1980 Pontiac Sunbird Formula: Project Phoenix

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Re: 1980 Pontiac Sunbird Formula: Project Phoenix

Postby RedFiveKBS » Mon Aug 21, 2017 11:45 am

Instead of working on the Formula this past weekend I headed to Detroit to go to the Woodward Dream Cruise. It was a great time with a lot of friends. Obviously, the Formula didn't go but I drove my red 1976 Sunbird from Cleveland, OH there. The convoy was me, Bill Lynch with his Mirage and Ron Lee with his Mirage.

woodward.jpg

Some of the H-Body gang. Shh...I'm sleeping. I think we were out to 1am or later Friday and Saturday night. I'm certainly not 23 anymore.

woodward1.jpg

Doug Bashur is working to make a bunch of impossible to obtain parts in fiberglass. Two of the items I needed (and constantly harassed him for) are the bumper fillers and the rear tail panel for the Sunbird hatchbacks. Every single Sunbird hatchback is either missing its tail panel or is in the process of turning to dust. He sold me an early production piece he made. Its not perfect but I can trim and sand and fill to make it work. The bumper filler pieces are excellent. His prices are not cheap but the process is very labor intensive so I can understand the price.

tailpanel.jpg
fillers3.jpg
fillers.jpg
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Re: 1980 Pontiac Sunbird Formula: Project Phoenix

Postby RedFiveKBS » Tue Aug 22, 2017 1:20 pm

Spent a little time in the garage last night. Managed to finish a number of patches on the right front of the car.

There were two holes in the right front wheel well. One up in the spring pocket and another in the bottom rear of the wheel well. The wheel well patch was actually two layers since there is an inner skin. I cleaning out the debris and primed the opening as best as possible. Sprayed in some rust-thru primer and added the inner patch followed by the outer patch. The patch inside the spring pocket was easy but I now wish I would have done a flush patch rather than an overlap one.

rf wheel.jpg

The upper and lower cowl patches went a lot faster than they did on the other side. I guess from practice?

upper cowl.jpg
lower cowl.jpg

Hard for me to believe that I am down to the last area of patching. The right rear quarter needs a patch on the lower rear and then a few wheel lip patches. I have a chunk of the Donor Monza for the wheel lip patches. Another H-body guy is supposed to be sending me a chunk of quarter for the rest. I sure hope he does because I will need it very soon. Can't wait to get this into primer.

last section.jpg
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Re: 1980 Pontiac Sunbird Formula: Project Phoenix

Postby marco_1978_spyder » Thu Aug 24, 2017 6:20 pm

This is what my white Formula need's. Similar shape.
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Re: 1980 Pontiac Sunbird Formula: Project Phoenix

Postby RedFiveKBS » Thu Aug 24, 2017 9:14 pm

marco_1978_spyder wrote:This is what my white Formula need's. Similar shape.


Yes....let me save her! In 2-years. LOL
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Re: 1980 Pontiac Sunbird Formula: Project Phoenix

Postby RedFiveKBS » Fri Aug 25, 2017 10:23 pm

Finally working on the last major section on the Formula that needs rust repair; the right rear quarter. Started the repair by cutting out all the rot that I could find. Much of it went through the outer and inner sheet metal.

swiss cheese.jpg

Fortunately, the Donor Monza had pretty decent quarter panels. I hit the lip with the 3M stripping disks and cleaned off the two layers of paint (the car was silver originally) and primers. The rear of the wheel opening on the donated quarter is rotted so I will need to fabricate that part on my own. I'm waiting on a buddy to send me a chunk of a quarter I can use to repair the rear edge and marker light opening. His patch is also rotted in at the same spot on the rear wheel opening. I made the left one so it shouldn't be too hard...I hope.

donation.jpg
stripped.jpg

The donated quarter also had a salvageable inner wheel lip. Chunks of it were cut out and welded into the areas that needed the repair. Once those were in, I hit it with some weld-thru primer.

inner patch1.jpg

I hope to get most of this quarter patched up over the weekend.
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Re: 1980 Pontiac Sunbird Formula: Project Phoenix

Postby RedFiveKBS » Sun Aug 27, 2017 10:03 am

Patching away. Most of the right rear wheel lip is finished. The donor Monza supplied the material for five of the patches. The only one that had a little rust was the bottom corner just in front of the rear wheel. The rust was in the inside corner and it could not be reached with a grinder or wire wheel. It got soaked in the phosphoric acid overnight and came out clean. Hit it with a bit of sanding and sprayed the back side with some weld-thru primer.

patch1.jpg

The patches were given a bead of seam sealer on the back and then taped into place. After a few tack welds, I pulled the tape and finished welding them into the car. I used air from the compressor to cool the welds between tacks so the panel wouldn't warp.

patch4.jpg

Managed to finish five of the patches on Saturday.

patch6.jpg

One more to go!

patch7.jpg

Once this part of the right rear quarter is done, all the main body metal will have been addressed. There are a few spots that need a spot weld and one more plate on the inboard side of the right rear wheel well but I can see light at the end of the patching tunnel. Hopefully, I can get the epoxy primer onto the car in the next few weeks.
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Re: 1980 Pontiac Sunbird Formula: Project Phoenix

Postby RedFiveKBS » Sat Sep 02, 2017 10:07 pm

Finished welding up a number of small holes, a patch inside the rear wheel well, and a small hatch lip patch. Then I got a bug to put some color on the car so I primed and painted the dash.

dash.jpg

I'll hit it with some low luster clear to make it dull. Once its dried, I'll wrap it in masking paper to protect it.

I just have the one quarter patch to go. I should have this piece of quarter by next weekend and get it welded into the car.

q2.jpg

Then I plan to get it into epoxy primer the following weekend. That's the next big jump forward. Then it will be filler, and sanding, and filler, and sanding, and 2k primer and sanding and sanding and sanding...
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Re: 1980 Pontiac Sunbird Formula: Project Phoenix

Postby RedFiveKBS » Mon Sep 04, 2017 8:54 am

Well, hit the dash with some low luster clear and cleaned up the VIN a bit.

d1.jpg
d2.jpg
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Re: 1980 Pontiac Sunbird Formula: Project Phoenix

Postby RedFiveKBS » Tue Sep 05, 2017 10:46 pm

Rolled the Formula out for some sun on Monday and blew all the dust out of it. I wrapped up the dash for protection too.

wrapped.jpg

Since I am waiting on my last piece of metal, I turned my attention to the Formula valance. It was actually the main reason I bought the car. I didn't know it was this rough (valance AND the car) until I drove 8-hours to get it. I need to save this piece because they are virtually impossible to find.

v1.jpg

I sanded all the paint off one of the end pieces. There was a small crack in it so I used some super glue to hold it together. Then I back filled it with some fiberglass mesh and resin. We'll see if that holds together. The other side had a much bigger crack but I followed the same repair process.

v2.jpg

The big challenge will be the center section. It has a crack between the lower air dam and the upper valance. I am going to glue it and glass the backside. The real issue is fixing the big chunk that is missing. I have not 100% figured out a plan of attack for that repair. I did save the urethane parts from the donor Monza and thought I may be able to use some of that to patch it. I may just put a veneer of metal over the lower section and use to rivets to hold it all together. That may look cool too. I don't think fiber glassing it will look good on the front side unless I glass the entire thing and skim it with mud. Any ideas?

v4.jpg
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Re: 1980 Pontiac Sunbird Formula: Project Phoenix

Postby 74_Vega_GT » Wed Sep 06, 2017 6:55 pm

Since modern bumpers and car parts have a lot of foam in them, we took some foam and shaped it properly to where the valance needed support and fiberglassed the foam in place from the inside where you can't see it. Any broken tabs we encountered , we epoxied new ones in place. We are only now experimenting with plastic welding. Might work for you. Good luck.
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Re: 1980 Pontiac Sunbird Formula: Project Phoenix

Postby RedFiveKBS » Wed Sep 06, 2017 8:41 pm

74_Vega_GT wrote:Since modern bumpers and car parts have a lot of foam in them, we took some foam and shaped it properly to where the valance needed support and fiberglassed the foam in place from the inside where you can't see it. Any broken tabs we encountered , we epoxied new ones in place. We are only now experimenting with plastic welding. Might work for you. Good luck.

Awesome! Let me know how that plastic welding works out. I've been looking at those things. I like the foam idea. I joked about doing just that with someone but it may be a good fix. I have a feeling it will get completely fiberglassed or covered with metal.
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Re: 1980 Pontiac Sunbird Formula: Project Phoenix

Postby SOLSAKS » Wed Sep 06, 2017 9:37 pm

i see mcguyver is still at it........working miracles with metal.....

damn,....i just cant believe the amount of work you have done..all wonderful.

a determined person can do anything.

this is going to be a nice solid car.

glad you are saving it......go "H" bodies !!!

love the photos of your project,...thanx for posting them for us to enjoy.

dave in NC :)
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Re: 1980 Pontiac Sunbird Formula: Project Phoenix

Postby RedFiveKBS » Wed Sep 06, 2017 11:07 pm

SOLSAKS wrote:i see mcguyver is still at it........working miracles with metal.....

damn,....i just cant believe the amount of work you have done..all wonderful.

a determined person can do anything.

this is going to be a nice solid car.

glad you are saving it......go "H" bodies !!!

love the photos of your project,...thanx for posting them for us to enjoy.

dave in NC :)

Thanks, Dave! I sincerely appreciate it!
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Re: 1980 Pontiac Sunbird Formula: Project Phoenix

Postby RedFiveKBS » Sat Sep 09, 2017 9:36 pm

Spent the day working on the Formula valance. I had sanded some of the paint off but found a lot of it was very stubborn and didn't want to come off. I figured aircraft stripper would work great. Well...it removed the paint but warped the hell out of the valance! I quickly washed it off but it was still warped. Heat gun didn't help it. I thought it was ruined for sure.

I decided to bolt it to the car to see if I could get it straightened out so I put on the fenders with just a couple bolts and the header support. The valance bolted up to the car without much adjustment but the lip on the air dam part was curled way down. I first glued the cracks with superglue just to hold them in place. Then I laid in some fiberglass and resin and hoped for the best. I also clamped on some paint sticks to try to keep it straight while the fiberglass cured.

val2.jpg
val3.jpg
val4.jpg

Surprisingly, the fiberglass stiffened it up and held it straight.

v8.jpg

The center still needs some additional fiberglass and some filler to blend out the big chunk that was missing. I did get the two end pieces pretty close to being complete. They need a few coats of filler primer to hide some of the scratches and the big crack but they are looking a whole lot better!

val5.jpg
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Re: 1980 Pontiac Sunbird Formula: Project Phoenix

Postby RedFiveKBS » Sun Sep 10, 2017 9:23 pm

The valance is coming along nicely. The two sides are about done.

Valance Side.jpg

Still working on the center section. Added a little more fiberglass to the top side of the big hole and then skimmed it with some filler. Hope to sand it down tomorrow and throw on some primer.

center.jpg
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