56 Tbird Frame Off Restoration Progress

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I had posted an earlier thread about an aftermarket overdrive transmission conversion, so I figure I would start sort of a build thread on this car. The car has sat in an airport hanger for about 20 years, and that was after a previous freshen up that the car wasn't driven afterwards. That being said, I thought that the car was a bit more solid than it was, because the car was only showing minor issues that I thought would be fairly easy to take care of.

Turns out that there was a lot of shotty previous repairs that used excessive bondo to build the contours, and now I know why. The car had a previous quarter panel replacement and rocker panel replacements, and the replacement parts for these cars are less than extraordinary, because they don't really have any of the natural body contour made into them, and that is why the previous painter built the contours out of bondo.

When I received my quarter panel replacement section, it had the wheel arch and door jamb seam bent, but the rest of the panel was basically flat as a board. This causes problems when you are trying to achieve the top to bottom body roll of the panel, because the bent seams don't want to give for that, so there had to be a lot of accordion slicing done to the wheel arch flange and door jamb flange to allow the contour to happen..

Here are some pics of where the car is at now. I am working hard to achieve uniform gapping of the doors and panels, and by looking at a few other restored cars, I guess the factory gapping wasn't that great?

Here are the pictures of the car in the hanger at the time of loading









Here are some pictures of the body off the frame, and it looks much cleaner than it actually was, but I guess bondo holds up if the car isn't driven our out in the weather.












Here are some pictures of the bondo area's and shotty repairs that were underneath.

 

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Here are some pictures of the Drivers Quarter Panel's previous work








Here are some of the repair pictures of the Rockers, Drivers Quarter, and better door gapping

 

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Here are some pictures of the Quarter Panel repair. There was a lot of work involved to make the fender skirts actually fit the wheel opening, because the opening wasn't even close to being the same shape as the skirt, so that is why you see additional slicing of the quarter skin at the front and back of the skirt..













Door Gapping

 

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Not sure why this is all of out of order, so if a moderator can put the postings in order according to the time stamp, I would appreciate it.

 

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Here are some pictures of the car before it heads out to the body shop, and as you can see the gaps and profile looks pretty good, especially with the fender skirts fitting well enough to disappear in the Front and Rear side view profiles.. The hood took a bit of effort to get uniform gapping on the front, but all and all it looks pretty good..