Project angry bird...68 roadrunner

In honor of thanksgiving today I deceided to gut my bird, time to dig into this old dog and make it whole again. Some of you know the story on this car, some dont...but thats not important at this point. so I pulled the nose off, and dash somewat apart, to get to the meat and potatoes. I still need to pull the pedal assy, and e brake assy. They will prob go straight to scrap like alot of this car should.

heres what I know it needs so far, im not a stranger to rust and ive been over it pretty good so hopefully no major surprises:

needs a left front frame rail badly, cowl top and bottom, both rad support baffles and lower tie bar,floors all of them front to back...nothings saveable there, both quarters, both doors,trunk lid,dutchman panel,rear x member,tail light panel,left door post.

Iknow your thinking I must be crazy and im thinking that also...as I want to do this car in orig steel if I can. Its nothing special, except a 383 post 68 runner, ice blue with hood tratment, decor package, light group, ps, 3 spd wipers.

so here is the kicker, I was going to sell it or part it out, then I made a phone call to my friend Ron Rogers in mass...he parts some cars I Was looking for a frame rail, I ended up with the cleanest 68 coronet 4 door shell ive ever seen...and when I say clean its arizona clean, I can use all the floors, inner fenders,rails,etc anythings that the same as the 2 door car. ive spent the majority of my free time in the last 2 weeks drilling the shell apart, now I have a nice pile of steel ready to go to its new home on the angry bird...now for some pics.

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trunk floor, or lack there of

the donor

donor floor pan

more donated guts

last one for now it doubles as a work bench

Cool you are adding he 26" radiator just like he 3:55 gear hipo cooling package.

ive got two sets of big opening baffles...so why not...more cooling cant hurt

nice score on the donor glad to see you saving your road runner. wish we were closer, be glad to do some grunt work.

without that donor car, I doubt id have fixed it. The price tag for the metal alone was north of 5k. ive found a mint pair of 68 doors, a mint trunklid, complete dash assy from a different coronet, but it had the trim on it so I need to clean it up and fill some holes. my dash frame is unuseable from rust around the window and the very nice gauges drilled into it and a sweet tach screwed to it.

had to do some maintnance on the family truckster today so I didnt get to much done. I finished cutting up the shell from the 4 door, need to grab the under dutchman braces before the remnants to go the scrap yard in the am. tomorrow eve and sunday im changing out the front stub, or thats my plan, may get some sand and do some blasting also...its supposed to be cold so I can get all bundled up and not die doing it!

nice

dug into it some this weekend, finished gutting it...then I removed about 200 self tapping screws to remove the patches in the floor. galvanized roof flashing is a good substitute isnt it? cut out the front floor behind the t bar crossmember, then removed the front stub. oddly enough the t bar x member is really solid, to bad the frame rails arent. the pass is ok drivers is trashed...

cowl cap and lower is toast, but the firewall, front door posts, and cowl sides are remarkably solid!

no more front end...getting the new rails in will be a big step and I hope I wont feel this cars a giant turd anymore...still a turd just not a giant one...

new stub in the vicinity...still need to grind the surfaces, and remove the old floor along the pinch weld, it will be easier without the front of the car on...

i need to change out the lower tie bar, i have a good one from another donor, and use my orig upper tie bar so my so number matches the trunk lip, even tho that will have to be grafted into whatever i use in the back whether its or steel or amd. I have found out its alot harder to find the spot welds on rusty metal...the air chisel has come in handy too! all for now, maybe some more tomorrow evening.

Quote:

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dug into it some this weekend, finished gutting it...then I removed about 200 self tapping screws to remove the patches in the floor. galvanized roof flashing is a good substitute isnt it?

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buddy's doing a '66 Belevdere, PO had used a stop and speed limit signs for the floor....