages ago ,god it looks rough


somewhere to store the borrowed dolly (not mine so I will keep it dry)



just started welding now so I will add a few pics tonight

[Bazzas77]

started welding , a section here then over there , wait a while , do a bit more ,
















something landed on this mount and pushed the top plate out of shape



so mark where it was , cut it off and clean up the area,



heres a new one , the side section angles out ,all the ones on this frame angle in .




so I weld it on with a bit of overhang off the side and then a BFH to adjust the tab







will weld the side tab when it gets flipped over

[DOC]

Hopefully all will line up with this frame. looks like a fair bit of work, But hoping all will be good in the end.

[Wabco40]

Hi Bazza,

I wanted to catch up last week but got held up. When are you back to work?

What issues do you have with your original frame?

Brad

[Bazzas77]

I'm still home , go back next wed.

I cant seem to get enough adjustment to get the body in the right spot on the original frame , its got home made body mounts that don't give enough movement (fixed nut ) , what I'm thinking is it could be better just to do all the work on the frame that its going to end up on anyway ,as this ones not rusted out and is in very good condition .

If you could possibly have a look and can see a solution either way that would be awesome .

[Bazzas77]

Hopefully all will line up with this frame. looks like a fair bit of work, But hoping all will be good in the end.

Thanks Doc , it will work ,no way I'm giving up . I'm putting a new type of rear end suspension (to me ) on this frame as well . Also might have to cut the back of the 69 frame off and transplant it on this or at least mod this as its pretty wide at the back for those hydraulic crash shockers but that will be later on . Then there's the difference in height of the body mounts , luckily the new ones are lower

Nothing like trying to use the wrong year frame for a transplant