1963 Thunderbird Restoration Part 6 - The Final Strip Down!

on today's episode of Angel's garage I strip the Thunderbird down to almost nothing and then take the car down to be steel and as always you're invited to come along with me as I work on bringing this piece of Automotive History back from the grave let's [Music] go [Music] with every major piece of the car now painted there's only one thing left to paint the car itself or more specifically the rear quarter panels roof engine bay and interior to ensure everything gets a good coat of paint I first need to remove everything I can from this car and while this car is already pretty stripped down there's definitely more that can be be removed including the front brake and suspension system the brake booster and power steering box the steering column and many many more small parts without further Ado let's jump right into it the first thing I wanted to remove was the hood hinges the driver side hinge was broken and needed some attention and the passenger side hinge was being held down with some redneck Ingenuity AKA taking the upper mounting plate for the shock and turning it so that it holds down the hinge I started by disconnecting the mounting plate from the [Music] shock once removed I then decided to extend the passenger hinge which totally didn't scare me at all after that I then remove the four bolts securing the [Music] hinge moving right on over to the driver's side I repeat this process and remove the other hinge and sadly this hinge had support arm break off which means there's now something else for me to repair perfect the rear hinges for the trunk lid were up next I removed all the bolts securing the hinges and then proceeded to not remove the hinges turns out that before you can remove the rear hinges you have to disconnect the torsion bars which are basically the springs that hold up the trunk lid when you pop it open using a pry bar I was able to disconnect one of the torsion bars which finally allowed me to pull out the hinges with the hinges out I now turn my attention to the cast iron Beast known as my power steering gearbox first up is disconnecting the rag joint between the steering shaft and the gearbox this job is actually very easy especially with the fenders off the car because I have a nice access window to get to this joint using a wrench in a ratchet I'm able to remove all the bolts with ease except for this bolt which instead of having a bolt head just had a large shaft had to use a pair of Vice scripts on this one to remove the nut next up I disconnect this small ground wire between the gearbox and the inner Fender I actually didn't know what this wire was for at the time but after some quick research it appears this is the ground wire for the horn pretty cool now now I disconnect the power steering line going to the windshield wiper and if you've never worked on one of these 60s Thunderbirds before then what I just said made absolutely no sense well to make a long story short these cars came equipped with hydraulically powered windshield wiper motors which utilize power steering fluid to make them work we'll be taking a closer look at that later into the video going underneath the car I've got to disconnect the center link and the driver side entner tie rod from the pitman arm I first remove the cotter pins and then I remove the castle nuts I then temporarily thread the nuts back onto the center link and tie rod and then begin beating them with a hammer to separate them from the pitman arm once separated I then remove the nuts for the final time and slide out the center link and tie rod the gearbox can now finally be removed I removed the three bolts securing the gearbox into place climb into the engine bay and retrieve my prize a big heavy greasy prize which promptly puked power steering fluid all over the place fantastic with the power steering gear box out of the way I can now focus on pulling out the steering column first up I disconnect the rubber boot from the inside of the firewall [Music] afterwards I disconnect the three bolts holding a column inside the [Music] car and then I remove the two bolts securing the bottom support bracket inside the engine bay the final challenge now was just wiggling this column out of place which was actually easier from the passenger side believe it or not time to go put the steering column in my storage unit don't worry Mr 64 one day you'll get love too moving right on it's time to remove the brake booster and master cylinder I first disconnect the push rod from the brake pedal assembly and then I disconnect the retaining nuts for the brake [Music] booster and just like that the brake booster and master cylinder are out of the car the front end is up next for disassembly this includes removing the wheel hub and drum brakes the springs and the control arms I first set my sights on the drum brakes I go ahead and disconnect the brake hoses being very careful not to damage them then I remove the four nuts on the back of the drum and hub assembly and uh this next part is pretty embarrassing but I know you all like seeing my mistakes so um yeah after I removed the nuts I went straight into removal mode this included tapping on the back of the drum with a hammer for a full minute and surprise surprise nothing happened to anyone who doesn't know there's a big old spindle nut holding this Hub on that I had to remove first after coming to my senses I then did the correct thing and removed the dust cover and removed the spindle nut then things came apart much easier looking back on this this seems so obvious now but at the time I guess my brain wasn't working too well before you can remove the spring or control arms you must first remove the shocks which is what I did next I first removed the top bushing for the shock I then went ahead and loosened the nuts on the top mounting plate and waited for the shock to shoot up normally with a good shock is plate would be under tension would pop up as soon as he removed the nuts for some reason though nothing was happening so I decided to test the shock with a [Music] hammer oh that's good that's a good shock well after determining that this shock was totally cooked I went ahead and removed the plate with no worries lastly I had to remove the nuts holding the bottom of the shock in place once removed I grabbed my trusty pry bar and popped the shock out of place and then pulled it from the car with the shock out of the way I can now focus on the spring and I'm not exaggerating when I say that this was single-handedly the hardest part of the car to remove now I should have known that when the Ford Shot manual called out a special tool to remove these Springs that there was a reason for that but ignoring the Shot manual I went ahead and threw on the spring compressors already had and began cranking away after almost a solid 25 minutes of tightening the compressor down I was entering some dangerous territory it's never a good sign when a spring compressor starts bending like cooked pasta well with the compressor as tight as I can get it I began trying the pry the spring out the pry bar I was using though which is usually sufficient for most normal jobs wasn't cutting it this time so I instead used the mother of all pry bars an adjustable pry bar from gear wrench which extends to 4 ft long even this one struggled to get the spring out but with a little teamwork it eventually came out like that now stand back that thing flies out all right well the good news was that I now had the spring out the bad news was that I would now have to remove this compressor tool from the spring which looked about as safe as a hand grenade the only job I looked even less forward to though was repeating all of this on the passenger side but as the old saying goes might as well get it over with so I went ahead and worked on removing the passenger spring first up was removing some of the inner wheel well shielding from the passenger side then it was time to remove the drum brake and wheel [Music] hub [Music] and finally I removed the other shock now presenting the world's greatest shock it could even be compressed by hand now it was time to pull the spring after thoroughly destroying the last cheap Chinese spring compressor I decided to replace it with another cheap Chinese spring compressor from Harbor Freight the good thing this time though was that if I destroyed it within 90 days I could get my money back and nothing says trial by fire quite like a 1963 Thunderbird spring so I went ahead through on the new spring compressors and began cranking down the passenger side 15 minutes later I pulled out the mega pry bar and began attempting to pull the spring out to no avail after some messing around it was decided that the best route moving forward was loosening one of the compressors and repositioning it so I could grab more of the spring and compress it this thankfully did the trick and after some more prying this spring came out with the Springs out and uncompressed I sat the next to a normal spring from a 1981 Mustang and it soon became clear why Ford made a special tool to remove these Springs because they equipped a Thunderbird with springs made for a freight train well well now that the Springs are out I can now focus on pulling the rest of the front end apart the tie rods are the next items to come out and after loosening the nut and performing a felonious assault against it the tie rods come out it was now the spindle's turn to be removed and it came apart pretty much the same way as the tie rod I first remove the cotter pin loosened the nuts and finally beat the nuts with a hammer to separate the spindle from the ball joints I beat the ball joint studs with the nuts on there in order to protect the threads on the ball joint from getting damaged I'm not reusing these ball joints of course but keeping the thread clean does make it easier for things to come apart and if for some weird reason I did have to reuse the ball joints it would keep that door open sadly though the bottom ball joint was pressed on so tightly against the spindle that I damaged both the nut and the ball joint Beyond repair trying to remove it so to get the spindle off I had to cut the nut off with a Zaza the upper control arm was was up next this was pretty straightforward I removed the two nuts holding it down and then the control arm slid right out I lied this was also stuck down pretty good the small pry bar did absolutely nothing to this piece but thankfully the large pry bar with its adjustable head wasted no time breaking this piece loose I moved right on to removing the lower control arm this arm had a lot more pieces attached to it though so it required a bit more effort I first disconnected the strut rod from the control arm which I would regret later in the video and then I disconnected the sway bar from the arm conventional wisdom would then tell you to disconnect the control arm from where the bushing is this was not correct as I soon discovered because there was absolutely no room to slide a bolt out once I loose it the correct way to remove the control arm is to disconnect the nuts from The Backs side of the frame which were conveniently hidden underneath the engine mounts I went ahead and pulled off these nuts then the lower control arm came out with ease I then repeated these steps on the passenger side and soon enough the car no longer had its spindles or control arms now there wasn't much left on this front end to pull off I next removed the center link which is a piece that connects a passenger side tie rod to the steering gearbox closely following that was the sway bar I first removed a piece of shielding from the wheel well and then I disconnected the bolts retaining the sway bar [Music] remember that strut rod I said I would regret later well here it is the nuts securing the rod were extremely tight and without the control arm to support the rod the rod would just spin around to combat this I attached a large adjustable wrench to the rod and wedged it against the car then I was able to loosen the nuts with the assist of a pipe and yes the pipe was necessary like I said these nuts were extremely tight and that is it for the front end at least as far as the steering and suspension system goes now I can focus on the rest of the car staying on the front side of the car I wanted to go ahead and finish cleaning out the engine bay first up was the starter solenoid then another small electrical [Music] piece and finally a metal [Music] shield next up was the drain boots for the cowl which were only slightly dry [Music] rotted then I wanted to remove the windshield wiper system and all the other miscellaneous pieces attached to the cowl I first remove all the retaining strips for the windshield [Music] right after that I remove the cover from my windshield wiper [Music] motor this right here is a hydro wipe hydraulic wiper motor this wiper system first debuted in the 1963 Thunderbird and was used on all Thunderbirds throughout the rest of the 60s this system is unique and that it uses power steering fluid to power your windshield wiper and since it uses fluid power it allows its speed to be adjusted to whatever you want which was a nice feature back in the time when variable speed wipers were still rather uncommon unlike an electric wiper though this system isn't quite so easy to remove given all the hydraulic lines and cables needed to make the system work my first task was to remove the hydraulic lines which weren't tight at [Music] all I was starting to strip out the fitting for the line going to the gearbox which was not good so to prevent this line from stripping out I heated it up generously with map gas and then prayed that the nut wouldn't strip out with the lines disconnected I then remove these plates and some rubber spacers that go between the firewall and the cowl now was the more nitty-gritty work I first disconnected the passenger side wiper arm which allow me to reposition the motor I then disconnected the screw holding the control cable in place and surprise surprise it doesn't want to come out I temp temporarily gave up on the cable and turned my attention to the other wiper arm and of course it didn't want to come out either in my efforts though to remove the arm the cable conveniently disconnected itself which was definitely something unexpected but very welcome moving back to the wiper arm I fought it for a few more minutes before realizing that it couldn't come out while the mounting bracket was still attached so I focused on getting the bracket it off then the arm came right off with the motor out the final step for the wiper system was removing the wiper arms and spindles first I removed this retaining nut for the spindles then I disconnected the three bolts holding the spindle and arm linkage in [Music] place now that the wiper system was totally removed I moved back and began removing items from the interior first up were some brackets mounted right behind the cowl then was the brake pedal assembly which came out easily and quickly following that was the emergency brake assembly and then was my fresh air vent which came out not so easy easily Ford wedged one of the screws securing this right up against the firewall which was a pleasure to remove oh this is stupid sadly my pain did not end with the fresh air vent trying to remove the emergency brake assembly from the car also proved to be very very challenging to remove the assembly I need to disconnect the emergency brake cable which was held on with a clevis pin in Ford's Infinite Wisdom they made it to where the clevest pin can only be removed in one position a position I can not reach because my emergency brake system was totally seized up so to remove the clevis pin I had to break out the sawsa and whack it in half once cut in half I was finally able to disconnect the emergency brake cable and pull the assembly from the car I then removed a host clamp and shoved the emergency brake cable out of the car moving further back I disconnected and removed the door latch Striker plates from the car just above where the striker plates were I pried off some metal plugs and remove the nut inside of it and why did I do that well those concealed nuts actually held in part of the rear window mechanism once removed I was able to move things around more which allowed me to finally disconnect and remove the rear window motor and regulator along with the other tracks that the window travels along and with the back window systems out of the car there really isn't too much left to remove I go ahead and remove the old insulation mats from the floor and with that the inside is clear now I'll remove the last few items from the outside of the car starting with these crossmember supports in the bottom of the engine bay then I begin removing the brake lines starting with the front passenger brake [Music] line [Music] the next day I began removing the fuel line and the brake line going to the rear brakes and both of them actually came out pretty easily moving to the very back of the car I had one small little Chrome piece left on my fin I removed the two nuts securing it and pulled it from the car and now I was finally down to the last pieces of Hardware to remove and these are some pieces that can easily be overlooked these are the nut plate are used to secure the fender down and as you can see they've already been sand blasted they look good on top but once you pull them off there are surface rust underneath them so it's definitely good they came off the car so the rust can be treated once all the hardware is off I put all the nuts and bolts and other small parts into labeled bags it takes a little work up front but when I go to put things back together I'll be thanking myself for doing doing this now that I've stripped down this car completely of all of its parts except the rear axle I Can Begin stripping it of its paint for the quarter panels and roof I'm using a surface conditioning tool which is essentially just a giant abrasive Barrel that cuts through the paint and body filler like butter for the engine bay wheel wells and inside of the car I am going to sand blast it sand blasting is messy the blast meia get everywhere which makes cleanup fun but with all the nooks and crannies everywhere it really is the best way to ensure all the old paint and rust is removed while removing the paint on the roof I found that the drip rails were full of old cracked sealant upon prying the sealant up there is nothing but rust underneath it this is another item that can easily be overlooked but it's critical that all the sealant comes out so I can treat the rust underneath it after a lot of blasting and sanding this car is finally stripped down to Bare steel and was clean the same cannot be said about me but I guess that's a price you pay for cleanliness the one thing is for sure this car cleaned up nicely there were some dents exposed yay but in general this car is now a good clean slate to work with well that's it for today's video thank you all so much for watching and as always a huge thanks to everyone who subscribed to me and to everyone who leaves likes and comments on my videos I really appreciate it I've got several new videos in the works I'll be coming out over the next few months these videos include the rebuild of the cruisomatic transmission paint and body work of the Thunderbirds body the strip down of the 1981 Mustang and the rebuild of the Mustangs straight 6 engine so stick around and stay tuned for some more content in the near future I'd also like to take this moment and say thank you to Walker custom garage for seeing me these awesome prizes for Thunderbirds naming contest for those of you all who may not be familiar with this channel Walker custom garage is currently restoring a 1959 Thunderbird which he has named thunder struck and just like with my 63 he's doing a total tear down restoration he's putting in a lot of hard work to bring his Thunderbird back from the dead and chances are if you like my videos then you'll love his so go ahead and go check his channel out you won't be disappointed well that about wraps up this video thank you all so much for watching and I'll see yall next time bye

Channel: Angell's Garage

Views: 2,886

Keywords: Ford, Thunderbird, 1963, Restoration, Rebuild, Bodywork, 1961, 1962, Springs, Shocks, Control Arms, Steering Column, Sandblasting

Id: AHAm657ilzc

Length: 29min 52sec (1792 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 25 2024