'80 Lemans Tear Down

tdvick · Nov 9, 2011

Well,

Like a couple other guys on here, I bought a car with the plan of just building a a motor and transmission, dropping it in and having some fun. One thing leads to another and before you know it, you're in deep. Well, about a year and a half later and here's the direction the fun has taken.

First thought was, "I wonder how hard it would be to get this Landau top off of this thing?" It snowballed from there...

tdvick · Nov 9, 2011

Then went the front clip, then the body. The car was so rust free, other than the frame, I felt that I had to get that cleaned up. That's where it's at now...

G-Body_Vet · Nov 10, 2011

Decided to start your own money pit eh? :lol:
It's good to see the 78-80 Pontiac g-bodies getting some attention for once! Any specific plans in mind yet? Your landau top didn't look to be in bad shape at all. I'm not crazy about mine either, but since it's in good shape I'll probably leave it for now.

Wildmani · Nov 10, 2011

Nice progress! I wish I had the space to be able to pull a body off, although, I also wish I hadn't found as much rust as I found in mine too 😀 .

tdvick · Nov 10, 2011

The top wasn't bad, I just really didn't like it on the car. It would have always bugged me so it had to come off. The plan is to get the frame blasted and painted.

So far I have a 12 bolt housing out of a '70 Chevelle that I plan to put in it. I'm going to get it narrowed slightly and have c-clip eliminator type Ford ends welded on. I also called Moser and got a set of their g body lower control arm brackets to weld on in place of the a body ones. Someone had already removed the brackets so that will work out well.

The motor is going to be a big Pontiac. Not sure if I'll start with a 455 or stroke a 400 block. Either way it will be 460+ CI. The plan is to eventually be about 650 horse power. So far that's all that has gone into planning for the motor.

kuruption109 · Nov 10, 2011

i so wanna do this to my malibu.. looks go so far..nice ride BTW

adam6640 · Nov 10, 2011

That looks 10 times better w/o the landau top MY opinion they never should of made em, have you thought of a different nose the 81 is more areodynamic and kinda resembles a 78 firebird keep us posted & with photos, cool car !

tdvick · Nov 10, 2011

adam6640 said:
That looks 10 times better w/o the landau top MY opinion they never should of made em, have you thought of a different nose the 81 is more areodynamic and kinda resembles a 78 firebird keep us posted & with photos, cool car !

I agree about the top. I don't regret one bit that I took the plunge and tore into it. Just gotta pick up all of the parts to finish it off as a hardtop car now. I did almost pick up an '81 front bumper for it a while ago. That ended up on Bonnewagon's car. I thought it might get messy with wiring going to 4 headlights

It's really hard to even picture the car now as the same car that I brought home. It would have been quite the "sleeper" as it was...

deanlemans81 · Nov 10, 2011

Hey tdvick, your Lemans is comming along great! I wish I had room to remove the body on mine like that to clean the frame. I always kinda liked the landau top myself. When I was about 17 or 18 a guy in town had a brown 78 GrandAm with a landau top and a 455 that was just awsome. I directly link my lovve of lemans` to that dudes car!!

Keep the pictures coming
Dean

Blake442 · Nov 10, 2011

Looks good!

If you want to swap to an '81 nose, you can always swap headlight wiring harness's along with it...
That way you won't have to mess around trying to get it to work, it'll just plug right in.

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'80 Lemans Tear Down

tdvick

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