My Car Models

Here are the professional car models I got to pose for me.

Dang they're expensive!

The before shot

Here's a good before pic of the radiator mount and

all the accessories before I began.

It really looks far worse than it actually is.

It was mostly surface rust.

Much Better

Finally starting to get that new car look!

75% Complete

Finally got the radiator mount POR'ed and mounted

YEAH!!! Progress!

Finally got the engine and tranny onto car.

I guess it isn't half bad since this month is the

one year anniversary of us getting the car.

You Like It... You Like It?

Awwww... you know you do!

All I had time for today was the install of the headers, plug wires

and some of the accessories. Dang plug wires takes longer

than you'd expect when you're cutting them to size.

Wiring Time

Now it's time to tackle the spaghetti of wires this thing has.

Nope... not replacing them. Wish I could but can't afford it.

Don't worry.

I used to handle aircraft avionics issues once upon a time...

We can make it better... stronger ... faster...

We have the technology...

Stop Looking at the Hose

Yeah... yeah... I know. Looks horrible.

Ran out of cash for the rest of the year.

I guess I'll have to live with it until I

can the A/C system squared away.

Driver's Header

Here's a side view of the Summit Racing brand

$178 ceramic coated headers. I know a lot of people have

questions about their fit and ground clearance.

I can't see how anyone should have ground clearance

issues with these. They barely hang lower than the subframe.

You'd have to come damn close to bottoming out

the car to do it. Front tires would probably take out the

inner wheel housings if you did and you'd have

bigger problems than a bent exhaust.

Header Side Differences

Here's the difference between the left and right ceramic Summit headers. The passenger side went in super easy. The driver's side was an extreme pain. It wont drop in from the top NOR go in from the bottom (it wont clear the power steering box or dipstick tube). My solution was to raise the front end so the wheels are off the ground then remove the steering box attach bolts and push it down. The wheels will want to pivot in strange directions since the links are still attached (that's why I had the wheels off the ground). Now I had plenty of space and once the header was in place I put the steering box back and the alignment didn't get messed up.

The Before Shot

Well... what do you expect from a 40 year old engine?

It even still has the canister style oil filter.

I had thought it just needed new valve cover gaskets and paint but I found huge deposits of sludge and carbon on the valves and intake. Some... unknown substance in the oil pan and the water jackets were nearly clogged with rust and hardwater, so off to the machine shop it went.

Tape and Prep

Since I still needed to clean the surface before paint, after the trip to the machine shop, I taped every openning with EXTREME prejudice. I used vinyl tape. It held up like a champ with no peeling, melting or loss of adhesion. There was no way any of the POR metal etching/cleaning liquid was going to mess this up now. Check out the yellow color and hazy gray it gave the metal. You should see it up close. This stuff's amazing. I'm hoarding the left overs.

POR Engine Enamel Results

POR engine enamel looks great when done.

Drawbacks- because it uses black POR15 as primer it needs a lot of coats to cover and it is super thin so you can imagine how many. Also, it's so thin, brushing is WAY too difficult and looks bad.

Good Points- The POR engine kit comes with more than enough paint. It also dries fast, so you can do multiple coats in a day, I started early morning and finished in the mid afternoon.

Suggestions- Spray this stuff dont brush it. I sprayed it and I'm EXTREMELY happy with the results! It shines like you can't believe. I'd recommend this stuff in a second!

POR 20 Aluminum

After red dried, I brushed on the POR20

aluminum high temp paint.

Looks good so far, let's see how long it lasts.

Correct Color

Sorry Purists- Orange is just not my favorite color ;-P

This pic gives a better idea of the true (real life) red color.

I was hoping for a more fire engine tone but

this is all POR carried in red (kind of a wine tone).

Front View

Here's a look with valve covers and Pertronix II

distributor installed. I had planned to paint the

Chevrolet script on the covers with silver but

that turned out to be harder than expected.

So I left well enough alone.

Money Shot

Here's a nice shot. Gotta say I'm impressed with the

look of the POR-20 high temp aluminum paint

Nice Closeup

What can I say

I just liked the way this looked

So Close Yet So Far

I'm so close to setting the car back

down on four wheels that I can taste it!

Low $$$ Wheels

I know these are not top of the line wheels but

I still think they look killer. Looks much better with

discs showing than when the drums were installed.

Minne Me and Minne Her

Here's the pit crew admiring Dad's handy work

Was It Worth It?

More time and effort went to getting to this point than I'm willing

to admit. Either way, the car sure needed it. Daniel seems to be

awed by the kickin' disc brake setup and Analisa just loves all

things shiny that say "Hotchkis". I love my kids.

Finished Subframe

Here's my crew chief Daniel with the finished front

suspension featuring the Hotchkis TVS and the

disc brake conversion from Matt's Classic Bowties.

I sure hope this thing handles and stops better!

When Space Is At a Premium

Here's what I had to do when painting my subframe.

It stood on its side amazingly well all by itself.

Notice what little overspray POR 15 gives when sprayed

I love this POR stuff

Check this stuff out. It goes on much better when sprayed.

The only thing that can rival this stuff is powder coat.

Though it's about $130 per gallon I think it's enough to cover my whole car!

All Completed Components

Here are all the major suspension components that I POR'ed.

I gotta say, they mean it when they say "self-leveling"

The bushings are Energy Suspension brand polyurethane and I had them pressed in at my local Pep Boys. They charged the cheapest around here at a nice $100 per hour for a grand total of $215.

OUCH!

I Sure Have a Lot of Neighbors!

You know, you never really know how many neighbors you

have until you start a project like this. Some keep stopping by

when they see progress like this and some just like

to hate all the noise my air tools make.

Hmmm... Oh Well.

Screaming for Assembly!

I could swear I hear these pieces yelling at me...

Put me back together again!!!!!

Boy am I itching to do it.

A Thing of Beauty

Yeah... whatever!

Tell me this don't look like powdercoat or paint!

Nope... I didn't grind down one single original weld or mistake.

Just sandblasted it with my spot blaster (yes it took forever

with a spot blaster but it's all I had) and sprayed on POR 15.

I imagine this looks as close to new/original as the

day it was manufactured.

Money Shot

I love this shot. I'm going to try to recreate this shot

after I have all the suspension components installed.

Ohhhh... I'm so close to setting the car back

down on its own wheels again.

Second try at welding ever!!!

Thanks to my buddy Julio at work who lent me his mig welder I

finally got to try some welding. The left fender was my second

attempt ever. Can you see where the seams are?

(lower right corner in blacked out area)

I Loved welding!!! Thanks Julio

First Welding Attempt EVER!

Here is a pic of the right fender. This was my first try at welding.

A little rough but nothing a thin coat of filler can't fix.

Another Right Fender Weld View

It's amazing what you might accomplish just by trying. Can you imagine how much I would have paid to get these things fixed?!?!?! The holes in the metal were about 4" long and oblong. I use nothing but tips provided by my buddy Julio and "Musclecar", a show on Spike TV's Powerblock on Sunday mornings. Everyone told me I was nuts to learn welding on this car. But the way I saw it was... the fender is trash anyway, if I make it worse who cares and if I save it I save big bucks, keep my original part AND learn something really usefull. Plus satisfy my urge to create.

Next BIG Project

I keep flip flopping. Paint the subframe and upgrade the suspension or move on to the engine. What to do... what to do?

Close up

Here's a close look at the end product of

underhood black made by Eastwood Co.

40 years of Dirt

Was it a surprise when I popped off the chrome trim. There was sooo much dirt packed in there that the tool had a hard time finding the attaching plates. It's actually FAR worse in person than in this picture. You should see the rust holes... FABULOUS!

Leaks, Leaks, and More Leaks

I think this engine sprung a leak from every major gasket

both engine and tranny. This is gonna suck!

Surface Prep

Surface prep consisted of wirewheeling the entire firewall, then sanding followed by hand sanding with scotchbrite pads, then cleaning.

Taped Off

Low budget masked and ready to spray some rust preventer.

POR 15 Covered Firewall

Two coats of POR-15 will hopefully protect this ride

for many more years to come. Dang!!! this stuff is shiny.

I don't think this stuff would make for good paint.

It shows everything.

Side view

Here's a shot of the firewall covered in nothing but POR 15.

What a difference from the original look.

Extreme Closeup

No this isn't going to be a show car. No firewall smoothing here.

Underhood Black paint to come.

My Helping Hand

Here's my son Daniel. It's nice to have a pit crew that gets paid in Oreo's and chocalate milk.

Just a Little Rust

Luckily, from what I can tell it's just surface corrosion.

A Little Rough

This thing looks so rough under the hood it was hard to believe it ran like a top.

No Makeup

It's like seeing a woman with her

makeup off for the very first time.

A little rough huh? Like the saying goes...

Love covers a multitude of sins