I bought a heavy duty wire wheel for my electric grinder and hit the driver's floor. Under the flakes I did find some holes, so I decided to go ahead and replace the area marked out.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...iverfloora.jpg

To protect it from any stray sparks I covered up the rear window with some heavy butcher paper doubled over and cut the floor with a die grinder.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...r/CIMG0229.jpg

Here's the hole left for the passenger side. Yikes!

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...assfloor-1.jpg

Once I got the rust cut out I sheared off some 18 ga sheet metal. I got basic dimensions traced on the sheet stock and did a rough cut with beverly sheers.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...floorstart.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...r/roughcut.jpg


I used a machine called a Pullmax to duplicate the factory reinforcing ribs, here I am working on the passenger side.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...r/pullmax1.jpg

You use an upper female and lower male die, and the machine's up and down action beats the metal into place. I made 3-4 passes raising the lower die each time to get the correct depth imprint.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...r/pullmax3.jpg

This is the end result of trimming and using the Pullmax, here's the driver's side tacked in place. Notice how the formed ribs line up with the factory floor ribs. This was as far as I got today, tomorrow I'll finish up the passenger side. More to come...

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...riverfloor.jpg

Moving right along! I think you hit the stance just right. I really like that you are doing a wagon and not a typical G body car. Your gonna have one mean machine when its done!

Thanks!!

I had to take a 2 week break from the car to wrap up a bunch of class assignments for mid term grades, more on that in a few.

Getting back on the car I finished up the floors. The pullmax did a great job with the strengthening ribs and the end result looks great and matches the integrity of the factory floors. There was a lot of surface rust so I stripped the whole front floor area and coated it with Por-15.

Driver's side...

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l.../floordriv.jpg

Passenger side. The dash and shifter shadow makes it look warped but it's nice and flat...

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l.../floorpass.jpg

After the floor was complete I got the seat brackets knocked out. I decided to use the Mazda sliders and modify and weld them to the "legs" of the Cutlass seat brackets. Now they're just the right height and the sliders work fantastic. The back part of the seat also reclines back and forward smoothly, something the factory bench didn't do. I will finish them up by painting the brackets black and then building a sheet metal cover to keep them hidden.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rs/seatsin.jpg

On Monday evenings I go to the "paint your own car" class at the school. This gives me another 4 hours a week to get work done, only draw back is it's in a different shop. So instead of working on the car itself I have some individual body parts over there that I work on.

This past Monday I worked on the front bumper. Mine is pretty rotted on the passenger side, you can see the floor through it! The rest of the rust is surface rust, which will be taken care of during sandblasting.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...vars/bump3.jpg

As I mentioned before, I picked up a wrecking yard bumper from an 85 Cutlass Supreme to get mine back in shape. The 85 bumper has different body lines on the top so the plan was to cut the bottom half out and graft it into mine. Nice thing about the later model bumper is that it has the turn signals in the bumper rather than near the headlights like mine. These will become functional brake cooling ducts.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...vars/bump1.jpg

First thing I did was using the plasma cutter I cut out a larger than needed patch area.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...vars/bump2.jpg

The turn signal openings are huge and would look out of proportion with my single compared to the 85 dual headlights, so I narrowed them by 4.5" where the weld line is. Here's a mock up of where they will go.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...vars/bump4.jpg

I then cut out a large rectangle from my bumper and also narrowed it 1" above the left side cut line to tuck it in close to the body. The weld has already been ground down in this shot. I then trimmed the new piece to fit and tacked it in.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...vars/bump5.jpg

Here's a couple shots of what it will look like on the car. I'll finish welding and get the other side done next week.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...vars/bump6.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...vars/bump7.jpg

Here I thought I'd take a moment and talk a bit about what we have been learning. First half of the semester we've been getting familiar with the machines in the shop by doing small projects. This included forming steel sheet metal and getting familiar with gas and tig welding. We covered mig welding last year and I was excited to learn tig this year.

Our professor is pretty dedicated to learning real hot rod based practical skills so his program is very hands on. We're also lucky to have some great forming equipment. This includes the Pullmax I've mentioned before, a Power Hammer, a planishing hammer, an Eckold that we use for shrinking and stretching, hand shrinker/ stretchers, a huge sheet metal brake, power shears, power and hand crank bead rollers, a slip roller, an english wheel, sand bags and mallets, and a few other big boy toys I'm forgetting. Here are a few projects we all had to make...

A simple circle made by running a flat strip through the slip roller until it was uniformly round and then tack weld with the gas welder.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...sliproller.jpg

Here the sheet metal brake was used to make a "multi angle with a curve and a fold" strip that had to match the one the professor made. The curve was made by making several small low angle bends.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...vars/brake.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...metalbrake.jpg

Here I had to cut a curve in the sheet metal and using hand tools bend the metal over a wire, finishing it off with the Pullmax. If you're not familiar with this it's very common in areas like fender wheel openings on early cars such as a 30s Fords.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...ovars/bead.jpg

For this one I had to use two different dies on the bead roller. Can't help it, I like flames. :)

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...vars/bead2.jpg

The next projects were a little more complicated. First I had to use the mallets and sandbag to beat a flat sheet into a bowl that actually looked like a beat up mess when I got done. Then using the hand shrinker on the edges and a hammer and dolly in the center I worked it until it was a smooth 12 degree bowl that had to fit flush to the professor's template. After I got the grade on that one I then had to use the planishing hammer to put more dish into it to get it to match a 7 degree template curve. Here's the end result-

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...s/planish1.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...s/planish2.jpg

Next was using the english wheel to form a flat sheet to fit the professor's bowl. This was cool to learn because the wheel doesn't work like you might think as you try to make it travel across the panel. End result-

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...s/english1.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...s/english2.jpg

Next was a small version of part of an inner wheel well. This one started by laying paper over the professor's part and folding it to find out where the highlight was and where to shrink it for the curve. I then transferred our paper pattern to the flat sheet, trimmed, and hit it with the Pullmax and shrinking dies. That got the curve started but that area was a warped mess. The planishing hammer smoothed it out some and the Eckold with shrinking dies continued the curve around. Back and forth between the three machines ended in a nice smooth wheel well that had to fit closely matched to both the outside and inside of the professor's version.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...vars/well1.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...vars/well2.jpg

Finally the one our professor calls the b**** project, a complex curve that has a concave long curve with a convex curve along the sides. I initially started the bend on the flat sheet cranking it over my leg. Then lots of trips back and forth between the Eckold shrinker and the planishing hammer finally ended up like this, again we had to match the one our professor made when laid on top.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...s/complex1.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...s/complex2.jpg

For the welding side we started with several gas welding projects, including butt welding with and without rod, vertical welding, welding up 1/2" holes, brass brazing steel to steel and copper pipe to steel. Gas welding uses a lot of heat so it warps the sheet quite a bit but it leaves a soft weld. Simply hammer and dolly-ing right on the weld straightens it right back out. Pretty neat.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...vars/gas01.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...ovars/gas2.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...ovars/gas1.jpg

This assignment we had to simulate bullet holes with a pick hammer, much like those that are often in old cars out in the fields. Then using a hammer and dolly I straightened them out and welded up the holes.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...ars/bullet.jpg

Finally my most anticipated new thing to learn- TIG welding. For practice with this we worked with steel butt welding with and without rod, vertical butt with rod, stainless, and aluminum. Although I thought it would be easier, aluminum turned out to be harder. Although it's softer and you'd think you would use less heat, aluminum absorbes and dissipates the heat so fast you actually have to use more voltage and ac rather than dc to get a good puddle going. The throttle is sensitive because it's real easy to get it too hot. Here are a couple of my butt welds after some practice. Top one got a little too hot and sank in a bit. Other two aren't too bad for my first time ever welding aluminum.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...vars/alum2.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...s/buttalum.jpg

Now for the second half of the semester we'll have a lot of practice putting to work what we've learned so far. We each have to french a tail light and an antennae and then we each have to build a complete hot rod body for a pedal car chassis out of .063 sheet aluminum. This ought to be fun! ...

Next item to get in place before I can start building the roll bar is the battery. It needed to move to the rear to clean up the engine bay and help a little with the weight bias. I want to keep as much room available in the back so I can still use it to haul stuff around, so tucking it was in order. Here's a couple shots of what I have to work with.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/trunk1.jpg

The whole blue rear floor unscrews and comes out to reveal another floor underneath on this car. Underneath the right side of the blue sheet metal is a support to help hold the upper floor up. The frame rail is directly below that.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...or/sripint.jpg

After looking at a couple different options I decided that positioned right above the frame rail on the right would be best. That means moving some things around and removing the support.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/trunk3.jpg

I cut and relocated the right side floor edge that supports the spare tire door. The arrow shows where it used to be attached. Where it used to be it was shorter because of the angle at the top (see above photo) so it took a spacer welded in the middle to make it the new correct length. I also had to cut out the support metal underneath.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...or/Trunk4a.jpg

Notice also the space saver spare, I got it free from a guy I know that owns a couple Corvettes. Its a 155-70-17, lighter and skinnier than a full size, perfect for clearing the bigger F-body brakes, and is the same height as a 275-40-17.

Next I cut the door and reshaped it to fit in the recess.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/Trunk5.jpg

The lower floor is contoured to fit the frame so if I set the battery in as it is it was raked down towards the front. To make a flat support for the batt to sit on I grabbed some scrap 1" square tube, cut it at a 45 deg angle and welded up an L shape.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...or/Trunk5a.jpg

I then welded it into the car on top of the inner floor...

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...or/Trunk6a.jpg

... and here's the end result. The battery is sunk into the floor about 3" and it has a strong support to bolt the box to. Tomorrow I start making a battery box from .063 aluminum. Cost of the materials is about 6 bucks compared to paying $80+ for one already made.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/Trunk7.jpg

I was on date night with my wife last night and as we were getting into the car a guy pulled in next to us in an orange 2011 Caravan. I liked the shade a lot, similar to Vette Atomic orange. I've looked at lots of orange paint colors and I think I've narrowed it to one of these two paint codes. I'm not sure if the Vette is a 3 stage or not, I'd imagine the Caravan is two. Whichever fits the budget better wins this bout.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...avanorange.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...omicorange.jpg

THats a great color, I wouldn't tell too many people you fell in love with it after seeing it on a minivan:lol:

Digging the spare & battery work!

LOL @ seeing that color on a minivan...

Lol!! "It's a CORVETTE color..." ;)

Thanks, More pics of mods to the tire well coming soon...

Now on with the box and the well, sort of sounds like a Disney movie, lol!

Here's a shot of the pattern I used for my battery box. It will be cut and folded from .063 aluminum. I wanted a nice smooth look so the sides will fold around and meet in the middle of the back, having only one vertical weld rather than one at each corner. I've also provided flanges on the top and bottom of each side. The top will be folded completely over and create a smooth perimeter top while providing extra strength. On the bottom the flanges will mate to the floor of the box...

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...nator/box1.jpg

Still working on the box lid but you can see the box put together on the right of the next two shots. Jumping on to the tire well...

Currently I run a single 3" exhaust that exits behind the passenger rear tire. I want to keep the single 3" but wanted to do something different- have it appear to be duals as folks will expect a performance car to have and exit somewhere else. In keeping with the overall design of the car I decided to run dual rectangle tips and have them exit below the center of the rear bumper. Only problem is that my gas tank and spare well are right in front of the bumper and there's no room to plumb exhaust. As you can see the spare tire takes up the whole well so some more mods are in order to create a passage way for the pipe to run through. See the beginnings of the battery box on the right...

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/well2a.jpg

So I marked out an area to remove, trimmed it out and prepped for welding.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...ator/well4.jpg

Using the sheet metal brake I bent up a piece of 18ga steel, here tacked in place, to create a "shelf" for the spare to rest on.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...ator/well5.jpg

Now the tire rests at an angle and although I removed a large chunk of the well I actually created better space management. Under the tire I now have storage room for a small tool kit, tow rope and jumper cables and the lid closes with room to spare. I also have created a large open area to run the exhaust pipe.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...ator/well6.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...ator/well7.jpg

I recently picked up a pair of Flowmasters and tips from a friend that's changing the exhaust on his 91 Corvette. I'll save the mufflers for my son's Nova build that will start next year and the tips will go on my car. They're each about 7.5" wide and should look great nestled under the rear bumper. My car will be anti-chrome so the tips will be getting a makeover as well.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...ator/Tips1.jpg

Some new updates from the last coupla days.

First off I got the front bumper finished up. I sectioned it 1" on the pass side as well as sectioned the turn signal opening from the donor bumper. I then cut out the area on my bumper, tacked in the donor piece and welded it all up.

I learned something new as I did this. Monday my professor and I were talking about weld "prettiness" and where I need to be at with my welding to be at a level where a decent shop will be impressed and hire me. I asked about mig welding and which was a better weld - a nice continuous bead or "stacking pennies"? We discussed the possibility that stacking pennies, although it looks great, wouldn't heat the metal enough to get decent penetration on thicker metal. So to run a test to answer my question I welded the passenger half with short continuous stitch weld beads. I used the paint shop side 120V MIG with the heat cranked all the way. If the stitches were too long or too slow it would blow a hole, so after finding a decent speed I got pretty nice welds. On the driver side I stacked pennies.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...ator/bump8.jpg

When I flipped it over I found that with that smaller welder on a thick bumper it had trouble penetrating very well either way, but to my surprise the stacking pennies actually got better penetration overall. It also had a smaller heat zone around the weld and looked a ton better :twothumbs. Too bad it's all going to get ground flat anyway, lol!

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...ator/bump9.jpg

Everything I've been doing so far in the rear of the car was to get everything situated so I can install a roll cage. After researching kits I found nothing fit the wagon the way I wanted. So I checked into just getting just a main hoop and building off that. I got a price from Jegs, I think it was like $45, very reasonable. What wasn't reasonable was the $99 shipping shaft, er, charge. So I decided to just build the whole thing from scratch. Because I've never done anything even remotely close to this I decided to do a mock up first before bending steel. Using PVC pipe, a few homemade brackets and some duct tape I got one put together.

Please note that my cage won't be "legal" for any serious racing venues, it's main design purpose was to add stiffness and safety without sacrificing comfort and streetability at all. Some features will be- A snug overall fit contoured to the interior. There is recessed main hoop cross bar behind the front seats so I have plenty of seat adjustability. I will also be building a camera stand off this bar. I have fairly long legs so I sat in the back seat with the mock up in the car just to make sure there was plenty of "get in" room and clearance for knees. The rearward bars make up the "cage" portion, similar to a 10 point cage turned backwards. I did this mostly because I didn't want to cut up the dash for front bars and that's probably overkill anyway. I also want to keep the versatility of the wagon's back storage area so the diagonal brace will be above the rear seat area. The rear bars will hit right after the rear wheel wells. I want to keep the stock lower half of the front door panels so I had to make the front bar fairly low to clear the armrest mold. The front bars are more for chassis stiffness than anything and are similar to a tiger cage.

With doing the PVC mockup I was able to test fit and try different options before bending and possibly wasting metal tubing. It's rough and pretty ugly, but when it was in the car it fit great and placement looked decent as I envisioned the real bar in there. The interior will be black with a splash of orange and silver accents. I plan on painting the cage silver too.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...r/rollbar1.jpg

The last thing I needed to do before the cage is the rear wheel tubs. If you rememeber the passenger side had some gnarly rot on it.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...r/passwell.jpg

I don't much like the plastic rear interior panels and this side now gets in the way of the battery...

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...rearpanel1.jpg

...and I think the shape of the factory tubs are too doofy to have exposed.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...or/sripint.jpg

I saw this photo the other day looking at roll bars in wagons and thought the squared off wheel tubs and fairly flat and plain panels made the car look kinda mean so I decided to go for that look.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...onrollcage.jpg

I started cutting today using a plasma cutter. I will be extending the wheel tubs in about 1" and the red arrow points to the frame rail that will get notched to match the tub. I don't need to do this now but I'm getting it set up for later. I maxed out my budget on rims and tires for right now so when the 275's are worn out I will be getting 11.5" rims and 315-35s out back.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...whelwellR1.jpg

I'll be cutting out the driver's side tomorrow and then start building the tubs.

Finally for now is the big parts delivery for this past week, my 5.3 LS motor. It's not the one I originally thought I was getting but it will do. I sold my rebuilt original 305 (that was in the car when I bought the whole car for $300), for $450 to a fellow classmate for his '54 GMC project. This 5.3 cost me $480.xx including sales tax so I guess I did o.k. for $30 out of pocket ;) lol!

It's from a 2000 Tahoe with a little over 106,000 miles. Unfortunately it came as you see it, luckily it did have the power steering pump but is missing most everything else such as ecm, wiring, alternator, starter, etc... Let me know if you have spare parts that can help me get it together.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...nator/eng1.jpg

Despite I have to piece it together, I'm totally stoked to have an LS motor powering my car. I'm gearing up for the Holley LS fest, woohoo!!!

Roll Cage provided by #48 Jimmy Johnson sponsor - Lowes!

LOL - looking good! :thumbsup:

Lol! Yeah, too bad Lowe's isn't sponsoring me too. :D

Finally some more progress...

First off, another class assignment. We learned about frenching, and for our assignments we had to make a panel and french a tail light and antenna. We were graded on just going through the process, not finishing it to paint ready. Here's mine and my light is in the background. It was a fun assignment but it's not as pretty as I would do to a real car, I knocked it out quickly to get back to my car...

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...ator/frant.jpg

I wanted a fairly large tub, big enough to stuff a 13" tire at full suspension squat. The main problem with doing this to a wagon is the back seat. I want to keep mine totally functional in the up and down position. This required some creativity and some trial and error. Finally on the 3rd cardboard design I got everything to work out. I started with a "chip board" pattern and flat 18ga sheet metal to come up with the sides.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l.../wellside1.jpg

Using the pullmax I raised the edge to a 90 degree angle

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l.../wellside2.jpg

and using the slip roller bent the top.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l.../wellside3.jpg

Here's the final product, panels welded with screws holding them in place. They are slightly different side to side because the gas filler neck is inside the wheel well on the driver's side.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...lldoneboth.jpg

Notice the notch I had to create to allow clearance for the back of the seat.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...welldoner2.jpg

[http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...welldoner1.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...welldonel1.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...welldonel2.jpg

Now I have to modify the seat back just a bit, the hinge bars run into the wheel wells so I need to move them inward about 1-1.5". More to come on that...

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...atbracket1.jpg

Nice Shaggin' Wagon!

Keep it coming' :)

Progress updates...

First off the final shots of the wheels tubs. After welding I used a DA with a 220 grit pad to clean them up and then coated the cargo area with Por-15. Eventually I'll cover the area with some bed liner type material so I can still load messy junk back there.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...or/tubfin1.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...or/tubfin2.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...or/tubfin5.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...or/tubfin3.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...or/tubfin4.jpg

Tuesday I started on the roll bar. Previously I picked up some 1 3/4" .120 wall tubing from the local metal supplier. They came in 24ft lengths @ $53 ea and I had them cut to 12 ft lengths. After some measuring my professor helped me start bending the main hoop. Using the PVC mockup we were able to bend the curves to match the design perfectly without needing to remove the bar from the machine for test fits. It turned out great and fit nice and snug. Next order of business was the hoop cross bar. This was bent to allow a pretty wide range of movement for the seats.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/roll01.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/roll02.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/roll10.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/roll08.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/roll07.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/roll09.jpg

Ugh! Had one of those days Friday. I volunteer on Friday afternoons to teach a drawing class at my kids' elementary school so I have the leave the shop at my school by 12. I really wanted to have the roll cage in the car by Christmas break so because of running out of days and the Friday short day I was in somewhat of a hurry-up mood. Seems like when you try to rush, things go wrong and that's just what happened. Looking back I have to laugh but it was pretty frustrating at the time.

I checked out the hole saw from the school's tool room to use in the milling machine to notch my tubes. When I put it in the mill I found the arbor had been "studentized" and was slightly bent making the hole saw slightly wobbly. I used it anyway and it did an acceptable job on the main hoop cross bar. When I tried to notch the first of 4 short tubes I'm using to connect and triangulate the newly bent rear bars, the blade caught on the tube while cutting and the shaft on the arbor shattered sending the hole saw flying and it gouged my bar. I wanted it done so taking the advice of another professor here I set it up in the chop saw to cut it on an angle. Part way through cutting the blade caught the bar funny, shattering it and sending blade shrapnel around the shop. "Good grief!" I thought, "what else can go wrong?!!" I ended up using a 4" grinder to shape the notch, lined it up and started welding it in. I think because I forgot to sand the surface rust off I was getting a lot of spatter from the welder. That was frustrating because I'm trying to make pretty welds, not to mention that when I finished I tipped my helmet up looked over my shoulder and saw a rag on the table a couple feet away had caught on fire from welding spatter. Yep, I was cursed Friday.

After the rag fire I realized that rushing through this was not the answer so I took a second and looked up tubing notchers online in the computer lab. I found that Speedway motors has one for $100. It has a 40-90 deg range and it comes with a 1 3/4" blade. I've decided that I'll just buy one of those and take my time to do this right when school starts up again in January. I do get 2 more days in the shop before the break so I'll get some little things on my list knocked out.

I guess the moral of Friday's story is another reminder to not rush through things and learn to laugh at the irony of things that go wrong. I always try to do that and enjoy later telling my wife my funny "fail" stories as we both have a good laugh together.

Anybody else have days like this?

Hey, love the car. My father was a huge Oldsmobile fan, I have a few myself now. Iv had alot of days like your Friday, iv had my hand crushed under a car, saw blades explode, fires, just about everything go wrong that can go wrong. Sometimes it's just best to walk away for awhile before you and up doing more harm then good. Good luck with the olds, I'll be watching for updates.

Ryan

Thanks Ryguy!

Lots of updates- first some dash planning. Pro-Comp gauges have the same font that my factory cluster has...

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/5447_d.jpg

They only come in 2 5/8" rather than the Sport-comp 2 1/6" so I can only fit 3 across instead of the 4 I originally planned. They also don't have the Diff temp gauge in this line but I can live without it. I'm willing to bet even if I road course the car I won't overheat the rear axle so I probably won't need to keep an eye on it. So here's a very quick photoshop mockup of my dash...

Mods will include a new black complete dash cover, adding the 160 speedo, painting all factory gauge needles red, deleting all dash vents except lower heater and windshield defrost, and all fakie wood grain areas replaced with brushed aluminum. I also have a Grant steering wheel with brushed aluminum spokes. Three center gauges will be Water temp, Oil temp, and Trans temp. Gauge on the left will be a brake pressure gauge. Shift light 3 3/8" tach will go on top of the dash in the left corner by the windshield pillar. On the dual pillar pods will be an a/f gauge along with a digital gear indicator like Ken Block's rally car.

Only thing to decide now is the color of the gauge rings. The Autometer dealios come with a silver bezel, but I'm leaning towards painting them black, see bottom photo. Thoughts?

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...dashmock01.jpg

I found and bought this guy wasting time on ebay today. It lights up and screams at you, perfect for the Pumkinator motif. If it's large enough I'll hang it from the rear view mirror as my new g-force-o-meter for video viewers, if not I'll keep it as a fun key chain.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...Pumpkinkey.jpg

I took a quick breather recently to update my wagon's concept rendering. Added the brake ducts in the front bumper, the fender vents, factory mirrors, tucked the rear bumper, a new graphic to the side, and of course the new wheels.

I also changed some plans for the front turn signals for two reasons. First, the lenses on my light buckets were only manufactured for two years and they're a bit banged up. Finding nice ones has yeilded pretty much a big zee-ro. I've also been struggling on how to come up with a cost effective ram air hood system and everything I dream up will take too much work time and/or $. So today I removed the turn signals from the light bezels and I liked what I saw.

The turn signal holes will become a ram air inlet with two tubes merging into one near the throttle body. I'm still working out the air filters. I ordered some 6.25" wide combination white daytime driving light/ amber turn signal LED lights today. The holes I made in the bumper are about 8.5" wide, so using the brackets that come with the lights I will mount them "floating" in the center of the holes, and as the air flows through it will still be plumbed for brake cooling. Although it now sort of looks like an strange S10, I think it was a good compromise and a good final design. Let me know what you think, thanks!

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...finalnew10.jpg

This past Friday I went by the junk yard to grab some parts I scouted out earlier in the week. I definitely scored some great deals.

First off I'd like to thank the previous owner of this early 90s Camaro for installing Edelbrock rear lower control arms before the car made it to the wrecking yard. New price is $205 from Summit, only $10 (!) for the pair from the wrecking yard. Fighting a rusted bolt and 3 very tight ones was absolutely worth the effort.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...onorCamaro.jpg

They have a little surface rust and the paint is beat up but other than that they're in great shape, no dents or other issues mechanical issues.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...nator/LCA1.jpg

Next up is this trailer hitch I pulled from a 78-79ish Elcamino. I checked Draw Tight's website to get an idea for what a new one is worth, but they don't make the g-body hitch anymore with the larger 2" receiver, they only list a whimpy class 2 with the small 1 1/4" receiver. I made out ok with this too, only $25 and except for paint it's in great shape. My Nova is set up to flat tow with a tow bar so it'll be perfect for that or towing a small trailer or car on a tow dolly. Although the hitch has a decent tongue weight rating I doubt my lowered suspension would like towing something bigger too much.

Plans are to modify the mounts so it's directly behind the bumper rather than underneath. I'll cut a square hole and use a custom ball mount with an SCCA style tow hook attached for racing and of course a ball when towing.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/Hitch1.jpg

Got some miscellaneous stuff too. The seat back/ arm rest is from the back seat of an Astro Van. I'll use it in the front between the buckets, and build a simple base so I can have one of my kids sit up front. It'll fold down as an armrest when not being used as a seat back. The vents are from a 79 Pontiac LeMans. I'll have them set up for heating the front and the rear, they're pretty cool because they swivel 360 deg to direct air flow. I grabbed a couple rear marker lights from the El Camino, mine are a little hammered. The jack will fit nicely in my modified spare tire well, and the low profile height will work perfectly with the lowered stance of the car. $10 for everything here.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...Miscparts2.jpg

These Caddy engine covers caught my eye as the 2010 Camaro cover I bought just won't look right on the truck intake. Two are plastic and one aluminum, and I thought I might modify them a little. For $10 total for all three I figured it wasn't a big loss if I cut them up and it didn't work out so I went ahead and grabbed them. The runners on the truck intake don't look so bad but everything sticking out of the top looks terrible. I'm thinking to trim down the aluminum one to just the center rectangle to cover the top of the intake, then cut one side off each plastic one to cover the coil pack areas. We'll see how it goes...

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l.../Cadcover1.jpg

Now for some new goodies.

I got this dual gauge pod from gbodyparts.com. They had the best price I could find at $50 including shipping. Seemed a bit steep for a mass produced thermoformed thin piece of plastic, but I guess you gotta pay if you wanna play. My interior is currently totally stripped out but mocking it up where it will go it looks like it won't be a perfect fit for my car, for sure one of the screw holes doesn't line up at all and not so sure everything else will exactly either. Maybe the wagons have different pillars? Either way I don't think it will take much to make it fit well.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l.../Pillarpod.jpg

Bunch of stuff from Speedway motors- My car is stock with light blue seat belts so I picked up a black retractable seat belt that will be for the jumper seat up front, an aluminum radiator hose extension tube tapped for a drain or gauge, some aluminum hood pins, a pair of circle track spindle savers, and a 9" to g-body rear axle bracket kit with the multi position LCA mounts and the brake caliper brackets, and finally my tubing notcher kit.

The fan in the upper left is from Roush Yates, it's a circle track item that is typically used to either cool the brakes or the driver. Despite being small and running off 12 volts it really cranks! I've removed all the factory big-n-ugly g-body HVAC housing and will build a custom heating system that will all be tucked under the dash, more on that as I get more parts for it in.

Next to the fan is a pair of "euro style" (woohoo, now I can pretend my car is a BMW) LED Daytime Running Lights. Cool thing is they also have built in amber turn signals so these will get mounted in the holes I created in the front bumper.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l.../Miscparts.jpg

I also got this radiator from Speedway. It's 31" wide and has a "double pass" flow. With 3- 1" tubes they say it cools like a 5 core traditional radiator, and I liked this one because the inlet and outlet are both on the passenger side, just like on the LS water pump. This should help clean up the engine bay a bit. Unfortunately it's taller than the factory radiator so I'll need to modify the radiator support to make it fit.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...nator/Rad1.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...nator/Rad2.jpg

I picked up these LS F-body rotors and ceramic pads as a kit form ebay. Joe at Bulldawg said he's had some success with these and suggested for the price they can't be beat. I'm sure they're cheap-junk Chinese parts, but so is the stuff you buy at the auto parts store anymore and this kit at $180 was way cheaper than anything local. Remember this is a budget build. :)

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...or/Rotors1.jpg

Here's a few shots of the motor mock-up. In the photo it's pushed back about an inch from the stock location. I think I can slightly modify the firewall and get another 1/2" back out of it.

Driver's side...

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l.../EngClear1.jpg

Passenger side...

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l.../EngClear2.jpg

Here you can see the factory Tahoe oil pan is way too low. Joe from Bulldawg Muscle Cars is sponsoring my car a bit with a few parts, the GM muscle car LS oil pan kit is one of these items. I should have it in a couple days, thanks Joe!!

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...or/OilPan1.jpg

I made a trip to the local Sherwin Williams auto paint store today for supplies. While there I got pricing on the paint I want. Officially it's called "Toxic Orange" and is used on 2010+ Challengers, Chargers and Vipers. It's also called Mango Tango with the same paint code and used under that name on the more docile cars and Jeeps. We compared a paint chip to satin black and it all matches well. I was hoping for less wallet damage, but between primer and paint even with a student discount I'm looking at right around $1000. Ouch! Oh well, gotta be done. I better get a few more renderings whipped out...

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...xic_orange.jpg

VHT recently came out with a "Burnt Copper" high heat engine paint. Here I sprayed it on some pvc pipe to see how close it matches the paint cap. It's a real nice burnt orange, but I think it may be off a bit from the Toxic Orange body paint. I forgot to take it with me today so I'll run it by on Thursday to compare to the paint chip. If it's not close enough I can always get some high heat additive and use a little Toxic orange for the motor.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...nginepaint.jpg

I bought this heat switch from ebay for my home-made heater system. It has has 4 positions, has the resister built in to the switch, and is illuminated. Only problem is it looks a little old school and cheapish and in the ebay photo it looked black but is actually brown. I think next time I'm at the junkyard I'll look at some of the more modern switch knobs they have and may be able to adapt it to this housing. Sorry for the blurry photo, my camera is like my eyes, can't see anything up close, lol!

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...heatswitch.jpg

I've been looking all over for some cup holders to build into the center console and recently found these tucked in the corner of the Walmart automotive section. I wanted some stainless showing and it had to be big enough to fit a 20 oz. bottle of soda-pop and a large convenience store fountain drink. These will do after some slight modification. They were also the least expensive thing I could find at just under $6 each.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l.../cupholder.jpg

I also got in my brake pressure gauge. I bought this one off ebay too because the font matches the rest of my gauges. Crazy thing is it comes with fittings for high pressure nylon tubing but no actual tubing. That's kinda dumb. I looked in the Speedway catalog and saw they have long braided lines specifically for gauges so I'll have to grab one of those.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...kepressure.jpg