I think Eddie Motorsports Billet hinges might work. I'm just hesitant to drop the coin and find out otherwise. Regardless, this is not a hard stop - there is a solution here. Vette hinges may be it as well.

Let's hope it all works as it does in my head!

I was thinking I could just lift the whole body to get under hood, or into and out of the car for that matter.

http://www.anitafred.net/images/Drag...0Body%20Up.JPG

Tilt body FTW!

I have no doubt you'll find a solution, Brian. Good luck!

Troy Trepanier made these for Chicayne, I've always loved them and they don't eat-up a lot of under-hood space! Lots of trial and error in getting the travel, angle, and strut geometry right, but what a great look!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...psq9wiecc2.jpg

http://cdn.garcya.us/wp-content/uplo...der_web_02.jpg

Haha, how's it going Brian? Haven't talked in a long time!

Well, haven't touched the car since July. Jen is getting her MBA, I got a promotion and we had our floors refinished twice which means our furniture was taking up most of the garage. Still finishing up installing new shoe molding and putting furniture back. Not optimistic I will make much progress this winter either. Plus I may pick up a fox body here shortly. There is also intention for a GT350 in 2017 (at least that's the current plan). Hoping to hold onto the bird as well but will quickly run out of garage space.

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And yes it has been too long. We should try to meet up over the break. You guys working or are you off?

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I figured you've been busy.
Sorry to hear about the fox body :lmao:


Yeah, what break?? 24th and 25th, then the first we are off.
We are buried at work. Like beyond buried.

Just finished reading this thread and although it's not all my style I was impressed with how far you've come. . .

. . .I would suggest adding some diamond plates to your front and rear subframes where you butt welded them together (the Jake's subframe you originally purchased had them as do the Morrison stuff).

Well - it's only been about 4 years of quiet on this car...
Here are the cliff notes...
1. Bought, modded and sold a Fox Body
2. No GT350. Was holding out for a GT500 but subsequently left Ford Performance so that's out too. The good thing is the new job gives me a bit of time to work on the car!
3. Had been slowly working on my own chassis design. Peeled it back some to use some current Mustang chassis parts. Was originally going to put this into the fox body but since that's gone - the Firebird is the only target! All the geometry was worked out in CAD - checked bump steer, camber gain and ackerman to make sure all were where I wanted them to be.
4. Ordered a bunch of laser cut tubes and plates that have gone together amazingly close to as planned.
5. Have sold a bunch of parts that will no longer be used / needed. All the BMW stuff is going away. It was a cool idea, but all the front stuff was probably going to need to be reworked or redesigned and there was still alot to do out back to tie in the IRS.
6. Car will have 15.5" front brakes so it will have to run 19" wheels. Planning to run 315's on all corners.

Hoping to be able to provide more updates over the next few months! In the meantime here is a shot of the CAD work on the frame rails and the current state.

This sounds great--I love the sound of Ford stuff under a GM body (with an LS, maybe)!

I wish I'd seen this thread years ago, as I'm on the precipice of doing something really dumb with a BMW e39 suspension/brakes/steering.

Keep at it!

Not a lot to post about besides lots of sanding, cleaning, measuring, and welding. Then more of all of those. Then even more of all of those. But progress is good! Plus some fun parts showed up! 390mm rotor and 6 piston caliper should do!

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...cb4abd5b23.jpg


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Glad to see progress being made, Brian. Keep it up!

More sanding, measuring and welding. Rear structure is now welded on. Mocked up the rear subframe just to make sure everything fits. So far so good but I would say only about 50% through the welding.

Before I started this, I thought I liked welding. I don’t think I do. Maybe if someone prepped everything for me I would like it more. Lol.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...426651f486.jpg

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...6637af6bb3.jpg


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Still plugging away on the chassis. The rails are almost completely welded up. Cleaned up the frame table and lifted the car up enough to get the chassis up under the car. Tacked on the control arm mounts and will do the other side hopefully in the next few days. Goal is to have the floor cut out and chassis ready to weld in before school starts for my son.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...82d16388ea.jpg


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Guess it’s almost time for the yearly update! I will say that I have had lots of time in the garage thanks to the shutdown and stay at home order. I sincerely hope everyone in this community is safe and healthy.

Late last summer progress slowed. It was too hot and then quickly too cold in the garage to be productive. But we are back to progressing forward.

UCA mounts are on
Floor is cut out and inner rockers were replaced with 3x3 tube
Body and chassis are tacked together square and level
Started refitting sheet metal - and I must say it fits like garbage.
Bumper mount is designed and laser cut plates are on order

Any suggestions on modifications / perfecting fit on these panels would be much appreciated. I am not afraid of the work / hours - just don’t want to put in a bunch of hours and then screw it up. I am tempted to drop stupid money on original fenders at this point. I feel like the fender is really high near the rear corner at the hood margin. I also seem to have a huge gap at the top of the quarter to doors and no gap at the bottom. Both sides are like this. Not sure if the issue is the door or the quarter. The margin from door to rocker is pretty level.

I will say I took way too much metal off the car to start rather than replacing one panel at a time. Maybe next time I do this I will know better!

On to some pictures. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...a2d1bb6a01.jpg


https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...431bc5a96e.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...ae27a6be3f.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...edb17798b3.jpg


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Fitting sheet metal panels ...
 

Brian ... let me guess, you bought AMD panels? I know cuz the problem areas you are describing are the same ones I came across while trying to fit the ill-fitting panels.

First .... the front fenders being too high back by the cowl/ windshield is due to the idiots that spot welded the outer fender skin to the inner brace [hopefully yours is not this bad]. You can drill out all the spot welds and lower the inner brace to fit higher in the outer skin. Word of caution, do not final weld anything til the fender is back on the car cuz you may need to "lower/slice" the upper fender/cowl bolting mount to get it low enough ... ask me how I know!!

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img922/1786/99xMBd.jpg

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/1315/2VShBz.jpg


Second ... the ill-fitting quarter panels need some help cuz on my AMD quarter they bent the lower rocker panel *90 at the wrong angle. So I cut the angle that supposed to attach to the top of the rocker and fitted the panel and made a new attachment *90 to fit the rocker and keep the door gaps somewhat reasonable. You need to line up the rear with the tail pan lines and the sail panel will fit body lines/ rear window lip and you should be close to OEM fitting.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/QxTum6.jpg Looking in from the back where the outer wheelhouse is ... notice the 18 ga sheet metal strip ... fit and then weld!



I hope this helps out ... I ended up re-using my door jambs and butt welded the AMD quarter skin on to the OEM jamb and window lip.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/zVcfgN.jpg
I ended up not using the AMD fenders and had my 53-year-old fenders stripped and I patched them .... mo better now!!!

If you need any other suggestions let me know, I'm not an expert but been there before ... oh and the AMD roof needs help too,lol!

Thanks a bunch. The problem seems to be primarily on the passenger side. I can measure the height difference relative to the inner fender brace. It seems to be around 0.3” higher which is most of the issue. I was able to get the driver side pretty good. That seems like a lot of spot welds to undo. I am considering looking for an original fender. The fenders also seem to bulge a bit at the body line down the middle of the door. I assume removing the brace helps with that as well? Again this seems worse on the passenger side.

I haven’t retackled the quarters yet. I wish I had gone the patch panel path on the quarters vs the hack job I did removing the door jamb areas.

Driver side:

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...1e501dce43.jpg


Passenger Side:

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...d78f52e7b8.jpg


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Amazing work, it seems every set of fenders have their own problem areas.

That's not as bad as mine ... you can always shim the cowl/ wiper panel if needed. I can see where the fender curve doesn't follow the hood and I know for a fact that a BFH and some wood helps in the contour ... ask my trunk lid:poke:

I'm pretty sure it's just a crap passenger side fender (or they are both bad). These came from Classic Industries I believe. Made in Taiwan. The measurement from core support the fender surface is lower on the passenger side by about a quarter inch, and the top side cowl mount it was a quarter inch higher than the driver side. I was able to drill out most of the spot welds and clamped the fender skin down on the bracket and it improved the fit near the cowl a smidge, but not enough.

:EmoteClueless::buttkick:

Passenger side has been mostly wrestled into position. Quarter panel needs some work still. Door to quarter gap isn’t good. But the rest is ok. Driver side still needs work but it’s also close. I’m using the old worn out hinges on the driver side since I couldn’t get the fit right with the replacements. But I can’t seem to get the door forward enough on the driver side. It feels like I’m getting close to being able to really focus on quarters and then weld them on.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...f21160b580.jpg

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...d49334d80b.jpg


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