Judge Mills' 81' El Camino Build Thread

[Judge Mills]

The gauges are wired, turn on with the ignition, lights turn on with the headlight switch. PERFECT! I still need to either tap in to the existing water temp sending unit, or install the new one. I may keep it until I install the 350.

I'm not super impressed with the AutoMeter pod. It's okay, but I should have bought the one from Gbodyparts.com and had a one piece install. Maybe later down the road when I'm worried about cosmetics, but for right now, this works great.


I need to pick up an engine stand, but this spare tire will do. This oil pan is NOT going in the Elk. Has anyone ever seen these valve covers before?

 

[Judge Mills]

Update: I've taken the El Camino off insurance for the year so I can focus on improvements. After running the numbers on the heads and the cam, they will absolutely NOT work together. The heads are crack prone low lift 70's pieces, and the cam's lift is in the .520's. I think what I'll do at this point is be on the lookout for Vortec heads, try to sell the cam on Craigslist, and find something smaller. At this point, I should probably tear the rest of the block down and look at the work they did, as I'm not confident, since they didn't even put a crank bolt in to hold the balancer. At this point, I'm guessing I won't have that engine in for at least 12 months, as I'm not even done with the suspension upgrades yet.

In the meantime, I've been making small improvements to the 305 to try to improve its driveability. It has a hesitation right when you press on the gas, so first I changed the plug wires with Jegs 8mm. It runs a little better, but that didn't fix the hesitation. Now i'm in the process of stabbing a vacuum advance distributor. I got it all installed around 11 pm last night, so I'm about to walk out the door and see if it'll fire up.

 

[Judge Mills]

Success! First try, it ran. At some point, I'll need to hook up the vacuum advance. I'm very happy though, I don't hear the hesitation now.

 

[Judge Mills]

Back in November, I picked up a set of used UMI lower control arms on Craigslist for a great price. I'm just now getting around to installing them. So far, so good!

 

[Mrockatansky]

Excellent find on the control arms. They look great.

If you don't mind me asking, what sort of ballpark were they in cost wise?

Would totally consider finding a used set for my build.

 

[O. D. Showtime]

Looking good Miles!

 

[Judge Mills]

Excellent find on the control arms. They look great.

If you don't mind me asking, what sort of ballpark were they in cost wise?

Would totally consider finding a used set for my build.

I paid $250 plus a few hours of driving each way. Totally worth it! I usually never find deals, so I was pretty happy.

 

[Garrett1982]

I paid $250 plus a few hours of driving each way. Totally worth it! I usually never find deals, so I was pretty happy.

Great deal. Did the previous owner upgrade to a coilover setup or something?

 

[Judge Mills]

Great deal. Did the previous owner upgrade to a coilover setup or something?

He said he wanted to switch to a lighter lower control arm, as he was setting his Malibu up for drag. He said the UMI's worked great, and handled on the street well, but was changing the purpose of the car. I forget the company he was switching to, but the upper arms he had were fully adjustable. A lot different that UMI's arms. I'm going for handling, maybe a little bit of autocross, so this is exactly what I was looking for.

 

[Judge Mills]

Small update:

I hadn't posted it before in this thread, but I'm using Moog 5660's up front, which is 590 lb spring rate.

I measured up my factory sway bar, 1 1/16", and ordered up poly end links and sway bar bushings. I also gave the sway bar a quick shot of Rustoleum. Please tell me I put my sway bar on right. I didn't even think about it until I looked at the picture.

Besides replacing one of the tie rod ends, I may be done with the front suspension until next Fall/Winter. I think the next focus is on saving up for three more Cragar Soft 8's and tires to go with them.