1968 Firebird 400 by 68400BIRD

3 minute(s) of a 82 minute read

WOW it's been a long time since I had any updates. So here goes.
It was time to get the doors in primer. I knew that the passenger door needed a little work. I could tell that there was some past bodywork along with a little rust. The drivers door was in near perfect condition. I of course picked one of the coldest days to do the sand blasting. I welded in a new patch panel and welded up all of the dent puller holes from the PO.

Doors all welded up and ready for primer.

Next in line were the door internals. I started with the door latches. They were quite dirty. The passenger side door did not always open correctly either. After cleaning them I noticed a missing spring.

All cleaned up.

I made the spring on the left out of a throttle return spring. Works great.

The door hinges needed new pins,bushings, and detents.
I found it very odd that some of the original bushings were made of plastic.
This is whats left of the hardware.

I have three of the hings put back together, I need to buy two more bushings. The kit came with two oversize bushings which I did not need. Off to the HELP section, $5.49 later and I have eight more bushings which of only two are the correct size. I will need to pull them all back apart and sandblast and paint.

The steering column needed a new turn signal switch along with a lower bearing. The lower 68 non tilt bearing is not avaiable. I used a 69 non tilt bearing and just reamed out the original plastic housing with a sanding drum on my dremel. Was a very easy fix. I also have a good friend who started doing powder coating so I dropped off a load of parts starting with the steering column.
This is what I started with.

New turn signal switch.

New 69 lower bearing.

Nice clean powder coated parts.

All put back together.