!964 Biscayne. Birdie Sue.

[yahoos]

Okay guys, Ive had a few projects and am now building Birdie Sue. I havent found a website to post my build to so I figured id throw it on here. Heres a few pics just let me know if yall want a build thread! I dont want to waist my time if this isnt very active. Heres a few pictures. The body is almost ready to go back on the new frame. Again yall let me know if yall want to see the build or not and I will post up all the pics and info i have!

[Russell Ashley]

I'm in. I have a 57 truck but I always check out this area to see what interesting builds are going on. I like the variety of projects here so keep posting is my opinion. What are your plans for it? Are you going to build the new frame and then swap the body to it?

[yahoos]

Yes. its about ready to go together. The old frame was literally about to break in half from the rust. I will post a full build since someone is interested as I enjoy looking at builds other folks post up!

[yahoos]

Okay, well I usually like to show a few of my older projects before I post up the build. So heres some pics to enjoy of some of my previous clunkers.

1967 c10 mud truck and my 77 datsun 620 bobtail


The datsun "finished"


My old daily square body pulling the datsun to a show


Heres the flying 69. Had alot of fun in this truck.


The devil child. 4.3 5 speed luv. named after being a total pain in my ass.


Leading to how I got the 64. Now named Birdie Sue. Ill post the build from here on

[yahoos]

Okay so story on the car. I had sold the 69 and was daily driving the luv and had some money to blow. I came across it on craigslist just looking around and had to have it for some reason. Ive always wanted a 4 door because I usually have trucks and wanted something my homies could cruise in. Heres a few pics of when I first got here. Please excuse the low quality initial pictures.











As you can see shes pretty solid. I hated the Daytons on it. The crappy primer job looks pretty tacky Im not sure why someone did that. It seems solid. Interior is clean and the seats have been redone and are nice and comfy. The door panels and headliner need work but that and paint are at them bottom of my list of to do's.

[yahoos]

I drove her for a month or so and really enjoyed her. She fires up great and runs like a dream. Having a old vehicle with power steering, power brakes and tons of cab room makes it just enjoyable to drive. The front started making a funny noise when I would back up and after inspection I discovered it was worn out ball joints so rebuilding the front was in order. I have no pictures of that unfortunately. When doing the front I noticed something about the frame that wasnt there before. A piece was hanging and it had multiple cracks. I checked the frame by eye before I bought it and im certain it was there by sight before. The frame rusted itself from the inside out and my having it on the road for those 2 months provided the stress to bust it out. This had me in a limbo in what to do. At the time I had no spot to build the car. Im active Air Force and live where I dont have many resources. Friends from back home motivated me to try and tackle it anyway so first thing I wanted was wheels. One of the tires blew with the car just sitting so I bought 15x6 wheel vintique steelies and they had a special where I got the baby moons for free The tires are just cooper trendsetters. 215/75/15s I think. Cant quite remember. I forgot to mention I cut the front coils when I rebuilt the front lowering it a couple inches.





Test fit


With the tires and new lugs




Cleaned her up after sitting for a few months for a cruise to a final car show before tear down





I will paint the steelies gloss black as you can tell from my past rides its just my thing. I love black steelies.

[hopped up]

Black steelies is the only way to go! Or white! Lol

[flashed]

Very nice ,Im in .

[yahoos]

Hell ya glad to be on a active forum. After looking good at the damage I decided a new frame was the best way to go. I went and looked at 4 different frames that were supposedly good! More like rusted tweaked pieces. Finally I came across one for sale in Dallas and snagged it up. The owner had it stripped and primered 10-15 years ago and had had it hanging from the rafters of the shop since then. I got it and sat it in the back yard.



Checking to see how level and cross measuring the body mounts to see if shes square.

[yahoos]

Heres my favorite part. I got very lucky meeting some of the folks I met. I had some 22in steelies for sale I was going to run on my 69.



A guy called me up wanting to purchase them but I had just sold them. We started BS on the phone and I asked what he was wanting to run them on. He said his 69 c10 swb. Hell ya I just sold mine what are your plans with yours. Well after talking I offered him help if he needed it just explaining I loved working on older vehicles and had met anyone around here since joining the Military into older cars. About a week later I went over to meet him and lend a hand. They were previous dirt track people who retired from it. They had just a 2.5 car shop but just about every tool you need to accomplish the job. I helped on his truck as our schedules aloud and became buddies with him and his family. Heres a pic of his truck as it is close to being on the road. Very cool truck

[68basket]

I am into it!! You can check out my 60 parkwood build in this section. I love x frame cars and cant wait to see what all you do to this.

[yahoos]

Originally Posted by 68basket

I am into it!! You can check out my 60 parkwood build in this section. I love x frame cars and cant wait to see what all you do to this.

I checked it out a few days ago man. I dig it.

[yahoos]

His truck was in one bay and his father had a tractor in the other. Well I took my frame over there to do some work on it and help his dad get the tractor going and out of the shop. This is when I got super lucky making all of this happen. After helping him and his dad with projects as I could through out a month or 2 they offered me a set of keys to the shop to tackle my car!!! This made all this possible and I can no way thank them enough. What great fantastic people.! First thing I did was get the new frame there and weld up a couple factory seams.

[yahoos]

Well I went to the shop one night bored and started knocking things off the to do list for his c10. After accomplishing what I could I decided to make a to do list of what all I needed to do to remove the body from the frame. About 9:30 at night I decided hell with it and drove the car into the shop and started crossing things off the list.





By 2:30 I had them fully seperated by myself

My "selfie" pic, I was proud.




Old and new frame off to the side

[yahoos]

Next was to pull the old frame into the shop and start tear down.



Motor tranny exhaust removed



exhaust off


old carrier was in 3 pieces!


more tear down





The left frame rail made the floor all dirty from the rust falling out.

[Greenlee]

Nice work!

[flashed]

Very nice work ,its good to be nice to other car folks too as you already know .

[yahoos]

Originally Posted by flashed

Very nice work ,its good to be nice to other car folks too as you already know .

oh ya plus i get to help them which is fun. They have a little more money then what im used to spending on projects which means building cool things! He has a 70 el camino ss he just got and a 56 ford coe that were gonna do the drivetrain froma 85 c10 dually with a car hauler on the back!

[yahoos]

Next is all the rust on the frame that forced all this to happen!















Damn!

[KevsClassics]

Originally Posted by yahoos

Okay guys, Ive had a few projects and am now building Birdie Sue. I havent found a website to post my build to so I figured id throw it on here. Heres a few pics just let me know if yall want a build thread! I dont want to waist my time if this isnt very active. Heres a few pictures. The body is almost ready to go back on the new frame. Again yall let me know if yall want to see the build or not and I will post up all the pics and info i have!

Subscribed!! I like that you are restoring a classic and doing nice work.
I have a 64 Biscayne wagon and a 64 Impala SS Convertible. Wagon is a flipper the Impala is a keeper.
Here's links to my build threads if interested.
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=640466

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=438371

[Clyde65]

I am in! Love the classics 4 door car builds!

[yahoos]

Thanks for the support guys! I wish I had taken more pictures throughout but my phone stayed hooked up playing music majority of the time. Sorry!

At this point it was time to start prepping the new frame and cleaning up parts.

New frame painted black





cleaned up and welded in some little gussets on the rear trailing arms







stripped the uppers and lowers and taped off the new bushings/ball joints and painted them black



Cleaned up the rear. New gaskets and seals. Everything looked good and even had the 3.36 gears I wanted!





Heres another small blessing. The motor in it I had been told by the previous owner was a 350 he had rebuilt. He told me he had the 350 crate valve covers and just threw them on there. This thing runs excellent so no complaints. Well when I pulled the motor out I noticed the whole long bock was black and everything else was old faded chevy orange. The motor looked like it had never been taken apart. Fresh no leaks. I grew suspicious. Then I seen a tag on the oil pan, fairly new sticker. Long story short I ran the vin and it is a new crate motor. I bet it don't even have 5000 miles on it. under the valve covers you can tell for sure. Why he would claim he built it and not use a crate motor as a selling point is beyond me, but im not complaining!




Im running the 2brl as it is tagged with remanned and runs great. And I mean as long as you start her once a day you can go out there in 16 degree weather slap the gas once and she fires up like shes fuel injected. I Want a cruiser not a hotrod so Ill run it. Wanted to keep it fairly simple looking. All black with some valve covers that never seemed to make it to the ol 69'

[yahoos]

Originally Posted by KevsClassics

Subscribed!! I like that you are restoring a classic and doing nice work.
I have a 64 Biscayne wagon and a 64 Impala SS Convertible. Wagon is a flipper the Impala is a keeper.
Here's links to my build threads if interested.
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=640466

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=438371

Wagons are so cool! I want one.

[yahoos]

Next as I finished cleaning paint parts I begin to reinstall them.

Rear bags installed. Bolt in brackets from BCC fab I think? or BC fab? heck I don't know. And slam specialties re7s leftover from my bagged Datsun.

The "banana" bar never got new bushings or cleaned up because I planned to build a y bone and eliminate the panhard bar as well



No bags installed yet.



rears





rolled into the shop and fronts bolted in. Minor tweaks for good clearance, so far happy with the bolt in brackets

[yahoos]

Next part of the build has been the most enjoyable for me so far as I got to build something ive never done before.

parts gathered for my y bone. air dominator 2600s for the front



I used 3-4ft of 1.25 .120 wall tubing to build it. ordered 4 tabs, 2 sleeves and bushings, 1 drop in bung, 1 adjustable bushing.

mock up



This ybone has 3 bends in it. The first one replicates the "banana" bar. the next two make the y.



The piece forming the y has the immediate bend directly after the bushing and then a bend in the middle above the carrier to clear it. Sorry I don't have more detail pics.



All 3 bends were accomplished by packing the tube with sand and heating with a torch and bending by eye.



Turned out decent for using sand and a torch!

Gussets never hurt anything!



happy



installed