My 76' and I

[1_Car_Guy]

Entry 4: 2/15/2022

The whole plan after the mini tub and backhalf projects were complete was to get the car running again, take it back to my apartment in Buffalo and enjoy it.

Before any of that could happen though I needed to get the interior back together at least to a point where it was somewhat respectable. My uncle had the idea of modifying the rear seat and rear interior panels to work with the mini tub and ladder bar channels.

I'm not an interior guy but I trusted him and this how it all ended up. At this point I was pretty committed to school, working and chasing girls so the car went on the back burner. I probably put about 1,000 miles on it from 2011 to 2015.

The engine and front suspension were tired. The old 4 speed was on its last leg so it was really just a Friday night date night ride. It did have 3 inch exhaust, headers and magnaflow mufflers - sounded great but it was a pretty tired powertrain. It would stay in this form until late 2015.

[1_Car_Guy]

Entry 5: 2/16/2022

I graduated college in 2013 and eventually got tired of renting apartments and always having to hunt down relatives or friends for a place to store the car. In 2015 I bought a house with a 1.5 car garage and finally had a place to store the car. In all honesty the garage was just a large wooden shed, but it would later serve the purpose of the place where I would tear the car down to a rolling chassis.

In the fall of 2015, I did a complete tear down. Bagged and tagged everything and moved anything that I intended on keeping into the spare bedroom of my house. Somethings got stored in the garage but for the most part everything was stored in my spare bedroom. The girlfriend was not a fan.

Sold the original motor, original transmission, heater core, front core support and front sub frame over that winter.

By March of 2016 the tear down was complete, and I had everything bagged, tagged, or stored away in a somewhat orderly fashion.
Ended up taking out a personal unsecured loan and proceeded to buy a DSE powder coated front sub frame with adjustable shocks, sub frame connectors, LS engine mounts, firewall heater core block off panel, Holly T-56 transmission tunnel hump, pro-touring F-body solid body mounts, and a Tanks Inc. EFI tank kit.

In the Summer of 2016 I sent her off to have the undercarriage, interior pans, trunk pans, and firewall professionally media blasted and painted.

[camcojb]

[EVO]

Love the storage in the spare bedroom part! I get in trouble for that all the time.

Great thread, watching with interest.

I have a '70 and a '77 T/A and plan on starting complete rebuilds soon.

Evan Q.

[syborg tt]

Loving this thread !


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[1_Car_Guy]

Entry 6: 2/17/2022

In the early portion of 2016 the car went to media. Had the rear suspension and rear end dropped before hand. Also had the shop weld in the firewall smooth panel and Holley T-56 Hump panel.

A little foreshadowing here, but used an LS7/T-56 combo for mock up.

[1_Car_Guy]

Entry 7: 2/17/2022

After media work I had the shop spray the tail panel, firewall, trunk pans, interior pans and undercarriage. They also installed the DSE Front Sub Frame, sub frame connectors, and rear end.

After this I drug it home and put it away in storage for the next 5 years. In that time I'd end up getting married and having my first child.

[1_Car_Guy]

Entry 8: 3/9/2022

Have a few things in motion worth mentioning.

Decided the next logical thing is to strip the car down to bare metal and have some metal work done I've been putting off.

Took a few weeks and lots of phone calls but I finally found the right shop relatively close to me for the job. They're booked up until late May/early June but I'm excited already.

Planning on getting the firewall smoothed and reinforced. Car will be getting a manual brake set up and I'll be thrashing it often. Need it built up a bit to feel comfortable.

Considered stripping the body by hand once early May hits (60ish degrees) with Aircraft stripper but with two kiddos aged under 3 and a dog...I don't think that's the best choice to save a few thousand so I'm passing that job off to the body shop as well. I've done it before but not at this point in my life.

Picked up an original 76 Core Support the other day from a wreck out in AZ.
It's impeccable and pricey. Also purchased the Ringbrother second gen door hinges. Other than that I have all the original sheet metal and shims.

Shop will reassemble , take care of the firewall, complete any (not expecting much) major rust repair issues that crop up along the way and properly align all panel gaps, spray in epoxy primer. Not doing any ding/dent repair, bondo, filler work at this point. Just getting it all back together first.

I'll have all that work done when it goes to paint (whenever that is).

That's all for now really. Just waiting until I can drag this thing away to the body guy. Progress is progress.

I also picked up all new wheel flares and the lower front spoiler (plastic ones, not the urethane ones). Having talked to the body guy, he said it's a good idea to buy them now and allow them to acclimate before they ever go on the car. Let them sit out in the sun, in the cold garage in the winter and allow them to go through their natural heating and cooling (expansion and contraction phase). I guess what happens, is people buy them and immediately mount them, prime and paint and they crack pretty quickly. I don't know how much of that can be avoided but I'll give it a shot I guess.

[WSSix]

Sounds like a solid plan to me. Good luck with it all!

[1_Car_Guy]

Entry 9: 5/11/2022

It's been a pretty slow spring for me. Lots of waiting around but things have started happening.

The shop called and the '76 goes to paint and body in the middle of June for the things I mentioned in my prior post.

The wife and I are also hoping the new house is ready by July. The third garage bay is pretty sweet. 4 feet wider than a normal bay and 4 feet deeper. I have a bunch of extra outlets and 2 x 220 35 amp plugs. Ceilings rafters in the third bay are an extra 12 inches higher than normal so I'll have no trouble fitting a lift in there.