Barn find 69 Jensen FF

[BKBridges]

Surprises Well it sure is nice to be able to drive the FF into the shop as opposed to pushing it in. We installed a thicker carb gasket to keep the secondary plates of the Edelbrock carb from hitting the miserly holes in the 383's aluminized stock manifold. After making sure there was no binding and full secondary action, we lifted it up to try to find those pesky frame leaks. We were also curious as to why the left hand grills poked out of the fender too far... I guess lap welding three layers of sheet metal to the frame tube directly behind the front (driven) wheel was a bad idea. Looked pretty much the same on the right hand side as well. The holes in the frame are small, but getting to them is going to be a PIA. Cutting and patching the foot box sides and etc. isnt looking too easy either without cutting off the fenders. Strange that there wasnt any rust in the floor pans or rocker panels...Soo... after this discovery we decided to really hurt ourselves and check out the condition of the unobtainium front suspension... The right hand rear shock always looked a little weird... BKB

[fast Ed]

Ughhh!! Sorry to see that, looks like it will be more than a bit of work to make that right!


Chin up, as the Brits say ...


cheers
Ed

[milner351]

Ouch

[BKBridges]

Brain damage..
We pulled the front suspension off. One of the four coil overs had the top eye busted off the shock rod. no wonder the spring looked funny. Ive spent the last week digging for parts as the bushings were also shot. I hit gold! K&D restorations had what is probably the only two shock assemblies in the US stashed away, and they sold them to me for less than a set of monroe matics for my PT cruiser. Sweet. In another super stroke of luck the upper A arm bushings are actually slightly modified A body Mopar spring eye bushings (RB57).. Sadly if the lower ball joints are bad, we will have to make the parts ourselves as there is no supply world wide that could be found...Just got a new camera with no memory card so more pics soon (and better I hope).
BKB

[milner351]

Wow - that's an uphill battle on such a rare car - great find on the shocks! your persistence is inspiring.

[BKBridges]

Finally more time to work on the FF Heres the old suspension "issue". Pressing these things apart isnt a lot of fun either... Ive got two new shocks and the springs and spring seats are blasted and ready for paint. We'll have to decide which shocks get replaced and which two get "prettified"

[BKBridges]

Its been a while since we put the cover back on the 69 FF and I feel the urge to get going on it again so I figured I better update the project car files. I managed to score a new OEM set of shocks for the FF so that problem was pretty easy to correct. The rust is taking a lot longer. After long discussion with my friend and partner in the car, Tim, we decided to do the best with what we could in the hopes that the results will make a great driver and if someone wants to do a full strip and fix the effort wont be hampered by our ministrations since these cars were meant to be driven. With no further ado, and not for the feint of heart, heres some rust repair pictures: After ripping the bottom hinge off with my hand I decided to get the camera out... the inner A pillar up to the windows outer a pillar wasn't really structural any more. so it had to go... as did much of the inner fender shield and the lower 4 inches of the foot well. The frame needed a pathc or two but it was thick if not a bit corroded. We cleaned it up and used a galvanizing paint as well as por 15 and will coat the inside with some Eastwood product. We left what was good, thick and cleanable, and patched up the holes left over. Some of the work that had been done in England looked like it was glued in place by children (no offense to the kids) the old hinge's a pillar was very tired. We fabbed up some thick (3/16" wall) a pillar box sections (nice thing about a hand made car is you can hand make it too!) and welded it in and added the hinge back It took about another hour to get the bottom hinge located properly as the stock location left the door poorly fitting. Now the door has a nice even gap and actually closes well. The passenger side still needs to be finished as do the drivers foot box issues... The floorpans are solid though. BKB

[DanStokes]

Your "temporary" fix looks pretty good to me! Guessing it'll be way better than stock but maybe a bit heavier.

Are you coming to Speed Week? If so, look me up in Impound.

Dan

[BKBridges]

Dan,
Thanks! I think the car is going to hold together OK! Im going to be at speed week planning wise so far, but lately life has been really pushing me and its been hard to keep on track. Ill definitely drop by impound and look you up its one of my favorite places to hang out at ElMirage. (just try to shoo me away...)
BKB

[DanStokes]

Cool! I'm trying to get Scott (Dieselgeek) and others to commit to dinner one night - I'm sure we can make that happen. I'm the short, handsome, modest one (to quote Foghorn Leghorn, "It's, I say, it's a JOKE, son"). Forgot to mention "old" though Dan Warner has a couple of years on me.

Dan

[BKBridges]

Dan,
My wife is making plans as I type. Hoping to bring the motorhome and camp at the bend. Ill be the wide eyed kid in a candy store looking guy (my first time to the salt). The evil twin HD may be showing up as well if we get it together in time but not so the FF.

[BKBridges]

Well... I missed speed week...but I got another day in on the FF.
I replaced the lower hinge and got the door hanging better than it did when it was rebuilt in England in the 80s. I know this because it doesn't need all the bondo that was slapped on it back then to fit properly anymore...I fabbed up the hinge cover plate and tacked it in place as well. The orig plate in the picture was covered by a thin sheet of tin painted white and tacked on with poor welds. Not a repair. Sure wish I knew the full history of this beast. Going at it again this weekend. We hope to finish the foot boxes and get back to the mechanicals.
BKB

[BKBridges]

After the Morris Traveler sidetrack we found a day to finish the foot boxes and a pillars. I think they came out nicely and it s a shame to have to cover the footwells up with carpeting again. As we were running out of things to cut out and weld back in, we decided to fix a few things that were making the FF annoying to move in and out of the shop: Non working charging system and non functional ignition switch. The charging circuit is a two wire stump simple Mopar set-up with Lucas wiring... guess what was wrong... With the shorts and longs fixed it charges nicely. The ignition switch is the original but didn't start the car or work the accessories.
We rebuilt the switch. It must have been really pissing off the previous owner from what I could forensically tell... Works great now! We also replaced the brake reservoir floats (wine corks) and fixed the ripped off hood support mount (Bad previous repair)...the final electrical fixes will be the tachometer and the lazy left cooling fan, then its on to the body work...I think my partner on this car, Tim, is ready to sell it the way it is.

[NASBackyard]

I totally respect it !

[1970camaroRS]

Anything new on this? I think this is the coolest car on here. What would you sell it for do you think?