The 14 Car Performance Therapy Project Rushforths, Baers, Yokohamas, and more

[NOT A TA]

Living close to the Atlantic we get an ocean breeze most days. Since it was calm today I took the opportunity to spray some primer on pieces that were ready for some paint.

My high tech mixing station.



My fabulous tropical spray booth. Yes, I need to mow the lawn (weeds) but it's bodywork season!



Some neighborhood quacks stopped by to offer assistance (beg for food). While some guys have a shop dog or cat the ducks have decided it's fun to stop by my house get a bread snack and check out whatever I'm working on. They'll stand in front of the garage if the doors open but not come in, however if I'm outside they get underfoot and sometimes get banished like they did today ahahaha.





All primed inside and out with high build sandable primer. Ya ya I know "Whats that Fox body notch trunklid doing in the mix?" It snuck in and will be painted white.

[NOT A TA]

I decided to modify a rear spoiler with the hope of increasing downforce. I will be making a front spoiler extension & splitter so hopefully this will balance it out a bit. I'm adding fiberglass to a stock rear 3 piece spoiler to make it about 1" - 1 1/4" taller.

So far I've got about 80 bucks in materials and it looks like it'll work. I used some roofing flashing to make a sort of mold on one side of the spoiler to support the fiberglass & resin.



After building up one side with several layers of fiberglass I removed the flashing and added several layers to the other side.



Then sanded with an air tool with rough twist lock 3" pads to create the curves and zip off the excess.



After another coat of fiberglass resin and another rough sanding *I'll smooth out the surface with a skim coat of bondo and prep for paint.

[NOT A TA]

Got sidetracked from the bird project for a few months but I'm working on it again. The rear spoiler is roughed in and will get finish work done later while mounted to the car. I started working on the front bumper I'll be using. I want a bumper without the jack hole slots for a cleaner look.

Starting with a core I bought many years ago I soda blasted it to get off most of the old primer & paint that someone put on it. Then mounted it to my "whatdayacallit" body/paint contraption while bolted to a board to make it easy to work on. This way I can spin the bumper to work on top/bottom and the part doesn't keep flexing like they do when trying to work on regular bodywork stands.

There was a section that had lifted from the metal core which happens to many of the 70-73 bumpers. So I drilled holes in the affected area, scraped inside to loosen rust/dirt etc. and then blew out the junk with an air hose. Then pumped panel bond into the void through the holes and clamped overnight.

After the panel bond was dry I ground off the paint sticks and excess panel bond and used 3M flexible parts repair material to fill the voids and other bumps cuts etc. on the bumper.

[NOT A TA]

Jack hole slot removal. Prep slots by roughing up and chamfering the rubber around the slots with dremel tool. Panel bonded a thin piece of aluminum to inside of bumper, let dry. Filled slots 1/2 way with panel bond , let dry. rough up panel bond and use #M flexible part repair material, let dry. Sand & fill with 3M till smooth.

[NOT A TA]

Another thing that annoys me about the early 2nd gen front bumpers is the strip across the bottom where the grill supports attach. It's ugly and is seen from the front so I painted that section of my other bumper flat black in an attempt to make it disappear in the shadow. For this bumper I've cut it off and will make new lower supports for the grills.

I've got 2 front splash pans and am currently working on the one that was on the car before stripping, doing some metal work, and prepping for paint as it was stock. The other one will be modified later to see if an idea I have will work.

I Also stripped the center section of the front spoiler for paint prep. Over the past 20 years it had gotten a few bumps & bruises and seen a lot of flexing at high speed events from air pressure. The angle of the spoiler would be straight down over about 125 MPH and the repeated flexing caused paint cracking/peeling problems. I will be adding reinforcements to prevent the flexing in the future..

[NOT A TA]

I'd installed 1/2" wheel studs in the rear axles a while back so while working on body panels I also got everything together to install the Baer discs on the rear. I had Moser tapered axles with Moser Ford style housing ends for drum brake application welded to a 8.5" GM housing so switching to disc brakes with an internal drum parking brake in the rotor hats is an unusual swap.

It turned out to be a bit of a puzzle to figure out how to actually assemble and required some minor fabrication to make it all work. Rather than explain I'll just post pics since it's unlikely very many people will be in the same situation since most people do the disc upgrade at the time they install axles etc. and wouldn't be in my situation since they'd get housing ends welded on for disc brake applications.

[carbuff]

Like the progress John! Looking forward to seeing this one back on the track!

[Ron in SoCal]

John are you going to run one caliper facing forward and one rearward?

Love your work, as usual

[OOCustoms]

Awesome to see that your sticking with the side pipes. Years ago when I started building my 74 nova and I bought a set of full header side pipes like the ones your converting to. Although that project never went much farther and life got in the way, I cant wait to finish it one day and still incorporate the side pipes I have for it. Its the only 70-80s muscle car style I still love. I do want to possibly recess them into the rockers and raise them to adapt to the pro touring style. I cant wait to see yours complete with those pipes. Its gonna sound wicked! are you gonna run slip in mufflers? how bout some spark plugs in the tips to shoot flames???? LOL

[GregWeld]

Nice to see you back at it John!


You're doing some good stuff there buddy!