Projects My 1959 squarebird mild custom build thread

I'll start off by saying those of you who document your progress on your projects and post step by step have my ultimate respect, as I'm finding out I'm quite terrible at it.

So this will be my "build thread", I wish I stopped and documented more as I went along, but I will try to fill in the blanks as I go.

So to start, I have always had a soft spot for t-birds. I still remember when I was a young lad seeing a red baby bird with the hood open and drooling all over that sweet looking yblock (hence the handle). I have always liked the baby birds but they have always been out of my price range, and I have a taste for the unique. So I started obsessing over bulletbirds, but then I saw Larry Watson's 58 thunderbird "vino paisano" in a magazine in my early teens and I was hooked. I had to have one.

But first, lets get back to bulletbirds for a second. Back in 2010 my best buddy Ian (my brother from another mother), had just sold his late model custom F150, and had some cash burning a hole in his pocket. So I suggested a bulletbird I found online, that was close to us. We went to look at it, and the price was right so Ian bought a 62 t-bird, and we spent the next year and a half tearing it apart and building a nice little mild custom

when we bought it


after a year and a half of weekends in his shop we rolled something out that we were both happy with.







So, after all that hard work, cursing and lack of sleep we decided to take a break from building and drive his tbird around for the following summer. By the end of summer I was thinking of buying a new daily driver as my sweet 98 ford escort 4 door was getting a little soft form Canadian winters. Well, Ian instead decided to start flooding my email with old car adds, trying to coax me into buying something old instead. He was twisting my rubber arm and I decided to start looking around at what was out there. Then on a Friday a 1959 tbird was posted for a very decent price and i happened to be passing through the city it was for sale in. I stopped on my way through and found a well mechanically maintained tan on tan (gross) 59 tbird that was very much in need of paint. I showed up the next day with cash in hand and a deal was struck. I was now an owner of a squarebird, and I'm still rocking the escort everday.



check out those sweet canadian tire chrome hubcaps...keepers for sure

 

So we brought the bird back to Ians shop the following weekend, took it off the trailer and put it up on the hoist to see what I had just bought myself. To my suprise it had all new brakes, shocks, coils, leaf springs and exhaust. She ran strong, but we gave it a tune up and changed the oil. I then proceeded to take off the god awful hubcaps, the front bumper guards, front plate and buffed out the well faded paint as best I could.



I then proceeded to drive it until the end of November of 2011 (it was a mild winter), my last drive in it was actually on my birthday. We then took it off the road and began to tear it down for the custom treatment.

Being a designer during working hours, I like to start with a plan. I knew the custom mods I wanted:

lowered
whitewalls
57 lincoln hubcaps
nosed
decked
shaved emblems
shaved side trim
shaved door handles
shaved antenna
shaved mirrors
weld front fender seam to front valance
custom interior

The hard part was picking colours. Many hours were spent on photoshop, dozens of colour combos later I decided on bronze pearl body with a pearl white roof and gold pinstriping. So here is the battle plan...a quick photoshop

 

so the next part of the plan was to blow it all apart and strip it down to see what kind of suprises I have waiting for me.

Sitting in its work space ready to be stripped


Now this is the part where I tell you guys im just an ametuer at this. Me and my buddy haven't had anybody to show us how its done, we are just learning as we go. Realistically the Hamb has been my guide, most of this stuff I wouldn't have done if it weren't for the guys on here showing that with some hard work and time, just about anybody can build a respectable hot rod or custom. So you will see me make some mistakes along the way, or I will be doing something completely ass backwards.

So some of you will question why we stripped the car without taking out the interior...well at first I was pretty ambitious on thought we could do the body and paint over the winter and I would do the interior at a later date. Well plans changed and now I'm doing a full interior while doing everything else

 

mmmm tan


So with the car stripped, the suprises were very few for a typical Canadian car...it was actually rock solid for a driven Canadian car. But what we found was, the drivers side had been hit at some point as a new drivers fender had been brazed on and the drivers door was not original to the car. The passenger fender had been mangled behind the front wheel and the "repaired" with filler. The trunk lid had been dented and cracked and again "repaired" with filler. The only rust on the car was the bottom of the passenger fender and passenger rocker.

patch made

welded in

fender damage and rocker rot


Unfortunately I cant find a picture of the drivers fender and the brazed in joints...they were rather deep and covered in filler. We cut out those areas, made patches and welded them back up

 

Looks like a good solid starting point. I am looking forward to following this thread.

 

I've always liked the Square Birds so I bought one several years ago and built a mild custom. I think the lines are great so I just nosed and decked it with a little lowering. I have two sets of wheels, chrome reverse with narrow whites and Torque Thrusts, both look good but I like the Torque Thrusts best.

 

Gomez, I've seen pictures of yours before...a very nice bird indeed

 

Is it just me, or is there nothing attached to the post that read Part 3 and Part 4??
I am digging the 'bird and I love your plans. It should look killer when you are done.

 

Space savers...that's all.

When I do a 'build' thread, I leave it open so I can read comments between one part and the next...some guys want their thread all in one big long read...right Ynottayblock...???

My '60 Chevy build here: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=785551&highlight=the+2nd+best+60+chevy

R-

 

yeah, I left those open as im going to add in there...just wanted to get the begining of the project on the first page. Hold tight, the day job is getting in the way today

 

the weakness of those cars is the gawkyness of the top---as a designer can you tweek it ?remove the trim?

 

My favorite T-Birds, had 3, would like to have another

 

its what makes a squarebird a squarebird. I will agree a different top would look nice, there was a project car out there with a starliner roof grafted on that looked amazing, but im not sure if it was ever finished. For mine, the top is staying stock, the emblems on the sides will be shaved. I'm limited in my abilities, so I'm trying to keep this somewhat simple.

 

Along the way I picked up a set of wide whites from my buddy Keith (skunkvictim here on the hamb) and a set of 15" ford wheels and a set of lincoln premier hubcaps off the hamb classifieds (48flyer)


The wheels were red, so I painted them gold to match the pinstriping that will go on the car and the gold I will use in the interior


then Ian mounted them back up for me

 

Hmmm, how about chopping it 2" by sinking the windshield into the cowl, making the top removable, then shortening the sail panels and laying the backlight forward a couple of degrees?

Brian

 

at this point it was ready to start doing some customizing...So we started with the doors
I wanted to shave the side trim, the locks, handles and emblems.
Now this was out of my skills set, so I called up my good buddy Matt Isenberg and he got to work with the tig welder and shaved everything, then smoothed it all out with lead. I will have to get better pics form Matt as I lost a bunch of pics when my old phone took a shit and died on me, deleting alot of pictures with it.
a crummy shot of the stock door


stripped all the unnecessary parts



and just like on tv...voila its done!



I'll get better pics of the dorrs this weekend and try to get some process pics from Matt

 

Fuck I love that car

 

then onto the sail panels

so long emblem...


then the trunk emblem/lock cylinder

 

Subscribed. Not only is this a cool car (Ian's, too!), you are doing the same mods I would do.

 

now to address that passenger side fender...I had the option of trying to save what was there, make my own patch or buy a patch. Well I decided to buy a patch from Mac's along with a few other bits. Ian did me a solid and drove down to lockport NY to pick everything up since they called and told me everything was in and ready to pick up. Well, when Ian got there he had the pleasure of finding out the fender paatch was on back order. They told him 4-6 weeks until they get it, well 5 months later it arrived. Had I known I would wait 5 months, I would have made my own patch. Luckily though the patch was pretty much a perfect fit.

Here Ian is cleaning up the welds (while I drink a beer). The patch goes up to the beltline and to the middle of the wheel arch. It took alot of time trimming/filing the patch into shape and aligning it for a good fit. Im prety happy with how it turned out



as for the rocker patch...well Mac's had that in stock. However, it was a piece of junk...not even close to the proper profile (if your building a squarebird, make your own rocker patch). The squarebird rocker has 2 curved panels, this patch I bought was made completely on a brake...no curves what so ever. So I said fuck it, and made my own. Pounded out the main curve over an empty oxygen bottle, then bent the rest up in a brake from a template I made off the original I cut out. This was alot harder than it looks (for me) but after hours of work, alot of swearing and some tool throwing, I got something damn close to original




That should get welded in this weekend

 

While all this work was going on, I continued to block out the roof and rear quarters, laying filler where necessary, hammer and dollying the best I could and getting them ready for my painter buddy Ryan to drop by and shoot some primer as I go.

 

rear quarters






hood

 

So freakin cool man. Keep at it

 

Now I should mention that Ians shop is about a hour and a half from where I live, I'm pretty much in the shop every weekend working on it. The bonus of this arrangement is that Ian is a workaholic and would live in his shop if his wife let him. So he will pick away at stuff during the week after work and I'll get nice suprises when I show up on fridays. Such as a stripped and painted trunk

 

man alot of your pics look like my picsof my 60 lol thanks for the heads up on the rocker panels

ill be watching as you know i kinda have athing for those ugly squarebirds

 

That is awesome!

 

Awesome!!

 

roll man roll!

 

So I need to rewind just a bit. I mentioned earlier I was going to leave the interior alone and do it at a later point. Well that plan changed prior to primer being layed on the roof and rear quarters. The tan interior that came in the car was pretty much mint, however it was still tan, and I was not happy with it. This is where I mention I design sports equipment for a living, and have been patternmaking for 10 years now. So this is where I touch on Ian bulletbird again. The interior in Ian's bird was well worn and had some homemade non matching seat covers. I figured since I design/engineer things alot more complicated than interior parts, I could pull off an interior in his car.

This is what is looked like when he got the car...stunning huh?


This is what it looks like now. White sythetic leather, body colour piping

 

Now because of that interior job I did for Ian, I've generated some business locally for some interior work. I rather enjoy doing interior work, it offers me a new challenge so I'm going to start doing it on the side to fund my projects. So I couldn't be rolling around in my car with a stock interior, so the interior for my bird will be my rolling portfolio. So out came the interior...






stripped all the old paint, and repainted everything