65 Fairlane pro-touring build

[62c30]

Looks good.

[SCOTI]

More room = more progress.

[Vic1947]

Thanks, I sure hope so!

[Vic1947]

Today was moving day for the Fairlane. Rolled it into the spot previously occupied by the GTO and used regular and RV jackstands to level the frame side to side and front to back. It's dead on now and should be ready to resume installing the new front suspension.

It's been a while since I surveyed the extent of the tin worm infestation. I'm agonizing over whether to purchase quarter panel skins. The company that makes them doesn't use factory dies. Instead, they use conventional equipment like an English wheel, bead roller, Pull-Max, sheet metal brake, hammers and dollies, etc. to fabricate the panel. A lot depends on the experience level of the craftsman, the quality of the buck and the attention to detail during construction. Stamped aftermarket panels aren't always the best as we all know, since a lot of the dies are worn out crap. But generally speaking, they're adequate as a starting point. Regardless of whether I buy or build, I'm probably facing a year of metal fab at the rate I work. Being old, I need more frequent naps.

.

[Ol Blue K20]

Originally Posted by 62c30

Looks good.

X2!

[62c30]

I haven't looked at Fairlane sheet metal in a couple of years, what company is making the quarters? The sides of my truck floor above the frame rails were rusted out and I made those and the drop offs came from a company called c2 or something like that but they fit very good.

[Ol Blue K20]

I need more nap time too!

[Vic1947]

Originally Posted by 62c30

I haven't looked at Fairlane sheet metal in a couple of years, what company is making the quarters? The sides of my truck floor above the frame rails were rusted out and I made those, and the drop offs came from a company called c2 or something like that, but they fit very good.

C2 (Classic to Current Fabrication) is the outfit that makes the quarters. They have about a 3-4 week manufacturing timeframe. Thanks for sharing your experience with them - it will help me make a decision. The only drawback to their panel is that it's just a skin and has no filler between the quarter and the trunk extension. But I can easily fab that myself. Their online photo was a bit blurry which made it hard to gauge the quality. So it's good to hear from someone who actually installed one of their panels.

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

I need more nap time too!

Over the last 5-1/2 months while working on Andrew's GTO, my nap time was seriously curtailed. He's a lot younger than me, so I felt obligated to try to keep up. Now that I'm back to my regular schedule, I can doze off on the couch after lunch and wander back down to the shop later on feeling refreshed.

[Ol Blue K20]

Vic, I understand fully.

[62c30]

When I went to put the drop offs on the driver's side was a perfect fit. When I got to the passenger side you could see someone had messed with it in the past. I went to put it on and it was too short. After a few minutes of looking at it someone had welded on a patch from a donor car and left it about an inch too tall. The car had been repainted and does have some Bondo in it, so I ground it out and fixed the bottom of the quarter. I have a friend that lives in Riverside that might have a Fairlane parts car for some cuts.

[Vic1947]

Can't believe it's been over a month since I last posted any progress. I finished a few punch list items on the GN and started welding the boxing plates on the passenger side of the Fairlane. In the middle of that, we went on a road trip to IL, IN, MI, OH, KY and back home to KC. We toured the Gilmore Auto Museum in Kalamazoo, but other than that we spent most of the time hiking various trails in state parks. I definitely overdid it as I returned home limping around with a sore left foot. Which gave me an excuse to sit on the couch with my feet up and stream the entire Mecum Indy auction.

I'm still only about 50pc, but I couldn't justify doing the layabout any longer. I have the boxing plates on the passenger rail welded in and ground down. Still a few pinholes here and there, but I've been trying to mark them as I find them and will make another pass after I finish up the driver side.

I don't think I mentioned I also setup the 8" diff for the rearend. The 8" is weaker than its 9" big brother, but with good parts should handle a stock Coyote. I installed a helical gear style Eaton Truetrac, Motive gears, a billet aluminum pinion support with larger bearings and a billet steel 1350 yoke.

[Vic1947]

My upholstery guy, Jeff, at Gladstone Auto Trim called to say my seats were ready to pick up. Talk about getting the horse before the cart! I'm two years away from even being remotely ready for seats, but what the heck. Stuff ain't getting any cheaper and I was able to source a pair of convertible seats with integrated shoulder harness that only needed new coverings. Jeff also did the rear seats to match the front seats. They used a grey thread on the French seams which doesn't pop as much as red or blue, but I wanted a more muted appearance. Doing the seats and fixing a few things on the Buick GN gives me a break from the mind-numbing tasks of welding and grinding. But I'm making a little progress on those fronts also.

I twisted off and placed an order with C2C for new floor pans, toe boards and quarter panels yesterday. Should take about 3-4 weeks. Was pleasantly surprised they offered a 10% discount to veterans. Every little bit helps.

.

[Ol Blue K20]

The seats look good, keep plugging away at it.

[Vic1947]

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

The seats look good, keep plugging away at it.

Thanks, Dale, it's going slow - but it's going.

The subframe connectors arrived a couple of days ago and look plenty sturdy. Then today, FedEx dropped off the quarter panels and floor pans. They look usable but are very thin material. The quarters are 22 gauge, and the floor pans are slightly heavier than 20 gauge - not quite 19 but almost. Not sure where they sourced their sheetmetal, but it has a very light grey coating that appears to be a rust barrier. I'll end up slicing and dicing most of the panels and hopefully they'll be sturdy enough after welding.

I've finished the front frame rails on both sides, so the front crossmember is about ready to go in. More on that soon.

[Vic1947]

Here's a first look at the front crossmember from TCI. I have the car zeroed out front to back and side to side. The x-member is supposed to lean back 2.5 degrees. When setup like that, the notches for the frame rails have a quarter inch gap on the firewall side - which is fixable. The more worrisome thing is the angle deviation side to side. It appears the x-member is twisted about one degree. I'm mulling over my options, but I'll probably start by contacting the manufacturer tomorrow and getting their take on it. Stay tuned.

[Vic1947]

I've been wrapped up with a couple of other projects, so I haven't had a lot to post about the Fairlane. The deck on the back of the house needs some work and all efforts to hire someone have gone nowhere. I ended up doing the woodwork myself and have an outfit coming tomorrow to pressure wash it to prep for new paint. I also decided I needed to motorize my bead roller. My helper has been down with a bum knee and back problems and is currently unable to run the hand crank. I adapted a HF winch to drive the rollers and sourced a power supply and controller off eBay. It works great and only needs to have the boxes mounted in an out of the way position.

Meanwhile, on the Fairlane - I talked to TCI about the 0.8-degree twist in the front cross member and they assured me that it would not be an issue. I set it up in the mill and trimmed the notches to fit snugly against the frame rails and it's tacked in place. While waiting for some materials to arrive, I dove into the floor pan. I removed the existing step on the passenger side that the original bench seat mounted to and got rid of a couple of small areas that were rusted. The toe boards are the worst. A previous owner scabbed some panels over the rotted places and all that will have to be cut out and replaced. The location of the rot in the car is very puzzling to me. Above the rocker panels there is zero rust. But the lower part of the car is eaten up in various places. Some of it has been repaired (poorly) but there's still a lot of original sheet metal that's in fair condition. Go figure. At least I'll have something to do this winter.

[Ol Blue K20]

Originally Posted by Vic1947

I've been wrapped up with a couple of other projects, so I haven't had a lot to post about the Fairlane. The deck on the back of the house needs some work and all efforts to hire someone have gone nowhere. I ended up doing the woodwork myself and have an outfit coming tomorrow to pressure wash it to prep for new paint. I also decided I needed to motorize my bead roller. My helper has been down with a bum knee and back problems and is currently unable to run the hand crank. I adapted a HF winch to drive the rollers and sourced a power supply and controller off eBay. It works great and only needs to have the boxes mounted in an out of the way position.

Meanwhile, on the Fairlane - I talked to TCI about the 0.8-degree twist in the front cross member and they assured me that it would not be an issue. I set it up in the mill and trimmed the notches to fit snugly against the frame rails and it's tacked in place. While waiting for some materials to arrive, I dove into the floor pan. I removed the existing step on the passenger side that the original bench seat mounted to and got rid of a couple of small areas that were rusted. The toe boards are the worst. A previous owner scabbed some panels over the rotted places and all that will have to be cut out and replaced. The location of the rot in the car is very puzzling to me. Above the rocker panels there is zero rust. But the lower part of the car is eaten up in various places. Some of it has been repaired (poorly) but there's still a lot of original sheet metal that's in fair condition. Go figure. At least I'll have something to do this winter.

I'm jealous of your skills Vic, it's looking great!

[mongocanfly]

Nice work on the beadroller..!!!

[Vic1947]

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

Nice work on the beadroller..!!!

Thanks, Greg!

I've been helping a friend get his car ready for LS Fest, so I haven't posted much lately, but I did get a few things done on the Fairlane. The passenger side floor is a lot further along and I welded out the subframe connector on that side as well as the front crossmember. I ordered a tunnel from Chasisworks made for the manual trans behind the Coyote. I have a lot of tools, but I don't own a sheet metal roller. You can sometimes get by with a gas cylinder to form a tunnel piece if it's not too long, but the Alston piece looks nice, and I don't need to do anything except trim it.

[Vic1947]

I've also been building the rails the seats bolt up to. I machined some spuds and welded them into some 1x2 tubing. Once I have them bolted to the seat tracks, I'll position the seat where I want it and mark the location of the rails. I'll then remove everything and weld the rails solid to the floor. These need to be sturdy as the shoulder belt is integrated to the seat back. Don't want the seat coming loose in the event of a collision.

[62c30]

Looks good, now I want to go work on mine.

[SCOTI]

Thanks for updating. I was wondering what's been going on.

[Ol Blue K20]

Looks great Vic, another amazing build.

[Vic1947]

Thanks guys. Decided to make the core support removable to facilitate dropping in the engine/trans. It was relatively straightforward to do. Started by drilling a couple of locating holes on either side and installed Cleco's. I then drilled out the spot welds and sliced just enough of the support sheetmetal to let it break free. Cleaned up the rough edges and tacked a couple of pre-drilled pieces on the backside overlapping the cuts. This created a "sandwich" that captures the core support sheetmetal where it was originally spot welded. It now slips into the groove and bolts together. Plenty of room to maneuver the engine into place.

[Vic1947]

The floor pan slog continues. Slowly working my way to the front on the driver side. The factory stampings don't match up, side to side, so I feel like I'm constantly reinventing the wheel. I had one patch panel from a vendor other than C2C that was pretty accurate. It's a shame I was only able to use about 1/6th of it. I could have used it all, I suppose, but there was no need, plus it would have meant a lot more welding.