79 Olds Cutlass Wagon school project...

[SRD Art]

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.



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.

[SRD Art]

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.



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.



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...

[SRD Art]

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.



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.



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.





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.

[SRD Art]

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...



Passenger side...



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!!

[SRD Art]

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...



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.



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!

[SRD Art]

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.



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.

[SRD Art]

Here are some shots of the Speedway tubing notcher. It's ultra simple and very easy to use. Only 2 complaints- the numbers are a sticker. Human error shows it's placed about 2 degrees off, but that's easy enough to compensate for when measuring. But also, just the fact that it's a sticker and the WD-40 I use to lube the saw as its cutting soaked right into it. I know eventually it'll peel off so at some point I need to get the dremel tool out and grind all the marks permanent.

Cutting the tubing this way went so well. The first few cuts were off slightly but still weldable. After I got a good feel for how to use it resulted in some real nice snug fitment. I LIKE IT! One of the best $100 I've spent.





Here's the mock up of the cage so far. The back half is all welded as a unit as is the main hoop. I started on the front bars today and by Thursday I should have all the sections in the car and welded together. Because of pipe limitation I decided to triangulate the braces instead of doing an x brace. Should still be pretty stiff. I've decided to paint it Krylon aluminum with a satin clear to match the silver accents on the black and orange interior. The photo shows it in bare metal.



I should have the rotisserie to the school by Friday so early next week I'll have the frame out and then the fun really begins!

[youthpastor]

Originally Posted by SRD Art

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.



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.

Nice Score! I love hearing about these deals!

[SRD Art]

A few more photos...

Here's the complete roll bar mocked up in the car. Again I wasn't necessarily after conforming to any particular type/ class of racing, although I think if I did the correct door bars it would be legal for under 11.90s at the strip. The biggest reasons for building it were 1. To learn how to build one from scratch, 2. To stiffen up the car, and 3. To create something that didn't look like a mass produced unit yet still have the strength of one, and 4. add a cool element of design.

I didn't want to weld the bar to the frame, mostly because I wanted the bars in the car for strength when I put the body on the rotisserie so I can start strengthening the chassis and building the rear suspension. While I'm in there welding up the bars I will weld them to 1/8" thick plates which will be welded to the floor. When it's all back together bolts will go through the floor and down through the frame to tie it all together.

Without the seats in...









Notice in the photos above that the cage sits on a ledge from the main hoop forward. I knew once I got the rear section welded to the hoop welding the last little bit on the top was going to be difficult, especially since I've never done anything like this before. I know its typical to cut the floor out and drop the cage down but it's so tight to the roof I didn't think there'd be enough room since the frame is not far from the floor here. Several of the older guys in the program suggested cutting a couple holes in the roof, weld up the bars and then welding roof patches in. I didn't want to do that so a hunch said cut the body seam on the floor and bend it down (red arrow), bang the top seam out of the way (green arrow) then tugging on the partially welded cage would allow access to the top as it dropped out of the car on one side and down into the feet well on the other side. I got it within 1/8" of dropping down and it was pretty much stuck. Not willing to give up I gave the side that would drop into the feet well a little kick and the bar had enough flex to drop down and it fell right out of the car on the other side. This allowed plenty of welding access and it didn't take that much effort to get it back into place. I did the same on the opposite side, a little kick and it popped right out.

[SRD Art]

One problem I ran into while making the front bars was I ran out of bar. The last bar to bend was the floor bar for the passenger side and it was about 6 or 7" too short. So I grabbed piece of scrap practice tubing and carefully stitch welded them together. In the second photo you can see the end result, it came out pretty nice. There was some mild warpage and you can still feel where the weld was but I think it's good enough that if I didn't say anything it won't be noticed. Although I originally was going to have plain painted bars I may cover these floor bars with some vinyl that matches the seats. The rest of these photos are pre-welding, testing fit with the seats in. I need to oblong the driver's seat bolt holes a little to move the seat inward about 1/4" for door bar clearance, but other than that everything fits great.