[flht1997]

Tried starting a thread a couple days ago and it said moderator approval was needed but it didn't seem to come through, so I will try again, if this gets doubled up I apologize.
I bought this car about 1996ish from my old neighbor, story was he dug it out of a trailer park in Neenah about 1982 with a blown 428 in it and frozen several inches in the ground. It had been off the road for a couple years by this time, and he pulled it home and put it in his barn never doing anything to it till the barn started coming down and he had to move some stuff out. I paid 400$ for it with a title and hook it to a tractor and pulled it back to my parents house. I didn't take any pictures of it when i got it, but it had several mis-matched snow tires, seized 428 short-ish block, no brakes, funny smell and all the signs of a barn find car.
I did all sorts to sort out the suspension in 96' all new front and rear components, and pretty much all new brakes. Put a free junkyard 400 in about the fall of 97' using lots of mis-matched, incorrect parts looking to be driving a bad-ass car for little to no money. This plan didn't work.
July of 99' I gave my service manager my two weeks and I went back to college to become a teacher. I was feed up wrenching and couldn't hardly look at a car much less work on one. I drove the car into a pig barn at my parents on july 27, 1999 shut it off and closed the door.
Then.....April 10, 2011 this happened (trying a picture here, may not work)



The tornado that wiped out the home farm, barn, garage and the pig shed were gone



you cannot see it but the car was set down on two five gallon buckets. The buckets were upright and squashed under the car. It was picked up and set back down. Other than a few dents the car fared pretty well, my brothers Galaxie didn't and she ended up in the junkyard.


Kinda sucks picking up your memories out of a field.

[Dave R]

Welcome to the boards! Sorry to hear about your loss. At least the 69 survived, maybe it's an omen. Time to get the car back on the road?

[flht1997]

This thread will be a recap of the last two years worth of work,
Ok, so getting a phone call late at night from your 80 year old mother saying that everything is a mess and the barn is "gone" then the phone disconnects, you get a bit worried. I took a couple days off from work and was there the next day (I live a few hours away). After a day of clean-up we looked like this


the hood was a few hundred yards away and some of the power company people carried it back for me. Lots of interest in the Firebird by all the service personal, but as always it remained "not for sale".

A few 2x4's punched through the top, and put a few dents in the fenders. The biggest mess was that the barn had 600 bales of straw in the mow and i would guess at least three were stuffed inside the car.

Of course after sitting for 12 years it wouldn't start so it got pushed in the machine shed which, while damaged, still had a most of its roof. It sat there a few months till school got done. The plan was always to drive it back to my house, but remembering all the corner I cut putting it together and the pretty loud knocking noise from the engine I thought better so..

[johnta1]

Welcome to PY!

And what a fantastic story.

I think it is a good sign that the Bird was unharmed for the most part.
It's a sign to 'Get Er Dun' !!!

[flht1997]

I don't know the history of the car from 69' to 82', but in that time it had a pretty hard life. At least one front collision, one rear collision, and at least one blown engine. Pretty sure it started life as an automatic, but now was a manual, and lots of other very questionable repairs.
The one nice thing that occurred during the 12 years it was sitting is that I began to like fixing again, and I actually wanted to work on it again. Of course now I was married and had two little boys, but being a teacher did give me the time, and being a shop teacher gave some of the facilities to work on components.
Here is were it will sit, my tiny little two car.


I am no body man and during the project I will make no attempt at doing finish body work at all. I am a mechanic and will concentrate on the mechanical systems only, if body work gets in my way I will deal with it, but the cosmetic condition of the car is not something I am concerned with right now.
front is coming apart


do you think someone was here before me? half torched bolt?


front is crooked, very crooked, and loaded with bondo, screws buried under bondo, missing bolts...


found this down in the valance panel. maybe it was a head on accident?

[muscle_collector]

welcome. where do your parents live that the tornado got them?

[flht1997]

My parents live in Hortonville Wisconsin which is about an hour southwest of Green Bay
Here is the car at my parents, with the new garage going up. With the insurance settlement they built a five stall, 32'x54 with storage truss.
And my old man bought himself a new tractor, 82 years old I told them to piss the money away on whatever they wanted, they work hard for it


this was the third time I have pulled the engine on this car


engine/trans half way out. The motor was out of a 76' grand prix and later I learned the knocking was a spun bearing on the number six rod> my biggest concern besides being about the worst year 400 to build is the flywheel register on the crank was 2.5 inch and the hole in the 69 flywheel is 2.75. When i rushed it together I just put it on,, but the more I thought about that flywheel supported only by the bolts, the more I worried. The hunt for a different engine started, Hello Craigslist!



nice big hole someone punched into the A/C box! not me either!



Muncie M-21, more on that later

[Txbobcat]

Thats a cool story and a great car. Good luck to you on the rebuild

[PMD1969]

Wow! That 69FB wants to live! Talk about a car having a soul.

You have certainly come to the right place. First thing I would do is run a PHS http://www.phs-online.com/services.html to see what the car was born with. After that make a plan as to what you want to do with it. While you're taking things apart make sure not to ever throw anything away. You'd be shocked as to how much some of this stuff can cost today and the 69FB year is a one only year. I have found that some parts that go unnoticed will become extremely important and costly later when its needed.

How is the interior? Do I see factory headrests on top of the seats? If they are good make sure to save them.

Love the color scheme!

Marc

[flht1997]

My plan was from the beginning of this was to at least get the sub-frame out and check the mounts. You could see the bushings falling apart and I have seen all the internet pictures of the rusted out mounts.
So here it sits in all its neglected icky, dirty glory


A/C box/mouse house has been removed, brake booster/master out. Everyone should have a motorcycle jack, even if you dont have a bke.



Kinda sounded like an old rusty fart when it separated, very non-dramatic, crossed my fingers and prayed for the best.



Damn it!! two of the six mount are bad. Passenger middle and drivers rear need to be replaced.



Gross!

[steveK]

WOW talk about a survivor car. Looks like it was Warwick blue not Windward blue as it is now. Good luck with this project and we are here to help!!

[flht1997]

My plan was from the beginning of this was to at least get the sub-frame out and check the mounts. You could see the bushings falling apart and I have seen all the internet pictures of the rusted out mounts.
So here it sits in all its neglected icky, dirty glory


A/C box/mouse house has been removed, brake booster/master out. Everyone should have a motorcycle jack, even if you dont have a bke.



Kinda sounded like an old rusty fart when it separated, very non-dramatic, crossed my fingers and prayed for the best.



Damn it!! two of the six mount are bad. Passenger middle and drivers rear need to be replaced.



Gross!

[flht1997]

Most of the floor sheet metal up front is fair, not great, but something that i can deal with piecemeal at a later date. By this time, I am starting to get the itch to drive it, but that is a long way off. I am not going for a perfectly correct restoration, but I do want it to look or at least resemble the way it looked mechanically when it was new.
firewall cleaned, POR'ed (spell check says thats not a word) and painted


sub frame on the trailer and going to the hotsy totsy at school.



first thing i ever fiberglass patched looks like crap on the inside, and barely better on the outside



put it back on the firewall to make myself feel like I was making progress, but it was just sitting there and I took it back off and put it on the shelf



sub-frame washed, sanded POR'ed and painted. Mounts are not fixed yet



three different Eastwood paints right there. All the suspension work I did 17 years ago really saved me alot of time now. Everything on the front is poly bushings, and new steering linkage. When i got the car the upper control arm front bushing was gone, not worn out, but GONE! and the upper bar had worn itself into the control arm about an inch or so. wish I would have kept it and hung it on the wall but I tossed it long ago



passenger middle repaired. made some plates on the Bridgeport at school and welded them on.


steering back on, brakes, and sway bars. The rear mount needs to be repaired yet

[Txbobcat]

You are moving right along. Good work

[flht1997]

This is a recap of what I have been doing the last year or so, I am trying to sort it all out and keep it in order

New steering coupler. the old original was so oil soaked it just fell apart when i took the frame off.



here is the rear mount half way cut out. The two parts of the frame overlap so it is a bit to line everything up



everything bad cut out and ground down


new plates on. Not my best welds but the shielding gas solenoid on my Miller gave up so i had to use flux core



ready to go back in



fuel line on



sub frame installed. A real bear putting that back on yourself.



fuel line and return line


didn't really do a good job with the Eastwood Cad plate paint, oh well. but the master is number correct!



stating on the brake line install. This upper control arm is the one i replaced long ago and as it turns out I must have pulled it from a drum brake car cause it didn't have the hole for mounting the brake hose, had to make that right.

[flht1997]

well by now, my craigslist searches were coming up pretty dry, lots of worn out thin wall casting 400's like i have or built to the moon 455 for more than i want to spend. Then an ad pops up for a 73' GTO 230hp rebuilt short block. Guy had receipts for 1800$ from a machine shop in Milwaukee that I heard of but never had used before. .030, 10/20 on the crank, balanced, reconditioned rods and the lower end assembled. The engine sat in dude's basement for 8 years and the assembly lube turned to goo, so I talked him down to 400$ and loaded it into my Jeep. This was in the heart of South side ghetto, I googled the address before i left and the first story that came up was the double murder at the address a few years earlier. I was a bit worried when I went to get it but it all worked out OK, just a little shady.

he also spray bombed it chevy orange


since the lube turned goo and that i wanted my machine shop to look it over, I tore it back down to see what had really been done. The crank looked good and checked straight, the bores measure good, so it was looking pretty good


I wanted the block acid washed to get it back to bare iron and then have them check it over.....well the number three main was tapered 1.5 thousandths and crooked about 1 thousandth so it needed a line hone.


so I got the block back with a bit bigger bill than i had wanted but I also wanted it done right. The crank and cam went in. The cam is a summit 068, it degreed spot on.





cam is all lubed up

[flht1997]

Once all the cleaning and measuring was done the bottom end went together pretty fast.
here the shiny new dipstick tube, I dont think they are reusable as I destroyed the old one trying to get it out.



lower end all done, now to the heads.





The heads I am using are the 76' 6X, low compression but the big valves. I am not trying to build an all out, high comp race motor. I want something that will run fine on cheap gas, maybe get 15mpg's and make decent power. First step is sitting in the electrolysis tank for awhile, followed by the blast cabinet.





this is the before, yuk.



lets cross our fingers that everything is OK in there eh?
Damn! that is a worn valve guide, that will need to be fixed. Back to my local machine shop, Racine Area Competition Engines, very good work, just a little slow.

[nytrainer]

Great story, great thread...subscribed!

[68lemansman]

Looks like you are on a roll and the car is starting to come along great!

[flht1997]

So the valve guide got toast because of the EGR valve being right there so the machine shop reamed and fit a bronze sleeve, wasn't quite bad enough for a whole guide




the rest of the guides were measuring up at about .0048 which is a bit above max of .0044 and I would like them done around .0035 if I could. Now getting one guide sleeved ran about 40$ so 15 more would be putting this well over budget, so I resorted to some engine skills I learned along time ago. Guide knurling and reaming.

here i am reaming



I ended up reaming all the guides and they check out at .0037 across the board. I am not completely thrill about guide knurling, it always seemed to be a band-aid fix on a problem, but if you remember the married/two little kids part, some of this stuff I had to do on the down low so the wife wouldn't know exactly what it was costing, and the knurl didn't cost a thing. (and i'm not fibbing the wife, i sold some stuff and did a few side jobs to off-set)

They I started the reassemble. I would have like to cut for PC seals, but like i said i didn't want to stick too much money in these head so the intakes got umbrella and o-rings, while the exhaust just got o-rings. Also new Edelbrock valve spring.



a short and a half block??



there is a real good, old timey parts store on my way home from work. Staffed by old guys that know what they are doing, you can describe what you need and they will find something that will work. Nothing really listed for an umbrella for a Pontiac 400, and most didn't fit inside the Edelbrock spring, they dug around and found these that fit great. I also like the COO



The only set of rockers I had came out of the toasted 400 and they were pretty galled up on the ball so I went with Comp Cam Magnums, run of the mill roller tip, but ball and fulcrum pivot.

[URL=http://s1330.photobucket.com/user/flht1997/media/Facebook/Firebird/427246_10200662116460481_1021755156_n.jpg.html][/U

I love it when a plan comes together