New Here, finally got my fish

Figured I would introduce myself, even though I've been poking around here for years.

Well I got a call tuesday to come get my dad's car from where it was being kept, Weds. night I left and by Thurs. it was on the trailer. Car had sat since 1996 and moved all over the country pretty much since then. I put a little bit of gas down the carb and fired it up on the first crank. After 2,100 miles car is finally in my garage, and will be going into the paint booth in a few weeks to get a fresh coat of scorch red, then can be reassembled.

A little history on the car, My dad's friend is the Orig. owner bought brand new from babylon chyrsler on longisland 3-25-69. Car was parked in 77' due to a spun bearing thus where my dad bought the car. It is a fairly optioned out A56 car, 4spd bucket seats, console, orig color is Q5 Seafoam torquise metallic with white and black interior. Car only has 70,513 miles on it. Orig. block was pulled and a healthy 340 was built with another block so the orig could be saved.

Although I'll be painting the car scorch red (R6?) and its not the orig. color I dont ever plan on selling the car same goes for not putting the stock hood on. With that being said I also plan on keeping the exterior completley stock besides the wheels and the interior will remain 100% stock.

Pictures suck for the most part but these are the most current ones i have of the car, which is from the trip from Wisconsin to RI on Fri.



While waiting to receive this car I have built some fun toys in the meanwhile.




Only thing the car needs beside a fresh respray is a carpet kit, dash pad, and some misc. odds and ends. How are the Carpet kits from YearOne? The one from we got in 96' fit horribly but figure they must of gotten better by now? Also How is the YearOne's Dash pad quality?

Welcome, always love seeing another fish!! 4spd with the CUDA pkg nice!! Good idea tucking the orig engine away and storing it

got to love a 4speed fish

Welcome to the site. Nice fish.

Nice to see you getting back at it.. I thought you were going to paint it the original Q5?

Grant

Welcome and good luck with your project, I do love the fish.

I bet you got a few comments while bringing it home. I sure did while dragging my 67 parts fish home from NY state. Good looking car.

Where you gonna get the hood and what kind?

One fish owner to another . Welcome aboard!

Thanks guys, and yeah it feels great to be able to finally work on this after all these years. I was going to paint it back to Q5 but I really hate the color and since I'm never selling it I see no point. As for the hood- Im keeping the hood that is on there now on, and the cuda hood with the scoops is in my garage.

As for looks, I don't know if they were giving me thumbs up for the car or for the fact that my frontier was grossly overloaded doing 50 mph on a 70mph interstate ahahah.

Just in the few days of having it I already got the front head rests all cleaned up and looking good, from seats stripped of old covers awaiting the new ones. all the chrome polished up again, and found out that the stock harmonic balancer is shot so progress is being made

Welcome to FABO and the big FISH tank!

OnEbAd340 said:

Thanks guys, and yeah it feels great to be able to finally work on this after all these years. I was going to paint it back to Q5 but I really hate the color and since I'm never selling it I see no point. As for the hood- Im keeping the hood that is on there now on, and the cuda hood with the scoops is in my garage.

As for looks, I don't know if they were giving me thumbs up for the car or for the fact that my frontier was grossly overloaded doing 50 mph on a 70mph interstate ahahah.

Just in the few days of having it I already got the front head rests all cleaned up and looking good, from seats stripped of old covers awaiting the new ones. all the chrome polished up again, and found out that the stock harmonic balancer is shot so progress is being made

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Great now start a thread is restorations with lots of pics please so we can all follow along.:hello1:

Agreed.. and as far as red? I tried to buy a red 69 cuda 340 while living in BC in the early 90s.. it was gorgeous! Red with blackout really is sharp!

Grant

Welcome to FABO

Welcome from another 1969 fish owner.
Mine was originally red.

I used yearOne carpets in my challenger and they fit well.

Glad tou finally got to bring her home:glasses8:Are you from Long Island from where the car was bought??

Welcome, nice fish.

HEMI-ITIS said:

Glad tou finally got to bring her home:glasses8:Are you from Long Island from where the car was bought??

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Yes born and raised in Lindenhurst (suffolk south shore) next town over from where it was bought but my dad's good friend ( Orig. owner) lived in Copique until he moved to Staten Island with the car in the mid 70's.

As far as starting a thread, I plan to take a lot of pictures along the way that way I can send them to my father and show him the progress that is being made.

Welcome from another fish owner! Mine was originally WW1 White, and still is!! LOL!!! We ought to start a thread called the fish bowl, or fish tank, for all of us barracuda owners......Ha ha ha ha ha!!!

Welcome to FABO

Figured I would update this. Soon after getting the car, my dad ended up passing away. Ironically at the time of his death he was visiting his best friend, who happens to be the orig. owner of this car. Although a car is just a peice of metal, this car was the only thing that brought my dad and I together,due to him being a non functioning alcoholic. Thus being the reason why I went out to get the car from where it was being storedback in 2011. I decided that with all of the orig. parts that I have for the car and due to the rarity of the car and sentimental value, I would put it back to the way it left the factory minus some motor work and wheels. I went to NY and finally got the orig #'s matching short block in June of 2012 from where it was being stored, although the block is in awesome shape, i decided to rebuild the 340 that was already in the car, incase of a failure, the orig block would not be ruined. But needless to say, I now have the orig 8.75 489 3.55 rear, orig trans, orig block, heads,radiator,alternator,distrib, crank+rods, and starter as well the entire interior.

I pulled the motor and transmission out of the car in march of 2012 and then had the car flat-bedded to my friends body shop that same week. They were very slow and had began to strip all of the old lacquer paint within the next couple of days. Thankfully I chose to have the car restored as soon as possible, becuase lurking under the lacquer was surface rust. Although the car is 100% structually sound (trunk extensions/floors/cowl/trunk/roof/frame rails) my dad however made up lower quarters back in the day. The body work to get the body lines back was unbelievable, and suprisingly were holding up fine from 96'. We decided to put a lower quarter (marker light down) on the drivers and put half of a full quarter on the pass side, to ensure that i would never have to really worry about those sections down the road. The plan for the car is to fully jam out the engine compartment, inner fenders/rails, door jambs, trunk and the under sides of the fenders+doors, and paint both my hoods and the entire car Q5. My friend is also repainting my door panels while the doors are off and the car is there. Before priming the car we plan on pulling the windshield and back glass as well. I managed to track down a back glass on CL for $200, drove an hour to get it in MA, but couldnt pass up a 69' tinted back window that was in storage since 70' to replace my scratched glass.

While the car is in the body shop, I dropped off the 340 and x heads to have the entire shortblock gone over. They're going to hot tank it, re deck the block, stud the mains+line hone, new rod hardware, rebalance the rotating assembly, resurface the heads, figure out my comp. and my head flow rates and then have a custom roller cam made up as well as set the heads up for the cam.

I also got a set of M-body disk spindles to swap over to discs and 73+ adjust arms.

As for the interior, I have the seats all stripped, and will sand blast the frames and have them painted. Once that is done I want to get all new foam and upholstery front+back and door card inserts. I was able to track down a perfect dash pad for the car as well. I was searching all over to find a place to restore my dash pieces and stumbled upon instrument specialties, who does awesome work, and never knew that they are literally a 20 min ride from my house, so needless to say I will be bringing them all of my dash bezels/ radio.

The picture is old, and I havent been by in a while with work and school, but I'm told that the car should be in paint by mid Feb.

Great story and good luck with the resto!

Welcome. Glad you got it. Sorry it happened the way it did. Sorry for your loss.

Welcome

So the body shop had a lot of work in the last few weeks, so the car got put on the back burner. Glass and dash still have to come out of car, but so far everything is coming out very nicely.




Thanks for the welcome guys! There is so much information to be learned from this site.