BUILD THREAD Janky- A Mexican Monte Clone
- Thread starter UC645
- Start date
Alrighty, picking up from last year:
Car went on the back burner for around a month, but with the 4th of July coming up and a decent break from work along with it, I painted the mirrors, trunk filler, and the quarter extensions in the sketchiest setup I had:
All in all, turned out well. Had a sag in one of the mirrors, but that sanded out decently.
Trunk filler was installed the next week.
Fast forward a bit, Canfield came around and I pulled the trigger on wheels, since Holley discontinued the Rocket Racing wheels I was eyeing.
A square set of Ridler 650s in 18x9.5 with +6mm offset. And here I realized a made a mistake. I had referenced the length of the Foxbody axle before I bought these, only to realize that the website I went with mixed up the Ranger and Fox measurements, and these wheels would be just under a 1/4 inch from the outside edge of the quarter panel. Doh!
This sparked a ton of mulling about, figuring out what the best course of action was, and I came to the conclusion that it’d be best to just throw the kitchen sink at it with a custom width Ford 9 inch. That was ordered last week, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
After all of that, I test fitted the NOS replacement bumper cover I bought at that summer’s Canfield meet:
It actually didn’t fit half bad! Only modifications that were needed was to drill the holes for the bumper corner trim to complete the trim from the quarter panel. Made them larger than necessary to allow for some adjustment of fit.
With nothing else to tackle at the time, I decided to wetsand the quarters and passenger door. Left the driver’s alone due to a small chip that needs repaired.
Not half bad, if I’d say so myself.
After that little dive, I painted the rear bumper cover:
Side note: during this time I learned that the fuel tank I had in the car had the incorrect filler neck in it. When I bought it, the seller said it was from a Cutlass and I didn’t think nothing of it, a G body is a G body after all. Yeah no. The filler neck hit the bumper cover, and I went to the junkyard and robbed a filler neck from a MC there. Went to remove the one from the Cutlass tank, and discovered that filler was brazed in. In my hubris, I thought I could melt the brazing out. I thought wrong, and ruined the tank.
Ended up buying one from Tanks Inc. and it fit perfectly, with that came some fuel system alterations that I didn’t take pictures of, but I’m still running that old Carter pump.
Fast forward a few days and I’m wet sanding the rear bumper cover when I make a mistake and take it clear back to primer on a corner:
Unfortunately I had got the paint and clear really thin here due to my hack setup for painting this cover, and that made burning through the paint shockingly easy.
Had little choice but to attempt my first spot repair, and with a lot of help and pointers from Rktpwrd I did just that:
Should’ve put an application to Serve-Pro, because that looks like it never happened
From there I re-wired everything up front save for the HVAC harness, and made up a little bracket assembly that takes up the space the overflow bottle:
Fast forwarding through this past month, and I’ve wet sanded the roof (THREE BLOODY TIMES):
Acquired a car cover:
Installed most of the rear bumper trim and tail lights:
Installed new taillight sockets and LED bulbs:
Sylvania Zevo LEDs are no joke kinda bright.
Over the last week, I’ve been finishing up odds and ends for the rear, including a trunk lock cover. Long story short, the trunk lid I have was a victim of a break in, and the lock boss is all kinds of messed up, but intact enough to hold a lock. I didn’t think it would be an issue, but it’s rather unsightly:
I put off fixing it because I had no idea where I’d get a patch, and my metal working skills are subpar at best, but I should’ve attempted it. Oh well, not ripping it apart now, maybe at a later date. But this needed covered. I had found this style of lock cover a few years ago with parts I got with the car:
(Continued in next post)
Car went on the back burner for around a month, but with the 4th of July coming up and a decent break from work along with it, I painted the mirrors, trunk filler, and the quarter extensions in the sketchiest setup I had:
All in all, turned out well. Had a sag in one of the mirrors, but that sanded out decently.
Trunk filler was installed the next week.
Fast forward a bit, Canfield came around and I pulled the trigger on wheels, since Holley discontinued the Rocket Racing wheels I was eyeing.
A square set of Ridler 650s in 18x9.5 with +6mm offset. And here I realized a made a mistake. I had referenced the length of the Foxbody axle before I bought these, only to realize that the website I went with mixed up the Ranger and Fox measurements, and these wheels would be just under a 1/4 inch from the outside edge of the quarter panel. Doh!
This sparked a ton of mulling about, figuring out what the best course of action was, and I came to the conclusion that it’d be best to just throw the kitchen sink at it with a custom width Ford 9 inch. That was ordered last week, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
After all of that, I test fitted the NOS replacement bumper cover I bought at that summer’s Canfield meet:
It actually didn’t fit half bad! Only modifications that were needed was to drill the holes for the bumper corner trim to complete the trim from the quarter panel. Made them larger than necessary to allow for some adjustment of fit.
With nothing else to tackle at the time, I decided to wetsand the quarters and passenger door. Left the driver’s alone due to a small chip that needs repaired.
Not half bad, if I’d say so myself.
After that little dive, I painted the rear bumper cover:
Side note: during this time I learned that the fuel tank I had in the car had the incorrect filler neck in it. When I bought it, the seller said it was from a Cutlass and I didn’t think nothing of it, a G body is a G body after all. Yeah no. The filler neck hit the bumper cover, and I went to the junkyard and robbed a filler neck from a MC there. Went to remove the one from the Cutlass tank, and discovered that filler was brazed in. In my hubris, I thought I could melt the brazing out. I thought wrong, and ruined the tank.
Ended up buying one from Tanks Inc. and it fit perfectly, with that came some fuel system alterations that I didn’t take pictures of, but I’m still running that old Carter pump.
Fast forward a few days and I’m wet sanding the rear bumper cover when I make a mistake and take it clear back to primer on a corner:
Unfortunately I had got the paint and clear really thin here due to my hack setup for painting this cover, and that made burning through the paint shockingly easy.
Had little choice but to attempt my first spot repair, and with a lot of help and pointers from Rktpwrd I did just that:
Should’ve put an application to Serve-Pro, because that looks like it never happened
From there I re-wired everything up front save for the HVAC harness, and made up a little bracket assembly that takes up the space the overflow bottle:
Fast forwarding through this past month, and I’ve wet sanded the roof (THREE BLOODY TIMES):
Acquired a car cover:
Installed most of the rear bumper trim and tail lights:
Installed new taillight sockets and LED bulbs:
Sylvania Zevo LEDs are no joke kinda bright.
Over the last week, I’ve been finishing up odds and ends for the rear, including a trunk lock cover. Long story short, the trunk lid I have was a victim of a break in, and the lock boss is all kinds of messed up, but intact enough to hold a lock. I didn’t think it would be an issue, but it’s rather unsightly:
I put off fixing it because I had no idea where I’d get a patch, and my metal working skills are subpar at best, but I should’ve attempted it. Oh well, not ripping it apart now, maybe at a later date. But this needed covered. I had found this style of lock cover a few years ago with parts I got with the car:
(Continued in next post)
However, the hole was too large to properly hide that ugly area, so out came the bondo.
Not half bad. Not as good as a not-so-ugly trunk lock area, but it’ll do.
Wednesday, I took delivery of the white paint for the lower trim:
This stuff’s so white it cuts the crust off it’s toast.
And finally, I finished the vertical bumper trim and the lock cover yesterday, and installed them, along with a very special emblem:
This was a 3 owner car, originally sold new in Florida, and that’s the dealer emblem from the dealership that sold it new back in 1984 as a plain Jane white with tan interior V6 MC. Who woulda thought it’d end up like it currently is?
It’s got a few nicks, but I’m not fixing it, showing it’s age just adds more character to the car.
And finally, I’ll leave with the building blocks for another special touch I’ve come up with:
Here’s hoping I can pull this one off.
Well it's official: I'm absolutely hooked on this build now. I accidentally set the kitchen on fire once, Serv Pro came out and cleaned for an entire week. You do better work.
You still want the neck out of that tank so a replacement can be stuffed in; go find a rad shop. They use oxy-propane or oxy-mapp gas kind of like plumbers do. Might be moot as a lot of shops won't touch a tank even if it has come from a hulk and been in the yard for a long minute. Insurance rates and actuaries are murder on the business.
Similar threads
