1968 T-bird

['68 t-bird]

My '68 T-bird.

 

['68 t-bird]

This one started life as a landau. As you can see, I converted it to a coupe and removed some trim to clean it up, added some mags and gave it a drive way paint job myself.

I ditched the 2.80 open rear highway gear and swapped in a 3:25 limited slip center. The C6 is rebuild and I installed a shift kit and floor shifter.
The 429 was reman when I bought the car. I installed a mutha thumpr cam and a a holley 750 sitting on an performer intake and some polished aluminum dress up items.

Basically, I stripped the car to transform it from a "personal luxury car" to a "personal muscle car".
These ones don't take much work to turn them into muscle cars. They're already sleepers as is.

 

[Inertialmass]

Nice job. Lot's of work. It looks great.

 

['68 t-bird]

Thanks. Yes, lot of work. I forgot to mention those are stainless '57 chevy side mirrors.

I gutted the interior too. Ripped out mice nests, cleaned it up, then soundproofed it.

 

['68 t-bird]

 

['68 t-bird]

The car was pretty solid overall. Just sheet metal patches as you saw when I stripped it down. Welded in new panels wherever it needed it. A previous owner gave it a quick and dirty paint job (blue) and made a couple real patches, but many were filled with fiberglass and bondo.
The floor was pretty solid overall. The trunk needed nothing. The pass side front floor needed a good, I dunno 2' or so section I cut out and welded in. A few pinholes but the whole section was thin so I cut out a good section and made it solid.
Then I soundproofed and install a new black carpet.

Lastly, there was a section in the firewall. It had rusted out around the blower motor and heater core. So when I pulled the engine to install the cam, I painted the block did the dress up, then repaired the firewall. Removed the mass A/C HVAC and cleaned that up. I had already plucked the rest of the majority of the A/C out. This was the last of it. Then I repaired the rusted out panels. Replaced the brake lines, then cleaned the whole thing up, and painted it black again (like factory.)

The cars paint color is Vintage Burgundy Metallic from TCP global. Base/clear.


You may notice, to make the car a bit more sporty, when I cut the rusted out rear quarter panels off, I kept them high when I built new bottoms.
I ripped out the old tube fuse panel an updated that, along with the breakers. Ripped out the wonky power window motor rocker switches, install relays, installed 4 new motors, and updated with modern switches. Re-used almost all the old wires, just had to run one more between the doors. Installed a overhead dome light while I had the headliner out. LED lights inside and out. LED light bar installed under the trunk lid and under the hood. You can see everywhere at night. Bright, and white bulbs.

This car is on whole other level since I got it. All brake lines and fuel lines replaced. Not much I haven't gone through at this point. Not much it needs now either.



It's been a work in progress. 10 year long restoration. I got the car back in 2015 looking like this. Not long after, the clear started peeling and I could always see the poor patches too. He had already removed the vinyl top and side bars, but left some trim that now didn't belong and didn't even bondo in some trim holes. I of course cleaned this all up and filled in any trim holes with weld. I got the car super cheap though.
Had a reman 429 and looking like this for $3,500 hard to beat that! Even 10 years ago.

I stripped it all down to bare metal everywhere. I just showed it mostly, to show it was originally yellow. After stripping it all, that's epoxy primer/sealer. Then I did my body work and high build primer, paint and clear. While doing the body work, I'd just work away a few hours a day and cover it plastic every night. I was months stripping, welding, filling, blocking and sanding. I now fully understand why paint jobs costs thousands of dollars.