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That sucks about the machine shop. I think that’s happening a lot of places since engines don’t get nearly as much machine work these days. I just read through start to finish. Good job! I’m super jealous of all the progress you’ve made.
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Aug 13, 2021 02:43
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Advent Horizon posted:That sucks about the machine shop. I think that’s happening a lot of places since engines don’t get nearly as much machine work these days. Thanks dude. Sometimes it doesn't feel like I've done that much because it looks drat near the same as it did when I bought it and I've owned it for so drat long and the longest trip I've made in the car was when I drove it home from the dealership. Something feels different now, though. With the new harness in and (mostly) working, I feel like this 'phase' of the project is kind of... done? Like now it's time to enjoy the car as it is while I gather parts for the ultimate goal of the drivetrain build and swap. Not to get too e/n about things, but I've always had pretty low self esteem and that kind of poisoned my brain a bit regarding the car. Made me nervous that all the poo poo I've done to it isn't going to work and it won't be drivable, you know? Just getting it started and moved a little bit seemed to help that a bit. Brakes work, steering works, rear end has yet to grenade itself. I got a few things that I need to polish up a little bit but I'm pretty sure this car is drivable now. Like, right now. I'm gonna fire it up again this weekend and see if I can get it running a little more strongly. Get rid of that dead spot. Unfortunately I'm not much of a carburetor wizard like some guys. I do have a digital copy of the manual for this Rochester though so maybe I can figure something out. Anyway, sorry this got wordy and weird. Thanks for reading about my dumb sedan.
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Aug 13, 2021 03:44
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The thing you're doing with baby steps I call the trust ladder. I climb up it with various tests and short trips until I finally drive farther than I can ride back. I'm on one of the lowest rungs right now, and I always feel better when I can just drive and listen to the radio instead of rattles and knocks. I appreciate your post. Keep it up.
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Aug 13, 2021 04:27
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Here, you want pictures? Jeez.     Oh yeah, I found my striping tape and finally made the passenger side wheels match the other ones.  Still not a peep from the other machine shop's 'Contact Us' form. I'm probably going to have to call them. On the phone. Like some kind of caveman.
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Aug 13, 2021 21:30
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Those wheels look perfect.
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Aug 13, 2021 21:37
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Yeah that looks good. Nice wheel choice. I challenge you to take it to the nearest drive in burger stand and take a golden hour glamour shot.
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Aug 13, 2021 21:40
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It's kinda crazy how much that little yellow stripe changes the wheels. When I was first kicking the idea around I thought about a red stripe but I'm glad I went with yellow. I think red would just be totally out of place on the car, especially since I went with the yellow hood stripe to pick up the steering wheel. ^^^ As much as I'd like to do that, I'm pretty under-insured and the tags are long expired. Before I go any further than my subdivision I need to get some more affairs in order. Boaz MacPhereson fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Aug 13, 2021 |
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Aug 13, 2021 21:42
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Boaz MacPhereson posted:Thanks dude. Sometimes it doesn't feel like I've done that much because it looks drat near the same as it did when I bought it and I've owned it for so drat long and the longest trip I've made in the car was when I drove it home from the dealership. I've never thought that you weren't competent as I read the thread. I totally get the feeling though and have had it before myself. Sometimes you install stuff and it just works despite your thinking that something is surely still hosed up and broken, surely many of us have been there. Keep plugging away, my dude. Enjoying the breakthrough progress. 
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Aug 14, 2021 02:41
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Boaz MacPhereson posted:Here, you want pictures? Jeez. Hell yeah thanks. We want pictures because you've done a great job and the car looks fantastic.
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Aug 14, 2021 08:54
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Wicked to see it driving! Four door supremacy!
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Aug 14, 2021 10:25
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Well I didn't do much else with the car this weekend, but I did make a purchase from Crazy Jeff's Random Bullshit Emporium. The more clever among you can probably guess what they're for. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MG996DM?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details I'm pretty sure I've got a leaky pinion seal (not sure how considering it's brand new and has zero loving miles on it...) and it could probably do with an oil change after sitting for so long so maybe I'll get that done this coming weekend. Wife's car is just about due for a change as well.
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Aug 16, 2021 21:43
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RWL?
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Aug 16, 2021 22:05
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StormDrain posted:RWL? 
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Aug 16, 2021 22:40
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So, to celebrate Boaz busting through that project car funk that gets to us all and getting the nova moving, we're going to have a dual project thread spotlight for the moment. Congrats on getting it running buddy. 
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Aug 17, 2021 15:11
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Oh god, nothing like a little pressure, huh? Paint pens got here today. I plan on pulling the wheels so I can lay them flat while I mark them so I'm not fighting against gravity with the ink. Maybe I'll start easing into that this week so I don't have to do it all this weekend. I'm going to try to get the oil changed and pinion seal replaced as well. I haven't called that other machine shop yet because I loving hate talking on the phone.
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Aug 17, 2021 22:59
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I've never finished a full episode of Project Binky, but I've been following this thread since day 1 and I'm glad you're having fun with your Nova again. I'm not here to take an engineering class, I just like seeing people enjoy cool cars, and the Nova is rad.
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Aug 18, 2021 00:23
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Paint pens = good purchase.   Banged out a quick coat tonight. I'll do at least one more coat on the "BFGoodrich". Maybe two. We'll see what the second coat looks like when it dries. My main battle now is do I also paint the "g-Force Sport" on the other side. Hm.
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Aug 18, 2021 01:17
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No!
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Aug 18, 2021 01:42
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everdave posted:No! Agreed. Just the brand is enough. It's striking. Edit:maybe. Edit 2:no. Good as is. Black space is important.
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Aug 18, 2021 01:47
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Boaz MacPhereson posted:Oh god, nothing like a little pressure, huh? Nah, ya done good and have a cool project going that I have followed for a long time. Its cool that you're making progress on it again, no matter how big or small. All encouragement and good vibes. 
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Aug 18, 2021 02:19
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StormDrain posted:Agreed. Just the brand is enough. It's striking. That was pretty much my thought process. I'm sticking with just the BFG text. Put a second coat in tonight and it looks pretty drat good. I think I'll do a third coat and call it done. Then I'll zip the wheels back on and start on the rears.
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Aug 18, 2021 23:56
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Man it is looking great - I have to admit I have ignored this thread because of the 4 doors but much respect to you - I love it. The sweep dash cluster brings back so many great memories. I bought a yellow 76 2 door back in the 90's - stripped it down with the help of a mechanic at Lexus where I worked and got Earl Sheib's finest $200 gloss black paint job. Miss that car all the time.
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Aug 19, 2021 17:58
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everdave posted:Man it is looking great - I have to admit I have ignored this thread because of the 4 doors but much respect to you - I love it. The sweep dash cluster brings back so many great memories. I bought a yellow 76 2 door back in the 90's - stripped it down with the help of a mechanic at Lexus where I worked and got Earl Sheib's finest $200 gloss black paint job. Miss that car all the time. Lotta people don't care for the crew cabs, but they tend to come around in the end. Thanks dude. Changed the oil in the wife's car today and while I was out there getting nice and sweaty I figured I'd throw a third coat of white on the letters.  Picture doesn't really do it much justice, but they look great now. Three coats seems to be the magic number. Once that was dry-ish I threw the wheels back on, put the car back on the ground, and got the rear end in the air. Pulled the rears and got the first coat on those. Just imagine I put that first picture here again. Doggo had to get some surgery last night and we're going to pick her up in about an hour or so. Once we get her settled back in I may head out to get some oil and a pinion seal and try to get that done tomorrow. There's a pretty old-school-looking NAPA near by so I'm pretty confident they'll have seals in stock. Of course now that I said that, they'll be two weeks out. 
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Aug 20, 2021 18:59
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The lettering and the yellow stripe look great together. Fantastic choices all around. And yep you certainly cursed yourself. A thing made before 2000 (and also I worked myself up two decades between conceptualizing this sentence and typing it) has a 50 - 50 - 50 chance of being in stock, two weeks out, or only available from a hoarders stach.
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Aug 21, 2021 03:15
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StormDrain posted:The lettering and the yellow stripe look great together. Fantastic choices all around. ...you probably don't want the mustache pinion seal. who knows where that thing's been. also i kinda disagree with the above, since it's an AFX (in this case X) there should be parts out the rear end pretty much everywhere. it's the default "modified car" anyone has, and gm used the same parts everywhere, mostly i think you can judge whether you're inside civilization by whether you can get parts for a sbc, or a 10-bolt, or a th400 you lose points in epeen contests online, but sometimes it does pay to have a popular/common platform
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Aug 21, 2021 07:55
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Yeah, seal safari was a success. Considering GM made approximately eleventy billion 8.5" 10-bolts, I was pretty confident I'd find one. Didn't even have to summon the greybeard. I don't know if I'll actually get around to swapping it today as my weekend is filling up pretty rapidly, though. Might run out this morning and pick up some oil and a filter at least.
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Aug 21, 2021 14:57
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Raluek posted:
Well you were clearly right. I assume nothing I need will ever be available locally as both a reaction to my reality and a protection mechanism. And on the last part, that is basically my advice to anyone looking to start a project. Weird stuff is cool but there's no shame picking something common to make your life easier. Problems with well documented answers still require you to work on them.
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Aug 21, 2021 15:30
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StormDrain posted:And on the last part, that is basically my advice to anyone looking to start a project. Weird stuff is cool but there's no shame picking something common to make your life easier. Problems with well documented answers still require you to work on them. I will never again own something older without a large enthusiast community. Sourcing unicorn parts is a bitch. Even Internationals have a decent community; you might not be able to get an original part but somebody has probably figured out an acceptable substitute by now.
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Aug 22, 2021 17:42
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Advent Horizon posted:I will never again own something older without a large enthusiast community. Sourcing unicorn parts is a bitch. Yeah, even just having the four door has made certain parts a bit more difficult to find. Interior pieces mostly. Luckily it's the same as any other X body under the sheetmetal. Did a second coat on the rear tires yesterday and then moved on to an oil change (oil is supposed to smell like gas, yeah?) and then tackled the pinion seal. I must have done something stupid when I installed the last one and damaged the rubber somehow. It's been a long time since I've smelled gear oil, but at least this stuff is still pretty fresh and low-miles. It's weird how a smell can get stuck in your head, right? Kinda like nitro after an NHRA weekend. I need to top off the diff oil a bit to replace what drooled out but I'm taking a lazy day today because it's still hot and gross and I'm tired of going out in the garage this weekend. Edit: Oh yeah, here's a fun comparison between oil filters for the Mazda(s) and the Nova. See if you can guess which is which! 
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Aug 22, 2021 18:30
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Booty fluid is topped up, all coats of tire paint are dry, and I painted the leaf shackles where I'd opened the holes previously to cover the bare metal. Wheels go on, car goes back down. Pleased with my work so far. 
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Sep 5, 2021 19:38
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Would do donuts in that thing with my kids in the back seat
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Sep 5, 2021 20:03
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From one dad to another, that's just plain irresponsible.
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Sep 5, 2021 20:51
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I bailed on the second machine shop and moved on to a third. The second was a shop that does a lot of big-dollar boat stuff and reviews online seemed to be in line with my suspicions of if you're not dropping $20k on a new big block for your 35 foot Cigarette, you'll have terminal back-of-the-line status. So I called 'em up yesterday and then proceeded to spend the next 45 minutes on the phone with Norm (of course it's a Norm) getting schooled. In a good way. Told him I had an LQ block I wanted cleaned up and punched out and asked if they had any 'engine prep' packages or anything like that and he told me that they really didn't and would just kind of do what needed to be done. They're not in the business of charging people for work that their blocks don't need. Pretty cool. He's apparently been in the poo poo long enough to where people that need him will find him even though he took the sign off his building. He definitely struck me as a bit old school and seemed to favor carbs and distributors quite a bit, but I wasn't gonna argue with him about how aftermarket companies have taken a lot of the mystery out of fuel injection and electronic ignitions. Asked me if I'd thought about finding a 400 block and building it into a 427. I had not. I didn't realize you could punch up a first gen small block that big but that's pretty drat cool. I'm also not really interested in completely changing strategies with an LQ block in the garage and a tub with a bunch of LS parts ready to bolt to it. Anyway, he gave me a pretty soft ballpark number that I was happy with so I think I'm gonna get this thing in the back of the wife's car and drag it up to Wisconsin to see what Norm can do for me. Probably be next week. No new Nova pictures so here's my scruffy little dog. 
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Sep 28, 2021 18:46
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Welp, things are officially moving along. Dropped the block off yesterday evening at the shop I mentioned in my last post and I'm pretty confident it's in good hands. Could have snapped a picture I guess but I didn't see much appeal in a dirty engine block sitting on a blanket in my wife's CX-5. I'm sure you can use your imagination. Didn't get a chance to talk to the resident shop wizard, (Norm - he's done a couple articles for Hot Rod apparently and is working on another one. He was tied up yesterday with training on his new chassis dyno software. He's the real deal.) but the guy I talked to seemed pretty drat knowledgeable, too. After we unloaded the block (on a freshly wiped down cart which I thought was a nice touch) he gave me a quick tour of the place without me even asking. They've got 3 customer vehicles in the shop right now: a T-bucket running an old-school Hemi with the biggest loving blower I've ever seen in my life that they've been chasing issues on, a Grand National that needs some brake work, and a square-body Cheyenne that's getting a new stroker. I didn't take any pictures since these were customer cars and I didn't wanna be that guy, you know? A full machine shop with some bigass tools that I'm way too dumb to operate, dyno room where Norm was camped out, and a 'storage' area where they had some long-term stuff parked while they waited on decisions from the customer or whatever. Norm's apparently a pretty laid-back dude because the other guy pointed out a mostly built SBC that they've been hanging on to for about 6 years. I didn't get much of a timeline, but I didn't really give them much of one either. It's not like I'm sitting on all the parts I need to build this thing, but I think that's going to be changing soon. I've got a handful of stuff but obviously no where near the full kit. Brian (shop dude) told me that they've got some serious machine shop time planned for the coming week so they might be able to get to mine pretty soon. Who knows, I might be picking this thing up in a week or two. I'm feeling pretty good about this place. Confident that they'll do what I want without trying to bend me over. I think I'll go shopping for engine paint this weekend.
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Oct 22, 2021 17:21
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Ok, not last weekend but this weekend. I was out and about after getting my 5G booster so I swung by O'reilly and grabbed some paint. I'm excited to get this block back so I can make it nice and pretty. It's only been a week since I dropped it off so I'm not about to start calling up there and bugging them about it. I figure I'll call at a month if I don't hear from them first.  Oh, I bought a Dorman window crank too to replace the one I snapped a while back.
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Oct 30, 2021 22:57
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Hey, it's not in the archives! Just got off the phone with Norm and the block is finally loving done. I won't give you the whole list of bullshit that made it take this long, but it's ready to party. Plan is to go get it on Monday and start prepping for paint. Gonna have to go buy some long brushes this weekend so I can scrub it up to get all the swarf and poo poo out of it and then I think things will finally start happening. Pretty excited. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FExBwfQHXlE
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Feb 25, 2022 23:02
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I saw this video the other day. I don't know if I agree with everything this guy says, but the bit about evaporating liquids "embedded" in the metal kind of makes sense. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syyJEaxHEck
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Feb 25, 2022 23:48
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PBCrunch posted:I saw this video the other day. I don't know if I agree with everything this guy says, but the bit about evaporating liquids "embedded" in the metal kind of makes sense. That torch trick is pretty drat neat, wow. I'll definitely be putting the heat to mine once I get the guts cleaned up. Thanks man.
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Feb 26, 2022 00:16
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Yesterday was a good day. 60s, dry, good day to spend some time in the garage. I'd spent some time earlier in the week giving it a good scrub down with brushes and mineral spirits. Mainly just doing all the oil galleries and cooling passages and all the little nooks and crannies where the machining remnants could be hiding. With that done, yesterday I gave the cylinders a final clean with some ATF and then rubbed them down with WD-40 to keep them happy. I then turned my attention to the outside. Gave it all a good clean with and then cooked all the crap out with the torch. Pretty crazy to watch the liquid just ooze up out of the surface when you put the heat to it. Once it all seemed pretty dry, I gave it a final wipe down with some acetone, gave it a rough masking off, and then hit it with the brush on primer. Today was, unfortunately, back to normal temperature-wise so that meant about 40 degrees in the garage. Less than ideal for painting, but tape still sticks. So I spent the last couple hours masking and trimming and getting ready for the color to go down. Bummer of it is that I don't think this week is supposed to get much warmer and I really don't want to fight with a spray can in a 40 degree garage. Might have to give it another week or so. Oh well, that'll guarantee that the primer is good and hard. 
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Mar 6, 2022 22:10
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The smallbock is now orange, as god intended.  Yes, I'm aware I still need to clean off the jet wash grunge. I was focused on the outside first so I could get the paint down. It'll get cleaned up here soon.
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Mar 13, 2022 20:02
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