Galeaiii's 1986 Monte SS Build Thread

[galeaiii]

Wow, right at 1 year since I've updated this thread! I didn't make the Monte Nationals last year but I did this year & won an award but more on that later. I also did not get the Grand Prix dash swap done last year, but I am almost complete with it now and only have some finishing touches to do to be done. The Monte has been out of comission for most of this year with some needed improvements.
First was the rear end. There has been some unwanted vibrations coming from back there so I took it out for a quick rebuild. New seals & bearings.





Next up was my long awaited GP dash swap. I ordered some American Made Speed Hut gauges designed by me. My first thought was to put them in a sheet of carbon fiber and mount them to the front of my bezel, but after lookin at a lot of customized GP dashes I didn't really like the look. so I removed the original gauges from their pods and modified the pod to accept the aftermarket ones...

From this.....


To this....




Then next some more modifications to get the bezel to fit properly..


Once everything fit properly it was time for paint. I think I spent like 3 nights after work just cleaning. This is a job you only want to do once and not again!

From Green to Grey....




Up next was the part I dredded most removal of the old dash, install of the new dash and all of the wireing.....


The best help a dad could ever ask for.....

 

[galeaiii]

Now time for the real fun part....




Gauges going in....







Now its time for the carbon fiber that I spoke of.....





from blah to yeah....







The nearly completed dash.




That leads me to this year's Monte Nationals..

On the road to Bowling Green. Smiles....




Untill this happened.... :-(




Which lead to my award....




To make a long story short, it seems that from the factory the hot and ground for the fans are zip tied together and over the pas 5 years they wore just enough of the insulation on the wires down enough that one strand of each came in contact with each other & you know the rest of the story... But after a few fowl words because of burnt fingers I managed to "engineer" a solution and got on my way..





That is all I have for now. I do have the repair parts for the fan but not the time to do the repairs right now because of work, but between work and all of the rain we've been getting I wouldn't be enjoying Mrs. Christine right now any ways...

 

[mr evil]

Well let me be first to say great job!! Dash and gauges look great, as well as the car!
Can't wait to see what you'll have to post for next year lol