June 22, 2002 - Work'n'stuff

Now that I have BlueBird at home, I am going to set about making him (or her if that suits you) more comfortable to drive around.  Well actually it needs an inspection sticker and making the inspector go through the window go get in is probably not the way to get one.  So we need to get the door to open.  From both sides.  And probably clean it out.  Lots of dirt.  Would hate to get pulled over by a cop and him find a kilo or two of dope under the seat.

So we need to remove the door panel.  Easy.  Nothing was holding this one on.

Nice.  Easy going so far.  Let's check out the inner door panel.

Notice that the rivets that hold the window regulator have been removed and screws added.  Not uncommon, but pretty unusual.  Probably means someone had some issues with the door.  Let's see what the deal is with the door handle and why it isn't moving.

Missing that little clippie bar thingy.  Never fear, I have a parts car in WhiteBird!  I yanked off a portion of the parts at Monty's the previous day so all is taken care of.  I had three to choose from in case one didn't work.  I also took the time to WD40 and clean the whole thing out (why do a job without doing it right?).

Yeah.  It opens from the inside and the outside.  We're pretty classy now baby.  Time to clean out the car for reasons stated above.  This car was a regular treasure trove of items.

This car cleaned up pretty nicely with the big shop-vac.  As for a list of what I found:

I also found a rust out under the floorboard!  YAY!  Nothing major, only about half an inch wide by 1-2 inches long.  Everything else was pretty solid.

 

Remember that pre-79 bumper with the post-78 taillights?  Well I decided to fix that.  I took WhiteBird's bumper (white in case you couldn't tell) and decided to put it on BlueBird (blue as the pictures say).  It turned out to be a rather simple process as the guy who put BlueBird's bumper on didn't believe in bolts.  He put two of ten on them and finger tight at that.  Made taking off the bumper easy.  Turns out the bumper was originally gold painted blue (ah those cheap kids).

Somewhere along the way someone pulled out the springs assembly out of BlueBird that holds the trunk up.  I figured I could do it but Leroy over at Monty's told me that I should probably let the pros do it since he wouldn't touch it.  So I have this nice little piece of rebar holding the trunk open.  It's classy I tell you.  Adds to that whole "redneck" look I am going for.  Note that backup lamp drilled through the license plate.

Bumper off.  Piece of cake.  BlueBird had apparently been rear-ended at one point in it's life and the person who repaired him used mud of some sort and just kind of "rebuilt" the passenger side end.  The bumper bolts don't go into it because of the bondo used so I have 5 of 6 top bolts in (the ones that matter I like to think).  I left the bottom bolts undone because, well I don't feel like dropping the exhaust to bolt them in and if they are that critical then I will later on.  The rust-looking substance was actually dirt except for the far right corner.

Oh yeah.  Now we match... year-wise at least.  WhiteBird's bumper was actually one of the nicer pieces on it so that tells you what the rest of the car looks like.  Those "Hedman Header" stickers probably give the car +25HP each.

Finished product.  I had to jury rig that stupid license plate lamp back on when I found that WhiteBird's bumper didn't have one anymore.  At least it all works (minus the stop-lights).  Tomorrow we tackle the stop lamp problem!

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Last updated  June 23rd, 2002 at 10:20PM