73 on a slow road to recovery... by Done Yet?

9 minute(s) of a 308 minute read

Back to work....

I was able to open the backyard bodyshop up for about 8 hours over this past weekend. I already had the drivers side wheel house in position and held in place with a few self tapping screws, now it was time to fit the quater skin. I will be leaving the lip on the skin that bends in at the b-pillar, so i needed to remove the old quater metal on that edge allowing the new skin to sit at the same height as the old panel.

Then i trimmed up the rear portion of the skin where it meets the tail panel

Once the front and rear were pretty close i clamped the panel in place and drew a line across the top where the long weld seam will be. Since this edge will be flanged i measured the jaws of my flanging tool, measured that distance down from the line drawn on the car and trimmed off the rest of the metal using a cutoff wheel and tape as my guide. I also cut about a 1/4 inch notch at both ends of this seam so i would be able to flange the top edge all the way to the ends. Ive read how most people flange the lip on the skin but i decided i would rather have my inside seam pointing down rather than up and flanged the existing metal on the old quater. Since the metal that was flanged is a little thicker than the skin the depth of the flange makes the skin sit a hair higher than the old quater. Which is fine because the heat from the weld will shrink this area a little when welded and require less filler to hide the seam. Heres a few pics of that work.

The skin was then placed onto the car and i began to fasten it into place. At the rear of this panel i tried to fit the section where the single outer bumper mounting hole is located, under the tail panel like to original quater but could not get my body lines even close. With that lip on the outside of the tail panel all the lines are much closer. So i bent that section of the tail panel inward just a little and will weld my skin over top, when finished a little seam sealer sanded smooth and the bumper on it will never be seen. Heres a pic of what im talking about.

My skin must have went on and off at least 20 times during this whole process, a little trim here and grind there until i was happy with how everything fit. I believe it is now ready to be welded into place along with the outer wheel house. So after 8 hours of trimming and fitting this is what i wound up with.

10-31-2010

Sat & Sun Updates....

I started out marking all of the weld points before removing the 1/4 skin and the outer wheel house. Once both panels were removed i had a few areas of bare metal that needed priming before installtion of these two panels. Those areas were primed so all metal hidden under the 1/4 and wheel house now have epoxy prime on them, to help develeoping any hidden rust. I worked on the 2 panels drilling all of the weld points and removing any primer around each hole on both sides of the panel so my welds do not get contaminated.

Both panels were put back on the car to mark all of the weld points between the wheel house and the inner rocker and the wheel house and the new 1/4 skin. I used a magic marker and marked each location through the holes that were drilled.

Once all weld points were clean the wheel house was put back on and welded into its final resting palce. I probably went a little over kill on the amount of welds holding this panel on, But stronger is always better. Here are a few pics of the wheel house welded and then with all of the welds ground down. I dont know why i bothered grinding these weld since they will not be seen,But i just had to clean them up some before the primer. Heres a few pics of that work.

Once all of the welds were ground down, i blew everything off with my air gun, wiped everything off with wax and grease remover and coated all of the bare metal with a generous coat of epoxy primer. I really wanted to get my 1/4 skin tacked on but with all of the paint fumes i didnt think that would be a good idea. So Next up will be the 1/4 skin stay tuned for more updates. Thanks for stoppin by. Rob

11-2-2010

A good phone call....

While at work today a good friend of mine called to let me know he finished building my motor. He owns a machine shop and he was going to work on my engine when things were slow, he knew i was in no rush, being my car isnt even a roller at present. Any how i had to go there and take a look, So after work i stopped home grabbed the camera and went to my buddies shop. Here is a quick rundown of some of the internals.

383 cubic inch stroker
4-Bolt 350 Block bored 30 over
Eagle forged crank
PBM Heads
202 intake 106 exhaust
PBM intake air gap
PBM roller rokers
SRP flat top pistons 11:1
6" I Beam rods
Lunati Custom Ground cam (small base circle)
Valve lift Int 525 Exh 546
Lobe lift Int .350 Exh .364
Adv Dur Int 284 Exh 292
Lunati springs, pushrods, lifters, and timing gears
The heads and intake were gasket matched, and exhaust ports cleaned up and polished by me. Im stoked to hear it run but for now im gonna leave it at the machine shop until im ready to drop it in the car due to lack of space. At this point the valves are not adjusted while it justs sits there waiting for me to finish the car. Im not one who likes chrome under the hood and i even thought about painting the intake and heads but changed my mind for now. I would rather put the money inside the motor than ontop of it, just my prefference. Any how here are a few pics of my motor.