Space City 1982 GP Build

[pontiacgp]

How did you know my car does that?

I didn't...but I do now...

 

[fleming442]

I have to commend you guys' level of patience. The attention to detail is amazing, but I can't work on a project that long. My 67 is broke, therefore not even working on it. Although, I'm sure I could find something to do to it.......🤔
Right after the truck wheels, the Pig, and Drag Week!

 

[Texas82GP]

You better get a move on it or Scott is going to beet you!

He already beat me. His starts and idles.

 

[sportriderOK]

Hey Jared, the Monte is doing great. The outside is still ugly, but the inside is nearly finished. It's so reliable that it gets shunned for others that need work! Thanks for asking!


Hey Ken! Long time since I've heard from you. How's the Monte running? They are fun boxes.

Thanks everyone for the interest. Updates should be coming soon.
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[BuickOldsPontiac]

Jared, is it still a 100° in Texas? 🤔

Honestly, I was just wondering when you might get back to your build. I miss reading about the GP.

 

[Texas82GP]

Jared, is it still a 100° in Texas? 🤔

Honestly, I was just wondering when you might get back to your build. I miss reading about the GP.

Thanks for the interest. No, it's not but will be soon. I may suck it up and work through this summer. I don't know when I'll get back on the GP. I know some of you think I'll do anything to not work on it, but a lot has happened in the last few years:

• I pulled off the GP sometime around April of 2018, took a week of vacation, and spent it with my brother "finishing" his car.
• I spent the summer/fall/winter of 2018 helping Dad with his car.
• Mom passed away at the end of January 2019 so my brother and I had to settle her estate. That wasn't fast or easy to deal with.
• The 4L70E went out in the truck for the third time in February of 2019. At that point I did the 4L85E swap and I didn't get it back on the road until early June. The truck had been on the back burner since before I got sick in 2016 so by then, it needed attention. I got it running and stayed on it with the mindset of getting it to a point where it wouldn't need anything anytime soon. I replaced the motor mounts, did the coilover conversion, replaced all the hoses and belts, replaced all the crumbly convoluted tubing, did the front brakes from hubs to hoses, etc.
• I got basically done with the truck and cleaned up and organized the shop in late October, early November. Then the truck got wrecked and I fixed it myself. During the times the truck was out of commission (transmission failure, and wreck), I was using the car that had been my mothers. After the will was probated, I sold my half of it to my brother and it became his daughter's first car.
• I decided I needed a backup to the truck. It's 12 years old and has over 180k miles on it. Things happen and I don't want the GP to fill that backup role. I don't want to have to drive the GP in weather conditions I don't like or places I don't want to, because I'm in a jam. I had been looking for an over the road car for sometime and in late December of 2019 the right one came along. I've been working on the Roadmaster since. Once I get to a point where I'm satisfied with where it is at, I'll get back on the GP.

I had hoped to take some vacation this spring and work on the GP. With the pandemic, I've been holding onto my vacation, in case I end up out of work. I've been working from home for the past two and a half weeks. I don't know what it is or if it has anything to do with that but Saturday comes around lately and I have a hard time getting motivated. I feel somewhat listless. I'm not looking for sympathy, rather just being honest. I'm also not looking to spend a ton of money right now. I want to be responsible for my family.

I've still kept fairly busy with maintenance on the truck, the doggy door project, some repair to the lawn mower and some work on the Roadmaster over the past few weekends. That's all probably more than you wanted to hear but that's what's been going on. Thanks again for the interest. I'm humbled that you guys like my project enough to try to motivate me to work on it.

 

[Clutch]

I'm a stick shift g-body kind of guy but I also know life can get in the way. That's why my engine is seized

 

[sportriderOK]

I'm only working two days a week now, but I can't drag my butt out to the shop to do anything. I've been putting off the radio install on the Monte for nearly two years now!

 

[MrSony]

I'm pleased to report some progress has been made. It seemed it was going to be nearly impossible to install the motor mounts with the lower control arm in place. In addition to that the control arm bushings were dry rotted and the whole front end was pretty crusty so I decided to overhaul the front end in conjunction with the underhood project. I decided since my space is limited that I'd do the driver's side first, then move the car and do the passenger side.

Here's what I started with...
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The front brake lines were patched in a couple of locations so I will be replacing them...

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Here's a look after teardown...

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Here's a shot after cleanup. I scraped it and cleaned it with mineral spirits. It's amazing what mineral spirits, rags and paper towels will do....

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Since I'm working in a storage building and I'm not taking the body off of the frame, I decided to paint the frame with a brush. I know some will cringe at that thought but I just didn't want to deal with the overspray mess. After a lot of thought I decided to go with plain old brush on Rustoleum. I found it to go on nice and thick and found it to be very forgiving of any dirt I missed. I got the frame pretty clean but it was not perfect. After scraping it and cleaning it with mineral spirits, I gave it another pass with the mineral spirits and then went over it with lacquer thinner on an old micro-fiber cloth. First I went on with the Rustoleum "rusty metal" primer......

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Followed by two coats of satin black.....

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It's not perfect but it's much nicer than it was, much nicer than just leaving it and putting the engine in the way it was. It's plenty good for a cruiser and a few nice things about the Rustoleum are that its cheap, easy to touch up and seems to be fairly chip resistant.

This is the post I was looking for, in regards to the paint used. But I'm going through the whole thread anyway. 😀

 

[Highlord_Fox]

This has been a wild roller-coaster of a ride that I just had to read through in its entirety. Your workmanship is impeccable, the car is beautiful, and I cannot wait to see the final product when you do get it on the road under its own power. I've tagged several of your posts on this as reference to my own project (ironically, swapping the base 305 for a 400 SBC), and if I can get mine to be even 1/4th as nice as yours, I think I'll be happy.