Fireball's '76 build thread - "Piece by Piece" - PAINTED, ASSEMBLED & ON THE ROAD!

[CLK Foxhall]

Looks great Ben!

Cheers!
~CLK

 

[Crawdad]

Thx for the update, now I can sleep! Great work!

 

[MyOriginal66]

Job well done! And in 8 months!!!!! Congrats, you should be proud.

 

[gnsteam]

Great job Ben, looks fantastic.

 

[Blue Bastard]

Looks even better then I thought it would! I would run half doors, hell you spent all that time making them covert able right?

 

[tasker]

all the cool kids run inserts, jus sayin Ben! you should be very proud, awesome looking rig!

 

[Glass Pony]

Overall I grossly underestimated the time money and effort a complete repaint would take! And for that matter almost every other aspect of the project. But I'm super happy to have it out on the road and be able to drive it around and enjoy it.

I'm with you there!
Nice stance, turned out great!

 

[dunacn1]

Looking great Ben!

 

[DirtDonk]

...And here is the official first glamour shot, sitting in AJ's yard, me busy practicing my poor photography skills while others were diligently working on the project Bronco!

Better make it count then, by honing those same skills and getting voted into the next calendar!
Definitely calendar worthy in the Bronco department. Now let's see some finished outdoor "action" shots.

*BDS shocks were much too soft for street use. Lots of floating in the front, like driving a waterbed.*
*The Bilsteins are awesome!*
*I also bought a pair of RS9000s, so sometime in the next few weeks I'll be doing my own little mini front shock shoutout in an effort to provide some useful comparative info for folks.*

Heck yeah! Been wanting to do that again for a long time now. That'd be great when you get more info to put in the database.
Don't forget to specify the valving on the Bilsteins and the part number on the Ranchos. It's all a help.
I did it with shocks, springs and H4 headlights, but that's been almost 20 years now, so most of any info I gleaned has long since gone old and decrepit. ;D

Many thanks to the fine folks on this board for all the help, info and encouragement. This is my first stab at a classic vehicle restoration/renovation/modification/whatever you may want to call it, so I learned a bunch and had lots of fun and appreciate the help and patience given by everyone along the way! ;D

Been a lot of fun from this side of the keyboard as well. Enjoy your new-found joy (along with the occasional trial and tribulation of course) of driving a vehicle you restored.

Paul

 

[Dbarnes72]

Looks awesome. If you don't mind, what color is the grille insert?

 

[Fireball05]

I'd like to tell you the color code, but we spent hours of painstaking effort crafting just the right hue to complement the Estate Green Metallic, and I can't give away such information for free.

Just kidding The grill, tailgate panel, wheels and dash are all standard Ford Wimbledon White. The dash and wheels appear slightly "flatter" in person, they were done with single stage. The grill and tailgate are BC/CC.

Another few hours today spent block sanding the doors. Took a recommendation from Broncitis and his Dad and got the long boards out today! Quite a workout, and quite revealing. They are officially ready for paint:

 

[AZ73]

Beautiful! Now that you're an expert, you can come by and do my block sanding for me!

 

[WheelHorse]

AZ73 get's a like for his comment LOL

 

[Fireball05]

Fireball's '76 build thread - "Piece by Piece" - PAINTED, ASSEMBLED & ON THE RO

AZ - here's the secret. A little magic dust and 12 coats of primer! (11 of which got sanded back off)

 

[xcntrk]

Looks great Ben, congrats on getting it back on the road!

 

[AZ73]

Yeah, I think my doors are pretty straight so 12 coats will probably do it. PO must have run up against a tree (or a garage door) so there's a small dent where the mirror got pushed in slightly (on both sides). I've been working them with a spoon method but it's just an ugly spot to work from behind. I'm probably going to have to lay in some metal to metal to make it perfect. I also have some seat belt dings on the edges and bottom inside. And of course the ugly spot welds that will have to be smoothed over. Your edges and bottom look perfect.

 

[half cab]

Looks great Ben, congrats on getting it back on the road!

X2 on that ^^^^

 

[Unknown]

Fireball, we never did see the finished pics of that there '76 with the doors on. How did they turn out?

 

[Broncitis]

It turned out great!

I met Ben a few weeks ago for lunch and took it for a test drive and looked it all over for him. He did a hell of a nice job with it and should have tons of fun and tun lots of heads with it for sure!

I did not get any pics though, so Ben will have to post those.

 

[jmhend]

Awesome Job Thanks for Sharing it is nice to follow your progress.