i got the body on the rotisserie today, but spent the rest of the day cleaning the garage. its amazing how much crap floats in even though i do my work on the driveway.

ive been asked about the exhaust and swaybars here and elsewhere, so i took a couple more pics.

http://i858.photobucket.com/albums/a...i/IMG_9959.jpg

http://i858.photobucket.com/albums/a...i/IMG_9964.jpg

http://i858.photobucket.com/albums/a...i/IMG_9970.jpg

http://i858.photobucket.com/albums/a...i/IMG_9972.jpg

http://i858.photobucket.com/albums/a...i/IMG_9980.jpg

http://i858.photobucket.com/albums/a...i/IMG_9978.jpg

very nice work............. VERY NICE!

Jody

very nice build , all the hard work pays off at the end , :thumbsup:

Sweet! Nice detail on everything. The Watts bars are a very nice eye grabbing contrast.

Killer build man.
Keep up the great work.:thumbsup:

I love this build! I really like how it's done at home, it's really inspiring me to get going on my car.

and tell rupp that he copied me :_paranoid .

i needed to tie the red in, and i love the mechanical aspect of the watts, so i figured id do something similar to BP.

heres a small update. i sent the rear brake brackets back to Tobin at kore3 and he is taking care of the machining. i also took the axles back to currie to have the holes drilled for access to the flange and they were less than happy with me. they ended up having to install new bearings, and it appears that all of the studs are new as well. they had to chuck them up in the cnc machine and that required removing all of that stuff. my position was that i had told them what brakes i was running, the offset, the housing length, the bolt pattern, the stud size, the register dia, the bearing i wanted etc., all because i was prompted with " what do you need for......". they didnt do that for the access hole, and since i dont buy axles everyday and they sell axles everyday, i figured that they knew what i needed by what i had told them. they took care of me though, so ive got two of the issues for the rear solved. the last should just be a spacer and wont take too much time.

i also finished some work on the firewall and cowl. i welded up all of the seams and ground down what i could. its still going to take a TON of work to get it nice and smooth, but its closer. i also ground down the plug welds from the quarter installation and welded in a notch for the filler neck of the raised tank.

i plan one more day cleaning up some welds and stuff on the bottom, then it will get dropped back on next week.

here are some pics. i threw in one of a recent project for my sons 3rd birthday. its a late '70's AMF model 508 fire engine that i had when i was a kid. i guess i crashed it a few times because it was in pretty bad shape. there are still a bunch of dents i left in it, but i'll call that character. i did fill the hood and smoothed it out a bunch. a lot of time, and this is 1/100th of the chevelle. another reason somebody else is going to do it.

http://i858.photobucket.com/albums/a...i/IMG_0165.jpg

http://i858.photobucket.com/albums/a...i/IMG_0163.jpg

http://i858.photobucket.com/albums/a...i/IMG_0168.jpg

Very cool. Hope that takes care of your brake issue.
Nice fire truck!

so after spending some time and money on the lathe to get the tolerances a little better and to get something to cut with, i finally got the spring spacers cut. i had been using the hss stuff that came with the lathe, but it doesnt compare to the tool holder and carbide indexable inserts. i spent about $70 bucks for a boring bar, another insert holder and 5 ccmt inserts. money well spent.

so, a little background for those that arent aware of the problem. it is becoming more common for chevelle guys to run a short spring and an adjustable spacer on the front of their cars. all is great, except that the tolerances are tight between the spacer and the shock that has to go through the spacers hole. it gets even tighter when guys run shocks that have a larger diameter, ie. my varishocks. so, the solution is to run a spacer that captures the spring on the od, not the id like the current one. i have to give some credit to bochnak on the chevelle forum for the idea, but we have found through pms that our spacers are completely different lengths. i have a feeling that our different lower control arms are to blame.

the initial idea was to make the spacers the same length as the current ones that are mocked up. i know that i still dont have all the weight on the car so its going to sit a little lower, but my tires are 1" taller which will raise the front 1/2". i ended up making these 1/4" taller than my others which should raise the front another 3/8". the lathe isnt going away, so i will fine tune when the time comes. i also plan to make a few thin spacers that will go under the urethane spring isolator on the lca. the global west arms have a really deep bucket, so i can get a bunch of extra height if needed. i have a feeling that my extra 1/4 will come off in the end.

here are a few pics.

http://i858.photobucket.com/albums/a...i/IMG_0220.jpg

http://i858.photobucket.com/albums/a...i/IMG_0221.jpg

http://i858.photobucket.com/albums/a...i/IMG_0222.jpg