New member, new project Cutlass..

[LWillmann]

Well, it's been a REALLY, REALLY long time since I've been here... Almost a year since my last stop in...

Before I go any further, let me tell you all about the sway bar experience. I ordered the ST sway bars from Summit. They showed up one day, just two days after I ordered them, and I noticed that the box for the front bar had a hole in the end of it and the bar would poke out because it would slide around. Well, I get the bars inside the garage and open that box and discover that the bar was broken! I had never seen anything like it before in my life. I'll let the picture speak for itself:


I've gotten a bunch done over that year, but not near enough to get the car on the road to be honest. But the end is in sight, I think.

I have lots and lots of pics of the whole experience so far.

Once I got the factory engine and trans out of the car, we rolled it out of the garage and degreased the engine bay. Then after letting it dry for a day or so, we rolled it back in and put it back on the stands and went to work on the rear suspension swap.

The old rear was a 2.73 open diff. The new one is 3.73 posi out of a 87 Monte SS. Before installing the new rear I cleaned it and undercoated it. I pressed all the old control arm busings out (223k miles, I figured it was time for new ones), and had the arms sandblasted, then undercoated them as well. Reinstalled the rear with new Bilstein HD shocks and Eiback ProKit springs. After this, I installed a new pinion seal, followed by a TrickFlow cover/girdle and Suspension Techniques 1" solid rear sway bar. That should round out the rear suspension.

Oh, taught my 9 year-old son how to do drum brakes on the car. He did one side on his own!

A few pics of the rear suspension stuff:






Then I moved to the front suspension. I replaced the stock shocks and springs with Bilstein HD's and Eibach Prokit springs, installed a Suspension Techniques 35mm solid sway bar, and center link, idler arm, inner and outer tie rods on both ends so I'd have fresh steering hardware.

A few pics of the front suspension:






A buddy came to help drop the engine and trans into the car, but we ran into problems. The driver's side motor mount wouldn't fit. It just wouldn't line up for anything. So the next day I pulled the engine back out of the car and got to looking at the part numbers stamped on the mounts and got to looking around and found that some people used the same number as one of mine on both sides of the engine so I ordered a matching pair like that one. Once they came in, I cleaned them up painted them and bolted them to the block.





Here you can see that the two mounts were different, the longer one was the driver's side one:

[LWillmann]

Had to split this up because of all the pics...

With that completed, it was time to strip rust from the front frame rails and get the engine bay painted for engine/transmission installation. That took me a few days, but I got the black stuff black again, and was ready for install. I mated the transmission to the engine, and proceeded to slide the engine and transmission down into the car. The slid down into place and with just a little coaxing on the driver's side, it dropped right into place and the bolts slid right through the motor mounts.





Became:










We put the trans crossmember up under the trans and set it on the frame and the car has set like that since. I haven't really messed with the car since then. I haven't had time to touch the car for the last couple of months.

I'm one guy with a muscle disease (Muscular Dystrophy) and have problems getting time and energy to work on the car by myself. So it's taken a long time to get to this point.

I have gotten one more significant (to me) part of this project completed, and that's my gauge panel. The car had a single long-arm speedometer with idiot lights, and I'm replacing them with a custom gauge panel with 6 gauges. Most people just use the rallye-pack gauges, but I'm going further by doing my own custom cut aluminum panel and Autometer gauges with LEDs for turn signals, high-beam, and transmission gear indicator.

Gauge panel pics:







Let me see if this posts and I'll go back and pics.

Hopefully, this is the last edit:

I have my G-Force crossmember now. I also have what I hope to be all the small wiring, my split-loom, and connectors for my gauges too.

I need to install the tranny mount, install the new crossmember, driveshaft, do the wiring on the engine and gauges, install radiator, hook up the fans (dual electric) and finish out a few other odds and ends and I think it'll be ready to drive before TOO long.

Oh and I need tires for the IROC wheels I'll be using temporarily. Need some 245/50-16's for these wheels.

I want some 17" Torque Thrust II's for the car, but don't have the money right now.