latoracing

You might be tired of working on it, but shortly, you will be able to enjoy it, with out having to constantly work on it. (you will probably never be "done"). The total packadge that you have done to your '69 is tastful, and has turned out extreamly nice! Take some much needed time to enjoy what you have put together, who knows, you might want to do another. (but no time soon LOL)

Ok, I don't know if any one is excited or not about this, but this turned out cool! Not to be long winded on this subject, but I thought someone might try something new, this is a first for me with this repair. I chain drilled the marked locations for the small parts, removed the material, and installed them in the repair. There was a whole lot o' trimming and fitting to be done to pull this thing back together. Cutting the crunchy stuff off was sorta scary, but when all was trimmed, and tacked into place, I'm very happy with the results. I will finish installing the other small parts, and get everything welded up! :punk:

Wanted to show a little on how some of these parts are made. I wanted to get the area where the window guide bolts to the bottom of the door made, so it can be located a little later. I made a template and transfered it to the sheet metal. I wanted to put a little dimple on the part so the bolt head would sit flush with the bottom of the door. I used a 12mm socket, and a piece of 3/4" sch. 80 pipe in my press and lightly dimpled it. A little folding, and hammering, and it is just about ready to weld up. The foward rolled corner is next to get the fab treatment. Same thing applies to this part as well, except this one can be screwed to the inner brace, just to make double shure it will work. I tried to do a compound curve (all of it at once) but that won't work. It will be done in two parts. Once the part is trimmed a little large, it can be fitted and beat in to submission. I liked the way it was fitting, so I half way rolled the edges on the "T" dolly so I don't grind all the metal away after it is all welded up. It is a big jig saw puzzle right now, maby it will be in one piece agean. More tommrow...

Can't believe it has been a month since I have posted anything. Could be the fact that I haven't done anything to the poor thing in a while. Between two fishing trips to the coast (which were great!) I built a pier / beach buggy for my Father In Law, which took up all my spare time, and a bunch of Argon and spare alum. tubing I had in stock. But, back to the door. I went ahead and remade the bottom of the door patch due to the fact I didn't pay attention to the door being tapered on the bottom. I started marking areas to trim, and place all the small parts that I made. I also marked the area for the main patch to butt weld to. I sheared the main patch at work so it would be nice and straight, and the door might have a better chance of looking good when it is all done. Still have a bunch of small parts to make, along with the weather strip channel on the bottom. Gota bunch to do, this needs to be done in order to get it back on the car to help align the left side quarter, one thing at a time...

As far as your butt weld goes, leave some "tabs" as you do your final trim. That way, when you are tacking everything into place, you still have areas that are clamped together, and nothing moves. Once the pannel is tacked, you can remove the "tabs" that are left, and you can finish welding those areas as well. Just make shure on that weld, you do SMALL areas, and jump around alot so you don't warp your new pannel. One other hint, when you grind down your butt weld, make shure you do not put a bunch of heat in it while knocking the weld down, it will also warp. Take your time, and do not get in a hurry. You will like the results much better, and there won't be a bunch of bondo on your seam. Good Luck!!!

Looks nice all primed up. Once the frame is straight, you will be in good shape. Let us know what the "doctor" has to say.

Spent a couple of hours working on my door, mainly making the small parts in order to make shure it will go back together. I am doing this as a peice together type repair, these parts could be made with some elaborate "bumping" blocks, or better yet, a drop hammer die, but I don't feel the need to build either. I am using simple hand tools to make the small parts, nothing fancy, just some avation snips, a "T" dolly I made out of 1" round steel bar, some template material, a hammer, and a welder. I use the template material to wrap around the part I want to make, trim it to where I want to trim the door, and transfer it to flat steel. Cut out the patch, form either by hand, or with duck bill vice grips (sometimes easier than a box and pan brake). These parts were done by either, and it isn't that hard. I wanted the parts to have the radius of the origonal, so I allowed enough material to be formed on my repair part. A little LIGHT taps with the hammer, and you have a part! I cut out the rotton materia on my door, and will trim both peices to fit, tack in place, and go onto the next small part. I am going to have to tweek my long patch, the door is tapered, and I made the long part straight, oh well. I'll show more as I go along. This will make all the wrinkles on the door disapear, you could put them back in if you were really anal, but this one will be slick, it is on the lower part of the door, I won't miss them. :punk:

The door that you have is in excellent shape compaired to the one I am attempting to fix. The area that is in question could be shaped in smaller parts, and welded together. Replacing the metal will be better than attempting to weld up the "holes", you will end up making a patch out of MIG wire, the more you weld, the bigger the hole will get. Dynacorn does make a replacement door, it is around $430.00 ish. My thinking is, try to fix it. Working on your own stuff, your labor is cheep. If you arn't happy with the results, get a better one, it is not the end of the world, plus, you might learn something. It should be fun, not a chore. Good luck with your repair.

The inner part of my door was a little much for the shop parts blaster, so I took it down the road to a local sand blasting shop. He made short work of the rust and old paint (mostly rust) in only a few minutes. It would have taken the better part of a couple of hours with the parts blaster. $20.00 is money well spent on this job. Now to get it all fixed up.

Made a repair "patch" for my driver's side door. I cut a chunk out of the door in order to get it bent to the correct shape. I used some scrap to make shure the brake was set-up to get the correct radi on each bend. (3 to be exact) There are some places that will be interesting to replicate. The raised areas where the window guides bolt to on the bottom of the door is one of those areas. I'm into this repair $0.00 so far, if it doesn't work, oh well. Still need to throw the shell in the blaster and get it cleaned up. This will take some time, I'll show as much as possible, unless I get to involved...

Let it settle, or drive it, you moved the upper controll arm at least 1", it should be a little lower with the removal of the parts. I wouldn't do anything to the springs untill I was shure of where the car is going to sit.

I see that you have prepped the front end for the DSE cross member. The shell dosen't look too awfull. Fill us in on the rest of the specs for the build when you get a moment. Looks like fun!

There are a bunch of questions to ask about you car, and what has been done to it in order to even start finding out what offset and width to run on your car. Details and / or pics will be a great help. The more spicific you can be, the more help you will get. Also, what is your budjet for the new wheels and tires?

E7 heads are an upgrade from the heads offered back in 69 + 70. There has been alot of HP made with these heads (before the aftermarket had upgraded heads). $10.00 in heads, and manifolds to work on, and use, you can't go wrong. Good luck with the class.

I ran down to the shop real quick instead of waiting. I bought this the way you see it. The previous owner didn't know what they were doing, as you can see. Any way you can see the flange on the fraime rail and the tab that goes to the rocker. The firewall extension covers all of this up. It is alot easier to tear it apart this far. You can do it from the bottom side, not fun though. The attachment points on the bottom of the rocker, and the front of the box at the frame rail, along with the reinforcement plate are easy to see. If your boxes are 1 piece, you can treat them before you put them in, I just like the 2 piece better, either way will work. I get to re-do the "work" that was done to this one, such is life. Hope this helps.

Mine is where you can see all the att. points, it will be later before I can take some pics, but, I will and post them for you. I can tell you that they connect all over the place, and the firewall extensions are probably where you are having trouble. (over the frame rail, and under the extension) If you have the replacement parts you can tell fairly quick where it attaches. It is easier if the new tourque boxes have the "floor pan" (top) removed when they go back in though, you can get better access to weld them, and you can take measures to seal them with some type of epoxy primer and paint, be shure not to totaly seal them up as water will get into them and start the rust process all over agean. But I'll get you some pics.

It turned out quite nice! Now you can go enjoy driving it, and taking it to some shows to let others see a very nice GT.

This was quite the day. It probably doesn't look like I've done a thing, but oh boy, I'm pooped. When the entire rear of the car is missing, fitting as many parts as possible is the only way to go about rebuilding it. I had to remove the quarter to find out why my filler pannel would not line up. The pic with the arows is the reason, a little trimming, and all is well. The front of the quarter is all but ready for some drilling and welding, but the tail light pannel, and the actual fit between the quarter and the trunk drop are still in need of some final tweeking. I am going to leave all these components in the screwed together condition untill the drivers side has it's trunk floor, and wheel tubs installed. That way the driver's side quarter can be temp attached and Everything checked for alignment before it is permantly stuck together. The quarter extension and the tail light housing fit fairly well, the attachment holes for the extension are in need of a little enlarging, but for now, it will do. Just a little more fitting, and the tail light pannel will come back off for the removal of the driver's side trunk floor. Gotta fix my driver's side door before I get to a head of myself.

The spoiler is nice, along with the blacked out tail light pannel. I suppose you are getting ready for the end of summer, and are going to have more time to do more projects. It shure is turning out to be a good looking ride!

Quarter pannel fitment went quite well this afternoon. Still like the way this Dynacorn replacement parts work, not OEM, but sorta close. There are a few areas that will have to be worked on. The attachment flange for the top of the pannel to the B pillar is not there, and it is not the correct angle, so there is a large gap at the top of the door, I'm being picky. Oh, and talk about being picky, I hate when things are not in line with each other. Like the way the flanges are in the "to be trimmed" state on alot of these parts, they drive me nuts when installed without being trimmed. I know, I'm being anal, but I look at this on other cars, it is not concorus correct to do this, but I trim EVERY tab that can be seen. An example of this is the quarter to tail light filler, I had to highlight the area so it would show up in the pic. Yes it is behind the extinsion, and there agean, no one will see it, but I can while I'm working on it. My wheel opening is low by about 3/8" and in about 1/4", gona have to do a little pushing with the porta power to fix this one. The wheel house measured right, but the quarter pannel is off just a little, and when it is all clamped up, it goes down. No problem. Still a bunch of small details to work out, will continue on Monday. :hammer:

Getting there. Does the body line at the front line up well with your dooor? The rear body line looks good! Did the wheel opening lip fit up to your outter wheel house with out alot of drama? I am interested on how the out of box fitment was, but it does look good...

Alot of companies are building aftermarket windsor blocks with the Clevland style main berings, so cranks and rotating assy. are out there. There are alot of choices, the limiting factor on a stock block will be the bore. I would look into a 408 ci set up for the extra cubes, which would not cost that much more than building it a 351 if you were replacing everything. Heads, there agean, bunches of them. I am a fan of canted valve heads, and my favorite would be CHI's 3v offerings. They have the closed combustion chambers, with the 2v ports, so you don't have to run it to the moon to make power. Edlebrock has power packs now that might be cheeper to use as a packadge, probably more streetable. I see that you are in NC, check out Handy Racing Engines, Dale is easy to work with, and builds some fast stuff.(tell him Walker sent you) He is looking for parts to start my 427w build. Find out what you want your motor to do, and plan a complete packadge, you will like it alot better when you match ALL the components. Good luck with the build. http://handyracingengines.blogspot.com/