It's nearly impossible for a legit hot rodder to pass up a screamin' deal on a car, especially when unencumbered by certain relationship and financial responsibilities. When you find a deal you need to act fast, and without the reservations posed by a significant other, there's really nothing holding you back. So it was that we came into possession of a '69 Pontiac Firebird. The ad on Craigslist said it was a 400, four-speed 'Bird and they wanted three grand. If you've priced any first-gen F-body, you realize that's a pretty good deal, assuming the car is all there. Turns out the car was a lien sale at a body shop, a project that had been hit on the left front corner and left for dead when the owner couldn't afford to fix it. It was mostly complete but needed some bodywork on that corner, and the lower control arm was wrecked from what appeared to be the left front wheel falling off. "I can fix that!" was the rally cry, and for $1,500 it was mine.
How it came to be the subject of this month's cover involves bench racing, a few adult beverages, and unfortunate selective memory on how other "I can fix that" projects have gone in the past. Nevertheless, we decided it would be the ideal scheme for this month's budget-themed issue, and when several of our car buddies stepped up to help, we took the bait and buried the hook deep in the cheek.
The idea was to turn it from an eyesore into a nice car using as little money as possible and leaning on as many friends as we could dredge up. We'd do everything in my driveway (and garage, backyard, porch, kitchen ...) except spray the paint, since the state of California will shoot you on sight for spraying paint outside. Once the bodywork was done, we would have a 1-Day type of place spray the color for us, and end up with a true budget-based street machine. The first step was getting the car on a frame rack. We were fairly certain that the suspension damage could be fixed, but two frame shops told us we'd be far better off replacing the subframe. We had a bare subframe off of an old project car down at the HOT ROD shop, but the rest of the Firebird suspension needed rebuilding. Then our eyes turned to my '69 Camaro in the garage, which had everything freshly rebuilt on the stock subframe and front sheetmetal that was just loosely hung. So the Camaro came apart, sacrificing its front stub to the Firebird. That car must hate me.
With deadlines hovering like a thundercloud over a picnic, we spent an entire week of 18-hour days replacing the front subframe and doing all the bodywork to make the car straight, then having the paint applied by someone who knows what they're doing. In doing so, we transformed the car from a zero to a hero-and we really don't know what we're doing. While the finished piece will not win Street Machine of the Year, it's a pretty good-looking car and we'd have no qualms driv-ing it on Power Tour(r) or anywhere else. We learned a lot doing it, too. Specifically, that our fear of bodywork is partially unfounded, and that with enough time and patience anyone can make their car straight. Lack of sufficient time is a standard excuse for a poor finished product, but the clich is true: With a few more days the car would have been near perfect. If you take your time and don't give yourself a concrete deadline, you too can do it yourself.
Making It Straight
Plans Change
The original idea was to have a1-Day type of place actually spray the color after we did all the bodywork, but when it got to crunch time the local quickie paint stores couldn't guarantee that they'd turn it around in time. So we called in a favor and had Jerry Sievers at Paint 'n Place spray the paint for us. Paint N Place is a top-quality shop (they paint all of John Force's Funny Car bodies) and Jerry teaches a body and paint class at Riverside Community College, so he's good at explaining how he's making your car look so damn great. It was also not as ridiculously expensive as you'd think. 1-Day quoted us around $650 for a single-stage job, and Jerry charged $1,500 for a basecoat/clearcoat job using quality PPG paint. That price included the paint (stuff's expensive these days), minor work to the door and hood gaps, and some touchup of obvious areas we had missed, which a quickie shop probably won't do.
