Brendon's '67 Firebird thread by Tuske427

7 minute(s) of a 286 minute read

Today I was able to finish up the driver front wheel opening revision. This included finishing up the inner fenders to align with the enlarged wheel opening, and then completely rebuild the fender extension to match. The set from my car were pretty rusty (much like the rest of the car was). Fortunately, I have an extra passenger side extra, but just one driver side so I removed the rot and replaced the metal.

Hopefully next weekend I can get started on the front pass side. Enjoy!

7-22-2012

Thank you, Captain, you're too kind.

I got a few hours in this weekend, I was able to get most of the passenger side done. This went much faster (maybe because I didn't have to sandblast off some rubberize undercoating and rust) but I still need to drill holes and align the panel to fit. Next weekend, I hope.

7-29-2012

I got another day in this weekend- I worked on improving the fit of the fender/ fender extension and lower valence panel. There are a few "before" pics where you can see poor panel alignment. I used a combination of tweaking the shapes and adding some weld on the edges to reduce the nasty gaps. It's not perfect, but, it is better than before...

8-5-2012

This weekend I worked on more panel alignment/ fitting. I lost count of how many times I put the fenders on, took the fenders off, made an adjustment here and there, then put the fenders on, then took them off....

I also did numerous trimming on the inner fenders, but not enough as I need to make more. I also trimmed off one of the brackets on the underside of the fender- this allowed me to move it back farther for a nicer fit. I still have to take them off again and trim on the fender to prevent the door from scraping it. I have the gaps pretty tight, I'm hoping I'll be able to keep this, as it looks much better than I remember it being before.

I also took the time to fill in some holes on the core support (it was like it was perforated) and I widened the area for the radiator opening.

The goal now is to get the sheet metal on and aligned, as I have a few more customizing ideas I want to do, but I'll need the panels on for measuring, etc.

9-16-2012

Well, I'm still alive. Between heading out of the country for work, and distracting myself one weekend by drilling out holes on the underside of my hood (and spraying some rust sealer), I finally got the hood and fenders decently aligned. I also worked on modifying the cowl panel to fit better- there were some excessive gaps on the sides. The middle is still a bit high, I'll have to lower that, and then onto more assembly to ultimately trim and fit the front bumper...