BUILD THREAD Rustier then I thought!!!

[RabbitHoleSS]

..................As long as you had fun........................




Nick

I'm not sure how to take this post tbh, so I'll just say yea I did. So has my son. It helps instill a sense of purpose,pride.... accomplishment.
Is a frame off resto for everyone? Not even close. It takes a real commitment and dedication to see it thru(and about 15k). But your advice on replacing floors is spot on, only thing I'd disagree with is splitting the floor, only because it adds a crap ton of welding,grinding and seam sealing.

I’m going out on a limb with this comment, but I’m sure he’s gained A LOT of knowledge and skill along the way also.

More power to him, certainly is a better past time than other things that he could be doing IMHO

Thanks. I appreciate it and your 100% right.Just to be clear, I didn't start the project to have "fun". I started it to learn the ins and outs of my car and as a sort of tribute to my mom. I've never felt more pride in something I've built, then this car. I'd 100% do it again( to a 67 impala ss hopefully). Yes I haven't been able to enjoy driving the car in almost 3 yrs, but it had so many gremlins I couldn't really enjoy driving it anyway. As far as time frame goes. Well I thought I'd be finishing it up this winter 😆 🤣 😂 but I'm guessing next summer will be the relaunch party.

 

[CopperNick]

It isn't fun in the sense of play or happy or laughter. It is fun in the sense of doing and learning and accomplishment. I do get that this is not a recent build but more of historical summary of what you have accomplished since You dove into the project. I would point out that for many builders it is not the finished product, it is the work and challenges. I don't believe that this would be the case for you personally but for others, as soon as the build is done, a price tag gets hung on it and down the road it goes; and in comes the next challenge. Expressed alternatively, they live for the project.

Me, I always try to look for the fun in it all because if there is no joy or satisfaction in what is getting done or in what I have learned, then all it is, is work; and for that all you really need is a job.



Nick

 

[Hurricane77]

No disagreement here on that score, Mr. 64, For myself I wouldn't wish a floor pan job on anybody. Been there, done that, on my own Monte and no matter how much time you might budget for the work, it always takes longer, gets lot dirtier, and raises your blood pressure higher than recommended. In my case the only saving grace was that it was not my daily driver so I could come and go on the work as time allowed. And it almost always becomes a case of "While you're in there" as the floor pan work revealed that I had damage to the firewall under the heater box and that had to be cut away and replaced as well. Sorry, no photos of me in my bunny suit, sitting on the floor in the empty engine bay and applying wire feed love to the problem; it's better that way.



Nick

So I guess you're not going to come help me with this then?

 

[mclellan83]

 

[RabbitHoleSS]

So I guess you're not going to come help me with this then?

View attachment 195805

That's gonna be all kinds of "fun"

 

[CopperNick]

Ey-upp. but me being the suspicious sort that I am, thinking here that i might be looking at the picked over remains of a donor car for another project not in the picture.



Nick

 

[Hurricane77]

Ey-upp. but me being the suspicious sort that I am, thinking here that i might be looking at the picked over remains of a donor car for another project not in the picture.



Nick

Unfortunately no

That's the one I'm committed to.

I was looking for an alternate - something a little less work. Though I had a line of something reasonably priced. Three time I tried to get the guy to let me come look at it. Every time I asked him to confirm a time and give me an address he ghosted me. At the same time he was advertising it on local groups etc. Either the guy was a scammer, or just wanted to deal a with someone sight unseen. Anyway, I've invested in the sheet metal at this point and am slowly proceeding, but it's going to be a ton of work. And probably a ton (literally) of MIG wire too.

 

[86LK]

People pretend like these things had Bugatti fit and finish from the factory. In reality they are shitboxes slapped together by blitzed highschool dropouts... and I prefer it that way.

hey!

 

[RabbitHoleSS]

Well I've been busy with work and life so I haven't been able to thrash like I want but I've gotten a few things done after work this week. First I got the mount back from a friend who slotted it. Then I mocked it up in the car, set my engine angle at 2.1° down and welded it on. This is the first weld my boy has put on the car. The feeling/look of pride and accomplishment he had on his face was priceless. He's talked about it all week. When my girl got home from work he wouldn't let her sit her purse down b4 he drug her out to show her what he did.

I welded the other 3 sides, it'll hold and tbh I've seen worse out of grown men's projects. I was able to use 2 existing holes in the frame for the crossmember to mount. After marking/drilling the holes in the crossmember, I bolted it in and drilled out the holes straight thru it and frame. Then used a step bit to widen the holes. To make everything on the same plane I had to add fender washers to 2 holes. 1 on each side. I put a piece of dom tubing in the homemade box channel so it won't compress when I bolt it down. I just drilled 2 holes and spot welded it in there.

After that was buttoned up, I removed the transmission so I could replace the harness and converter.

The fluid was clean, bright red and minimal sludge on the magnet.

The harness is an easy fix, only issue I had was pushing it through the hole. A little lube solved that.
I'm hoping to get my converter sometime this month. I'm gonna order it today, hopefully it's only a few weeks from then.
I ordered these to fix the rusted out trans cooler lines.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N16EZSL/?tag=gbody-20

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XQ1GMCD/?tag=gbody-20

I also mocked up my harness to make sure it's right. I started investigating theses wires that are loose from the shift solenoid.

as far as I can tell they're for reverse lights, and the park lockout mechanism. Is this how most ls swap guys hook up reverse lights/pnp? Or is it better to use the cars functions?
Also is the 1990 k5 blazer speedometer the only electronic speedo I can put in my cluster and it look oem? I have an older (nib) autometer set of gauges but I wanted to use the original cluster if possible. I hope everyone has a blessed Easter weekend

 

[RabbitHoleSS]

I been stripping again.. Im sure nobody wants to see those pics. Kind of degrading.. I wish I would've had the car blasted. It's so much shitty work stripping by hand. And I still have both doors,trunk,and hood to do. I might look into blasting those cuz I'm mentally checked out of that process. So I set the harness on the engine to make sure it's gonna fit right. It does but the tape job made it so stiff I'll have to use a heat gun to form it in some spots. I finally got around to soldering the ev6 connectors on tonight.

I put pink to pink and color to color. I cut the heartshrink, got the heat gun out and proceeded to forget to put them on.. every single one. Kind of like flaring the line and forgetting the nut.

The car might take a backseat this week. I have a ton of parts sold I need to pull off the donor truck. And the 4l60e in my 2.2L s10 took a glorious dump on itself.