Thanks guys! I've been so busy lately I miss being here on the forum as often, but I totally agree on two cars being too much lol. So that's been the point of this huge push this past couple weeks, I took two weeks off work to kickstart this Chevelle resurrection, get my own car back, and clear my plate so I can put my full attention on the Charger. It didn't quite land me in the endzone but I'm getting pretty damn close!
Started with finishing off that crossmember notch I mentioned before so I could get the engine and trans in place. Actually came out pretty nice, and most importantly IT FITS.
Then I set my sights on boxing up the flimsy chebbie C-channel frame. Took quite a bit of work to cut out my boxing sections and get a good fit, but all things considered it went pretty well and the frame is strong as hell now
Now since the trans crossmember normally mounts up inside the C-channel, I had to get a little creative here. With the drivetrain in its final position, I welded each end of the crossmember in place inside the c-channel, notched these boxing sections, and basically integrated the crossmember into the frame
Leaving the bottom gap open as the lowest point and a good way to drain any water that ends up in there
Then to make sure I'd still be able to drop the trans, I broke out the trusty sawzall and cut the center section free, widened each cut just enough to slip in two pairs of flanges I had pre-drilled and bolted together, and zapped it together. This should actually make it easier to drop the trans than it was before, as the center section is within both sides of the exhaust, no more wrestling the entire crossmember over the pipes.
You guys might have wondered why I boxed the rear section where there's probably not a whole lot of torsional stress, this was mainly for reinforcement/convenience of mounting the 20 gallon fuel cell cradle. I'm actually really proud of this thing, as it's probably the biggest fabrication project I've done up to this point, and it actually came out nice and square, and perfect as far as the dimensions I was shooting for
After all the practice I was finally starting to get the hang of laying a little better beads haha
Wanted to hang the cell down low below the bumper all "vintage nascar style" half for looks, and half for keeping all the weight of the fuel as low to the ground as possible. The way I measured everything, the top of the cell should be just about 1/8" up from flush with the trunk floor
So now with everything welded up, I did some light grinding to clean up a couple spots, hand sanded, and brushed on some jet black chassis saver. Got lucky and it matched the existing powdercoat really well. All painted up:
Next I bent up my own 3/8" sending and return fuel lines, re-bent the original main brake line I mangled up pulling it from the old frame, drilled and tapped my 3/16" boxed frame sections, and secured all the lines with some insulated clamps and stainless hardware. Also got the fuel pump mounted in the best spot I could find, as close to the fuel cell as possible.
Entire rolling chassis all finished up ready to roll under the body!
:beavisnbutthead:
With that buttoned up I turned my attention to the body, starting with chopping off the fubar front frame section so I could beat the drivers side footwell back straight haha.
Chebbie firewalls have a face only a mother could love, potmarked with random dimples and tiny indentations all over the place, and a massive seam running straight down the middle slopped over with sealer. I decided that wasn't gonna cut it now that I've gone mopar (guess it raises your standards a little lol), so starting this project quite a while back, I spent a good chunk of time smoothing everything out a bit.
Before:
Stripped the sealer, welded the seam every 4-6" where I'd be filling, as well as welding up all the random unused holes
Then a thin layer of All-metal over the seam and welds, followed by 3m platinum plus filler, and some quality time with the longblock sanding it all down.
Some high build primer and sanding..
.. and a fresh couple coats of Hot Rod Flatz Boulevard Black. (The whole car will be repainted with this stuff eventually)
Had to keep in mind before painting, I bought a "6 cylinder/ dual quad" camaro throttle pedal to run a Lokar cable rather than the ugly original throttle rod that looked something like Mad Max's leg brace. Doing this, I had to swap the original mounting holes around so the camaro pedal would bolt up. Luckily it ended up working perfect
Finally the moment of truth! Called up the neighbors in the next shop over who were nice enough to lend a hand, and dropped the body back on the rolling chassis.
Back on the ground for the first time in two and a half years :icon_pray:
So now that I've rolled past that milestone, it's just a mountain of odds and ends getting back on the road, starting with one solid night just cleaning up under-dash wiring and running the sender wires for my gauges. I'm actually going to do things a little different this time around with the wiring, as I'll have a few more accessories with a B&M line lock, headlight halos, and wanting to have the fuel pump on a toggle switch. So in keeping with the ratty, semi-oldschool-nascar-ish theme, I'll be replacing the ashtray with a switchpanel for that stuff, along with a push button for starter cranking. The way everything will work, I'll still be using the key in the ignition to "arm" everything, flip on the fuel pump (or leave it on if I get lazy), hit the push button for cranking, let it run like normal, and kill it like normal by turning the key off. Just to throw a little unique look to everything, I ended up finding these toggle switches with clear covers and white led's when in "on" position. Think they'll look pretty cool in the car :icon_thumleft:
And finally the last bit of progress to report for now, I spent last weekend on the whole front brake system including the B&M line lock I've had sitting in the box for the past 3 years haha. Had to spend almost an hour at Napa going through all their fittings, and another few hours back at the shop bending up my own lines from the straight ones you can buy from Napa. Oh and all the booster/ master cylinder/ brackets/ etc got stripped and repainted with underhood black. Pretty happy with how it all came out
So I
think that's all caught up to where I'm at right now, I'm pushing hard to get this thing back killing tires by Christmas, and at that point I'm looking forward to being all freed up to be back on the Charger. Hope you guys all had an awesome Thanksgiving, now I gotta get caught up on everyone's build threads haha
It's good to be back!
ccasion14:
At least you'll be all practiced up by then right?
