I can confirm that Jody's Beadform works great, even on 0.065" stainless, as I was in possession of Jody's for the last who knows how many years while trying to get my car finished and only recently returned it to him... (thanks again, by the way.) :lol:

A lot of the cheaper bead rollers won't handle stainless tubing. Aluminum and mild steel are OK, but they'll tweak or flat out break if doing stainless.

I have a tubing beadroller die set for my Mittler Brothers panel bead roller that also works, but I don't care for how far back it puts the bead from the end of the tube... in some tight radius / tight clearance situations it locates the bead too far back. It also can't do any smaller than 1.25" tubing and is only rated up to .059" mild steel or 0.043" stainless. No such diameter or thickness problems on the Beadform that Jody posted, it locates the bead very close to the end of the tubing and will handle up to 0.065" wall stainless.

I recently bought the K2 bead roller from Furick. It also locates the bead close to the end of the tube like the Beadform, and it's a really stout piece. It lacks some of the "nice to have" things of the Beadforms like the roller handle and large T handle on the tension knob, but it's $200 cheaper and has the strength where it counts in the frame, shafts, bushings, and gearing. The latest Beadform 3 HD is probably the best unit out there though-- but it's also $200 more expensive. If I was using it every day on stainless I would have bought the Beadform 3 HD along with the motor kit, but I only need to roll beads on tubing a couple of times a year when doing radiator, intake, or intercooler piping.

https://furickcup.com/product/k2-bead-roller/

Fitted the firewall smoothing plate from ABC Performance, fit great. Mounted up the Restomod Air a/c unit inside the car, and the bulkhead on the firewall. Special thanks to Rick at Vintage Air for building me a custom compressor line manifold to clear the turbo and wastegate.

My Inland Empire driveshaft showed up, and I was able to find an SS dash through National Parts Depot that actually uses chrome around the bezels and lettering instead of silver paint. Looks a lot better than other reproduction dashes. Started fitting the Dakota Digital gauges to the new dash.

Wow are you cranking in this car.

I agree with the other guys. Don’t paint it and don’t fix the dents. Just leave it as is. People will be blown away when you open the hood.

The reason we did the satin paint on the Css as Camaro is that I had no desire to ever have perfect paint again.


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I actually looked into paintless dent repair just to get the bulk of the big dents out, but none of the companies out here will touch it... :lol:

I'm still missing some key components to allow the car to be fired/driven like fuel tank, clutch, hydroboost, intercooler, but there's still plenty I can do. Plan now is to continue on like it is painted and run it as-is until I can get it in for paint. I will pull the body back off to have the chassis powdercoated first, but then things will be assembled and torqued to be driven vs just mocking up like now.

You know, if you think about it, the name of the car is Collateral DAMAGE... makes the case for leaving it as-is. Maybe I can start a new trend, like the popularity of patina but take it a step further. Have the car look like a complete beater on the outside but totally trick underneath. :idea:

Like that Polara that RS did for Jesse James. That was one cool car.

Collateral Damage- My 70 Chevelle site build
 

Don’t forget the Valiant Greening Auto built. Them there was the twin belt driven turbo/super charged Nova that was built by the guys from Wheel to Wheel in the late 90’s early 2000.

I say leave it and drive the crap out of it. Another benefit is less chance it will get stolen.


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Mounted the Clayton Machine pedals today. Everything fit great, no issues. Love the look. Also mounted up the American Powertrain clutch master and adjustable bracket. It comes with full adjustment for the master cylinder angle so you can get the rod geometry perfect and eliminate side loading and possible failure of the master. On the 70 Chevelle the bracket lined up with the factory hole for the manual clutch rod to go through. I decided I wanted more support at the firewall because of the hole, so I bought a Speedtech clutch master bracket, and then mounted the American Powertrain adjustable bracket to that, instead of mounting to the firewall/hole directly. I did remove a very small area on one side of the factory firewall hole to give a bit more rod clearance. Turned out great, rod goes straight into the master, no angles or issues. I do need to build a clutch pedal stop in the future to avoid overextending the piston in the master, they only want 1.12" of movement at the master cylinder.

get one of those big suction cup deals an pull the dent out of the back as best you can. The other dings and dent call one of those paintless dent guys, if he is good he will get most of the other dents out.

He's actually working on it...I'm kinda impressed. The dent in the door will probably pop out with a truck inner tube inside the door.

You're right, I bet it would. That's a good idea!