1969 Imperial progress thread

[vdk2010]

The assembled Lower Control Arms look sharp!

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Where did you find the bump stops (triangular rubber) for the lower control arms?[/QUOTE]
The Imperial ones are not reproduced as far as I know. I reused the old ones.
I media blasted, zinc plated and painted the metal parts and cleaned the rubber. The rubber was still in very good shape!

 

[garyh]

Excellent Attention to Detail !

 

[JJ300]

Beautiful, just beautiful

 

[bluefury361]

Darn Julian. I go away for a week to work on my FL Fury and you go hog wild. The quality of work in the time frame you accomplish it in staggers my mind. A tip of the hat to you sir.
You may want to slow down a bit.... What are you gonna do when your done? I know..... help me!

 

[LeBaron1973]

Julian will have to buy another car lol.

 

[Michael R/T]

So nice to see what you are doing that car. Really looking forward seeing it in real. Very impressive.

 

[vdk2010]

Darn Julian. I go away for a week to work on my FL Fury and you go hog wild. The quality of work in the time frame you accomplish it in staggers my mind. A tip of the hat to you sir.
You may want to slow down a bit.... What are you gonna do when your done? I know..... help me!

Thanks Will!
The frame/suspension was nice to assemble, everything went together nicely liek on a new car But it's still a loooong way to go.
The good thing is, after 300 hours, my body man is almost done. One little thing is still to do, but otherwise, the body is nice and streight again

I can't do much more over the winter unfortunately. Time to safe money again ;)

 

[Samplingman]

Nothing like crawling under a car and not having grease, rust or dirt falling into your eyes. Nice work!

 

[vdk2010]

After 300 hours of Body work, the car is finally done metal wise!

The last step was to cut our a major part of the firewall to get rid of the old HVAC holes and structures.
My bodyman removed the fresh air door sheet metal "housing" and the passenger side of the firewall entirely in order to redo everything and retrofit a Vintage Air Gen IV Magnum HVAC Evaporator unit. No struggling with AutoTempII for me!

 

[GJS]

After 300 hours of Body work, the car is finally done metal wise!

The last step was to cut our a major part of the firewall to get rid of the old HVAC holes and structures.
My bodyman removed the fresh air door sheet metal "housing" and the passenger side of the firewall enterily in order to redo everything and retrofit a Vintage Air Gen IV Magnum HVAC Evaporator unit. No struggling with AutoTempII for me!

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Sick. That is gonna be one fine sled, man.

 

[Imperialist]

How will you set up the controls for the A/C?

 

[commando1]

I'll be watching how you handle the duct work and the dash controls.

 

[vdk2010]

First I had a Gen II Super Mockup-Unit, because its smaller and would not have made it necessary to build a box in the firewall, but the problem with all the Vintage Air units except the Gen IV Magnum is, that the outlets exit on top of the unit. On the Gen IV, the outlets are on the front. That, and the smaller footprint of the unit compared to the OEM box under the dash should make it fairly easy to route the tubing. I'm planing to use all the OEM plastic tubing under the dash so I just have to use flexhoses to adept the unit and the OEM tubing.

I'm not sure about the controls yet. I have a few ideas but have to wait for them to arrive before I can test things.
First I hoped to somehow adept them to the original vacuum operated controls, but that's most likely not possible. I want to modify the controls to put them into the center ashtray, but after ordering the controls, I fear they are to big for that. Maybe I can desolder the switches from the circuit board to put them into the ashtray, but I have to wait for that until I have it in hand.
I will find a nice place for them, I'm pretty sure!

 

[ceebuddy]

Out of sheer curiosity: Where does the fresh air enter into the new HVAC system? The new box that protrudes into the engine bay looks entirely closed in the pictures.

 

[vdk2010]

Out of sheer curiosity: Where does the fresh air enter into the new HVAC system? The new box that protrudes into the engine bay looks entirely closed in the pictures.

Becuase of its universal fitment, it's designed to "only" circulate the air without sucking in fresh air from the outside. It's a small downside of these after market systems but I'm fine with that.
First, me and my body man thought about building some kind of duct to repurpose the original fresh air door, but thats not practical because you would need some kind of door to close off the fresh air if needed like the OEM HVAC does.

And because it's not really needed, we dumped the idea and removed the "fresh air door housing" completely to gain room for the Vintage Air unit to use it like its designed.

Vintage Air assured me that this is not a problem with these modern systems in classic cars. Mainly, I will need the heater and defroster and maybe sometimes on long drives the AC. So I'm happy with our solution.

 

[vdk2010]

FINALLY, Jacky is home again

Today, after an 11 hour roundtrip, the body and all the parts are back home again after they were derusted again and then Cathodic dip coated (CDC).

And it looks freakin' awesome

 

[vdk2010]

 

[MacLebaron]

Excuse me but..... DAMN that is nice! I am excited to watch as you start putting it all back together. You will have an Imperial like no other.

 

[300rag]

If only everything looked that good when it was new. There appears there wasn't much room to spare in the trailer. I guess since we have a Friday update, there won't be a Monday morning car **** post.

 

[vdk2010]

If only everything looked that good when it was new. There appears there wasn't much room to spare in the trailer. I guess since we have a Friday update, there won't be a Monday morning car **** post.

4 inches, left and right. And I had to artistically crawl underneath the car to tighten all the straps ;) But I made it!

My painter called me today and told me I have to pick up painted parts tomorrow, so there will be a saturday parts ****! I hope that counts ;)