BUILD THREAD JRP's '87 Regal Thread

[joesregalproject]

Okay, okay my brain is still on full Ford mode but it's time to get back to this thing. The truck is in one piece and driveable and all I'm doing with it now is collecting parts for an axle swap. I've got the chicken coop completed to a point that all I have to do now is open the door for them in the morning and close it at night and make sure they have food and water, so I'm good on that front.

I met with Doug Chahoy today and he gave me a bunch of parts for the Regal so I can get working on it.

My control arms both front and rear are all really rusty and need to be addressed. If you put them in a blast cabinet they'd probably disintegrate. I was going to go with the stock style Moog ones or the Dorman ones for the front, but Doug gave me all the ones off of his El Camino that was originally a California car, so they are nice and rust free. He also gave me the brake backing plates which I need. And he gave me some nice spindles, useable brake rotors, calipers, front coils, even some good brake pads! Thanks again Doug!

I'm going to get these cleaned up and I might have my buddy powdercoat them for me, or otherwise I'll paint them. I'm also going to order new control arm bushings, ball joints and wheel bearings from RockAuto.

Anyways these should go a long way towards cleaning up the engine bay and front end of the car so I can get closer to putting the engine in!

 

[DRIVEN]

Are you going tall ball joints?

 

[joesregalproject]

May as well since I'm swapping them out. The tall ball joints don't have many downsides and they should be decent bang for the buck.

 

[joesregalproject]

I spent some time just looking the car over today and trying to get somewhat of a plan thought up. I can say with absolute certainty I do not want to put a nice clean rebuilt engine into a dirty engine bay. The appearance of the engine bay is probably what is bothering me most right now.

I want to repaint the firewall, core support and frame rails, clean and possibly paint the inner fenders (passenger side is cracked, probably should be replaced), and do something about the HVAC box, it has a hole in the bottom of it, it needs resealed, And I'd really prefer a heat only box anyways. Obviously I also want to remove and rebuild all the front suspension stuff as well with the new parts I got from Doug Chahoy and new bushings ball joints, etc.

Being that I want to do all of that, I think the only way I'm going to get the result I want is by removing the front clip. It's not a huge deal, except that I do not want to **** up the paint. So I'm going to have to be careful like a surgeon disassembling it. The hood shouldn't be bad, I should just be able to lift it straight up and set it on the roof. The bumper fillers may be a little tricky but again shouldn't be that hard. The header panel should not be difficult. The fenders are the only part I'm a little nervous about. They don't just lift or slide right off, they usually require some fiddling. So I'll have to tape all the edges and just be very careful.

Anyways, that's about where my plan is for getting back to the Regal.

 

[fleming442]

2 hr job- you done yet?

 

[joesregalproject]

2 hr job- you done yet?

2 hours when you are throwing the parts into a big pile on the garage floor!

 

[DRIVEN]

Take as long as necessary. End result is going to be really nice.
You sure you don't want AC? Never know, you may want to do a cross country trip or Power Tour some day.

 

[Texas82GP]

I spent some time just looking the car over today and trying to get somewhat of a plan thought up. I can say with absolute certainty I do not want to put a nice clean rebuilt engine into a dirty engine bay. The appearance of the engine bay is probably what is bothering me most right now.

View attachment 126802View attachment 126803

I want to repaint the firewall, core support and frame rails, clean and possibly paint the inner fenders (passenger side is cracked, probably should be replaced), and do something about the HVAC box, it has a hole in the bottom of it, it needs resealed, And I'd really prefer a heat only box anyways. Obviously I also want to remove and rebuild all the front suspension stuff as well with the new parts I got from Doug Chahoy and new bushings ball joints, etc.

Being that I want to do all of that, I think the only way I'm going to get the result I want is by removing the front clip. It's not a huge deal, except that I do not want to **** up the paint. So I'm going to have to be careful like a surgeon disassembling it. The hood shouldn't be bad, I should just be able to lift it straight up and set it on the roof. The bumper fillers may be a little tricky but again shouldn't be that hard. The header panel should not be difficult. The fenders are the only part I'm a little nervous about. They don't just lift or slide right off, they usually require some fiddling. So I'll have to tape all the edges and just be very careful.

Anyways, that's about where my plan is for getting back to the Regal.

Depending on the level of perfection you are going for, it is possible to get a pretty decent result with the front clip on. Look at mine. I think it looks pretty good, considering what I started with and that I painted it with a brush...

 

[DRIVEN]

I was pretty fortunate with mine. I was able to get everything really clean with degreaser and scrub brushes. Rattle canned the rails. Looks decent but certainly not show quality. If I replaced my bottles, like above, it'd look a lot better.

 

[joesregalproject]

Take as long as necessary. End result is going to be really nice.
You sure you don't want AC? Never know, you may want to do a cross country trip or Power Tour some day.

There has been no rush up to this point, I'm not going to start rushing now. Thanks for the vote of confidence.

I'm fairly certain I want the AC gone, being it's not something I'm driving every day. A long road trip is never out of the question. I've never done a Power Tour but it's not out of the question either. I suppose I can regret it later when I'm sweating like a pig.

Jared your engine bay looks great. Unfortunately with all the layers of grease and dust and paint on mine and being that I want to remove the AC box, I think it may wind up just being easier to pull the clip. Having the clip off should also make it easier to repair the cracked inner wheel arch and I just found a rust hole that I never noticed before in my core support, so I might wind up replacing it. I'll get some more pictures up here soon.