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Gather ‘round children and hear a tale about a man that received one of the rarest things in life. A second chance. In January of 2001, I bought a 1972 Nova. 4-door, dark green, 307 SBC with a TH-350 auto. It wasn’t the prettiest or the fastest (by a long shot), but I loved her nonetheless. We had many adventures and I had grand dreams of performance parts. Unfortunately, it was never meant to be. I was a broke high school student and would be moving away to college soon. In 2004, I bought a ’97 Thunderbird and sold the Nova. It was a very strange experience. I wasn’t exactly reluctant to sell it, but I missed it terribly once it was gone. I still have dreams about that car. The one that got away. I’m sure most of us have one. Let’s fast forward a bit. Got Married, T-bird got totaled by some clown that didn’t understand how left turns work, bought a Mustang. July of last year, my wife and I are having dinner at the local burger place (let me know if you guys are ever in Lake County, IL and I’ll show you the best burger you’ve ever had). I grab a copy of Illinois Auto and RV Trader off the stack while we wait for the food and as I’m idly flipping through I see it. 1971 Nova. 4-door, lime green, 350 crate motor with a TH-350 auto. $2750. I froze. Pointed it out to the wife and got a “Hm. Cool.” The next month or so consisted of me figuring out how to convince my wife to let me buy this thing and emailing back and forth with the owner of the small dealership that posted the listing. When I called the dealership, the guy there told me the $2750 wasn’t accurate and it should have been $3750. Relayed this to the owner and he didn’t seem too pleased with his “salesman”. Eventually, I got him to go with $3250 out the door and keys in hand. In all honesty, she’s not a prize-winner. Interior is rough. Door panels are thrashed, headliner is MIA, dash is cut up for a bodged stereo install. Exterior’s not great either. Chips, rear wheel arch lips are trimmed off to clear the poorly backspaced wheels, passenger rear leaf is shot so that tire rubs on bumps. But I drove it 50 miles home. She’s mine. A second chance to make things right. 
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Jul 19, 2014 03:35
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Now what? Well, first thing is to get it in the garage. The Mustang has officially been moved to the driveway. I get it in the garage easily enough, but my wife asks if I can move it over closer to the wall a bit to give her some more room. “No problem.” It was then that I believe the realized that she was home. She was tired. And she didn’t want to start. I ended up flooding the poo poo out of it and hosed my plugs in the process. No telling how old they were to begin with. So I head over to the parts store and pick up the essentials. Oil and filter, air filter, fuel filter, breather filter, and a full set of new plugs. Changed the oil to no surprises, air filter drops in, breather filter drops in, spark plugs are swapped, fuel filter is cha- wait. This thing isn’t even close. This isn’t the right filter for this carb… I checked the VIN and found that this car originally came with a 307. At some point in time, this was pulled for the crate 350 that now resided here. However, whoever swapped it used the intake manifold, carb, air cleaner, and exhaust manifolds from the 307. Awesome. (I would later discover that he also decided to swap battery cable colors as well) Anyway, I’ve got all my poo poo changed, got my battery charged, let’s fire this thing back up. It started. You may remember the next few pictures from the mechanical failures thread.    Needless to say, this got my wife’s attention. So far, she wasn’t impressed with my new project. Boaz MacPhereson fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Jul 19, 2014 |
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Jul 19, 2014 03:45
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So I ordered a cheapo muffler from Summit and rigged it up so the car was no longer pull-me-over loud. I took it to the local car wash and degreased the poo poo out of the engine bay and blasted as much road dust as I could from underneath and inside the trunk (the car was driven to Roscoe, IL from Iowa on quite a few gravel roads). Oh, did I mention that the speedometer needle was broken off and laying in the bottom of the instrument panel? Nothing like driving a not-inconspicuous car with a loud exhaust and no working speedometer through town. Anyway, I get it back home and parked. Now is the time to decide what the hell I want to do with this thing. The plan is as follows: - Get rid of the garbage-rear end manual drum brakes. They sucked on the ’72 and they suck on this one. They gotta go. - New wheels and tires to fit said brakes and give me some more responsiveness than the BF Goodrich T/As that are on it now. - New suspension all around. Drop it a couple inches. Shoot for Pro-Touring. - Tighten up this steering somehow. It’s got all the steering feel of my friend’s old Town Car. - New rear end. LSD with shorter gears is a must. - TH-350 out, T56 in. - 350 -> 383. Maybe a Gen III/Gen IV? - Cooling system, fuel system, exhaust to all match the power. - New wiring everywhere. This poo poo is 40 years old and it sucks. - Interior. Currently lime green to match the exterior. Eventually switching to black with full instrumentation and some nice seats to replace my front bench. Redo the back bench to match whatever I get in the front. - Top it all off with paint/bodywork. I plan to do everything myself with the exception of the paint, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I’ll say here that going into this, I had no loving idea what I was doing. The most complex mechanical task I’ve performed by myself was probably a full brake job. Never pulled an engine, never replaced major suspension components, etc. I’m pretty loving green at this, but I’m a fast learner. And I’m pretty proud to say that I’ve learned an incredible amount. I bought the FSMs and went through all 3 cover to cover. I’ve done more research online for this car than I’ve done for any other topic. I need to compartmentalize and attack. Phase I: - Pull the front subframe off and get it not looking like poo poo. Throw some new body mounts in with it. - Acquire parts to swap in the brakes from an LS1-powered F-body. Cue baby’s first trip to the scrapyard. At this point, I realized that the engine has to come out. Never done that before. Time for boring reference pics!  
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Jul 19, 2014 04:03
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I apologize for being so wordy, but I’ve been waiting a while to start this thread and wanted to do it right. I’ve got lots more to do until we get to the present. So I’m pulling an engine. I know for a lot of you guys out there, you can do this poo poo with your eyes closed and you’d probably kill for an engine bay this simple to do it in. Again, I’m being careful, taking my time, following instructions, dotting I’s, crossing t’s, all that.   poo poo’s getting real  Parts pile is slowly growing  MY EYES!  Making space…  At this point, the exhaust had to get disconnected. I cannot loving believe I only broke one. (Although the one on the far right was a right bastard)  Wife was nice enough to help with the hood  Ok, we’re almost there…  …gently caress.  While I go buy a chain coupler, have some more random reference pictures!      And there we go. 
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Jul 19, 2014 04:14
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Alright, so the engine’s out. Now that subframe’s gotta come out too. Luckily, this thing has been passively preventing its own rust for a while so all of the nuts and bolts are pre-lubed!   You gotta go too…  …bitch (sidenote: steering boxes are heavy as gently caress)  And here you are introduced to the bucket of doom:  Ok, I’m officially taking this loving car apart  Tires are back on the ground. The rest of the car is not.  Holy poo poo. That is no longer attached.  At this point in time, it’s been a few MONTHS since it’s been home. I work slowly. I’m taking my time. I’m learning this poo poo as I go and I really don’t want to gently caress anything up. It’s Christmas time, so you all know what that means!  I was provided with a lovely hand-crafted note and a kick-rear end sales brochure from 1971 by TheFonz.   And I totally feel like a successful black man again!  At this point in time, I had a really loving good idea* about how to move this subframe around in my garage: magnets + epoxy + swivel casters = I’m a goddamn genius**  I’m going to take a break from typing as I need to gather some thoughts and give my fingers a break. I’ll get some more stuff up tonight. Thanks for looking guys. *loving terrible idea **I’m a goddamn idiot
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Jul 19, 2014 04:31
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Right. The brakes. They suck. I cannot begin to describe to you how cathartic it was to completely rip apart these brakes without giving the most miniscule of fucks about bending or breaking poo poo. I dealt with this bullshit on the ’72 and all this bullshit is getting tossed in favor of discs. The destruction was glorious, but the fight was far from easy.  The top anchor pin bolt in that picture (center just above wheel cylinder) is easily the most difficult bolt I’ve ever removed. The passenger side came out with a fight, but the driver side (pictured) was unreal. Combo wrench was a joke. I didn’t have a socket deep enough to get a good bite on it because it’s got a big pin poking out past the hex. A terrible picture to give you an idea:  I ended up cutting the pin portion off with a hacksaw so I could get my impact gun on it. Between the impact and a couple feet worth of leverage on my ratchet, the loving thing finally broke loose. Sidenote: I cannot loving believe I haven’t broken my Stanley ratchets yet. Unreal. Anyway, gotcha bitch:   Remember my magnetic caster idea?  More reference pictures:   I’m free!  I kept finding more little fuckery from the PO. See how those nuts don’t match? The top one is factory. The bottom one is not. The bottom one also protrudes too far into the opening to prevent removal of the shock while it’s still in place. So to get that shock out, it’s: unbolt, weasel nut out, drop it, try to find it because it managed to bounce 5 loving feet away somehow, remove shock, put nut back and throw the bolt in it so you don’t lose it forever.  The subframe’s new home for the next few months  And here is the completely stripped subframe. Coil springs were fun to remove  
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Jul 19, 2014 05:55
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So the time has come for cleaning. I wasn’t looking forward to this, but I was eager to see how all this crap would turn out. I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures during this process because it was long, tedious, and I wanted to avoid getting my phone covered in horrible grime. To give you an idea of the kind of poo poo I was dealing with, here are some before/during and after shots of the transmission crossmember.   Again, those are really the only pictures I have of the cleaning process, but I think you’ll get the idea. At this point, I was starting to do some serious research and acquire parts for the new brakes. By sheer luck, I saw a thread in SA Mart for Robinson Laser. They do custom laser-cut metal. A couple goons work there and had a $25 coupon to knock off processing charges. Another goon was kind enough to draw up a part based off of plans/dimensions that I found online. This is for a bracket that will bolt straight to my drum-brake spindles and allow me to bolt the front brakes off a ’98-’02 F-body right to it. Forty bucks and a week or so later, these beautiful bastards showed up at my door. Quarter inch structural steel. They’re perfect. Add about $18 worth of Grade 8 hardware from Bolt Depot and I'm set.  So the plan was to clean all my parts, prime them, then paint them. Everything got 2 coats of white primer, then 2 coats of gloss black. As we all know, painting in winter is no good, so this happened:  While paint was drying, I started scrubbing on the subframe itself. Jesus. loving. Christ. Ultimateforce, if you’re reading this thread, please look away.   GM in 1971. It’s not just good, it’s good enough! I cleaned that poo poo up the best I could without an angle grinder, but whatever. It’s all sound, it’s just boogery. This bastard’s ready for paint  By this time, all the small parts have been painted and are just waiting on the subframe. The months keep ticking by and the weather is getting warmer. First coat after primer:  Second – this made me happy.  In case you couldn't tell by the last two photos, I'd abandoned the magnetic casters by this point. What a pain in the dick those were. I bought a mini moving dolly from Harbor Freight for $8. They're on sale again right now. You all should seriously go buy one. So handy.
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Jul 19, 2014 06:15
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Ok, so since the weather has gotten nicer, I’ve been making drat near weekly trips to the salvage yard going over every late 4th generation F-body I can find. Remember, only ’98-’02 so I got real loving lucky to get all the parts that I did. Managed to pick up booster, master cylinder, front calipers and brackets, rear calipers and brackets (2 left sides, I’ll explain later), and one rear backing plate all for just over $100. poo poo yeah. They cleaned up pretty well. Straight from the yard on right, cleaned up on the left.   Oh, I picked up some new MOOG tie-rod ends and some sweet QA1 adjustment sleeves  Back to the brakes – The setup I’ll be running requires the use of the factory drum hubs, but they need to be reduced in diameter to clear the F-body rotors. I called up a local machine shop and tried to describe what I needed over the phone, but I think I just confused the guy. He shot me some numbers that sounded pretty loving big for what I figured would be a pretty small job. Luckily, in my previous searching for the mounting brackets (that I ended up having made myself), I ran across BRP Hotrods. They sold those brackets with optional machined drum hubs. I shot an email over to see if they’d be willing to just sell me the hubs. $100 with a forty dollar core charge that will be returned if I send them my old hubs. Done. They even came with new studs installed and new bearings and seals.   The one rear backing plate I got cleaned up really well. Literally every other backing plate I found in the yard was a rusty nightmare that I could rip apart with my hands. I still need one more and I’m going to wait as long as possible before dropping $70 on a new one.  Changing gears a bit, I wanted to do something about the steering as well. I now know more about Saginaw style steering boxes than I ever thought I’d need to know. These style of boxes were used in goddamned EVERYTHING for decades. GM cars, GM trucks, they put them in Grand Cherokees for christ’s sake. Ideally, I would have pulled one from a G-body Monte Carlo SS, but those are pretty loving rare in salvage yards. I did however get the next best one. ’91 Camaro Z28. Couldn’t believe my luck when I saw that hit the yard. Now, with these boxes, there are a couple caveats. For one, GM changed the fittings on the power steering hoses. They went from your classic inverted flare to the ISO bubble flare sometime in the late ‘70s. Luckily, Lee Manufacturing makes some pretty trick little inserts that you drive into the later-style bubble flare (and metric) box that will basically turn it into a female inverted flare. Luckily, the metric sizes match the old SAE hoses pretty much perfectly and they’ll thread right in. Beautiful. Caveat the second: they changed the input shaft on the later steering boxes, so the old rag joint won’t work. Now, there’s a big rear end list of factory vehicles that all came with rag joints that will bolt to both the old style steering column and the later style steering box, but I found a coupon and bought a new one for about $25. No sense in using old lovely rubber. ANYWAY, I grabbed the steering box out of that Z28, scrubbed it up real pretty and threw a couple quick coats of paint on it. 
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Jul 19, 2014 06:42
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By now, the weather is nice, all the paint is dry, and parts are here. It’s time to party. My picture taking at this point has kind of slacked off because I was really excited to start putting poo poo back together. I wanted to concentrate on that and not worry about grabbing my phone every 15 minutes. So with the moving dolly, floor jack, 2x4s, and some maneuvering, I got the pig back underneath the right end of the car.  Remember when I mentioned new body mounts? Proforged billet aluminum. No more 40 year old rubber for this girl.  4 mounts in and torqued. The other two go through the radiator support, so they’ll go in after the engine. This was a very good day.  Now, I know what you’re going to say with this next picture. “Hey you rear end in a top hat, all that poo poo is old and lovely!” I absolutely agree. But right now I don’t have the money to drop on new upper and lower control arms, coils, shocks, and swaybars. They will come in time though, I assure you.  Steering box is mounted with new rag joint.  I couldn’t help myself. I had to mock it up with a scrapyard rotor.  A few days later. Aw yiss.  Now, let’s move up a bit, shall we? This is just a mockup to get an idea of what I’ll be dealing with. By this time, I’d already removed the studs and drilled holes in the booster bracket.  Few days later, and we’re mounted. Notice anything familiar in here IOwnCalculus?  I still need to bend lines from the master to the valve. Tricky part is, the master is bubble flares and the valve is inverted flare. Now, I’ve got the factory lines for the master, so I figure I’ll use one factory end, then I’ll bend, cut, and flare the other to fit the valve. I just need to get my hands on a flare tool and then learn how to use it. I’ve also got a 25’ coil of 3/16” brake line because I need to redo the front driver’s side hardline from the valve to the wheel. I loving destroyed that nut when I took it off. As far as the soft lines go, Kore3.com offers custom configured braided lines for this exact application. Well actually, they’re for C5/C6 ‘Vette brakes, but the banjo fittings are exactly the same for the F-bodies. That will be my last step in getting the brakes done.
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Jul 19, 2014 07:02
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Now, I haven’t done jack poo poo with the back brakes yet. loving wheels are still on the car. Again, I’m compartmentalizing. Trying to not get ahead of myself too much. I wanted to finish the fronts before I ripped into the back. However- The factory rear end on the 1971 Nova is the corporate GM 10-bolt. But, it’s got the 8.2” ring gear which is notoriously weak. This has been in the back of my head for a long time as a nagging little “what the gently caress are you gonna do about that?” As luck would have it, not long ago a 1973 Nova showed up in my local yard. I couldn’t believe it. The ‘73s came with the 8.5” ring gear. Since the rear suspension is the same between ’71 and ’73, it will bolt right in. loving perfect. Well, almost. Once I dragged it back home, I cracked it open to find that it was still running the factory differential. 2.73:1 non-LSD. Can’t win ‘em all. I’m actually heading back this Saturday to check out an ’80 Firebird that might have a factory LSD. Fingers crossed. So I’ve shifted slightly away from the brakes for a bit to clean this grimy pig up a bit. Red plug is there because the yard drills all diff covers.  Brakes ripped off, carrier pulled out, minor scrubbing has commenced. I need to get a picture of the current state. This one was taken a few days ago.  And here we are. I never thought the intro to this thread would be so massive and I apologize for the giant wall of rambling bullshit. Allow me to get a bit E/N here. I’m a complete amateur at this poo poo. I said in my first post up there that I while I tend to be mechanically inclined, I really don’t have the experience that I probably should for a project like this. I’m sure a lot of this would be cake for a lot of you guys out there. Some of you are pulling apart engines and slamming them back together seemingly faster than I can make a grilled cheese sandwich. Luckily, I’m a fairly smart guy and can follow directions pretty well. I’ve learned an absolutely incredible amount of stuff from researching online, reading the FSMs, and just getting in there and pulling poo poo apart. I know I don't post a lot in AI, but maybe I can entertain a couple of you for a little while. I will finish this car. It won't be soon. Not by a long shot. But I'll finish the loving thing. I finally have a chance to build the car that I wanted in high school. Not many guys get that. I won't let this one get away. So, questions, comments, insults, proposals, whatever, let ‘em fly. Oh, and if anyone finds a wrecked 1st generation CTS-V, I want the front brakes…
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Jul 19, 2014 07:19
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Successful trip to the yard today. The victim:  The spoils:  Snagged a pic of the current state of the rear end as well. Handfuls of crap have been removed already. Nowhere near done.  Unrelated: Saw this at the yard as well. Made me think of Lloyd. 
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Jul 19, 2014 18:14
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SouthsideSaint posted:what yard's in Illinois do you haunt? The one in summit has everything you would be looking for. They have tons of G bodys and all other chevys of that era. Im going next weekend to look for parts and can let you know if your interested. I'm farther north. AP City in Park City. Summit's about 50 miles from me. I'm still looking for a backing plate off an F-body.
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Jul 19, 2014 21:34
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Finished cleaning the new rear end today. Pulled the yoke and pinion out and hit it with a little paint, too. Anybody wanna buy an 8.2" 10-bolt?
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Jul 20, 2014 23:44
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SouthsideSaint posted:alright well im heading to summit next weekend and will let you know the F body status According to Row52, they have one '98 Camaro and two '99 Firebirds. I just need the driver's side rear backing plate and caliper mount from it. All but one I've seen have been completely trashed. I'm going to start checking gear sets out of '77-'94 half-ton trucks to look for a 3.42:1 set as well. That may be the end of my junkyard parts pile.
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Jul 21, 2014 21:22
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IOwnCalculus posted:... and it is loving heavy. Unfortunately the truck versions are just different enough that we can't easily swap on any of the cheap quick ratio options that the car guys have. Isn't it though? Pretty loving surprising when you pull the last bolt out. I saw a "high-performance" box for the trucks that ran about $400 and still had a variable ratio. Bummer. There's always the full-retard option, though http://www.unisteer.com/bolt-in-rack-pinions/67-72-chevy-c10-w-disks-power-rack-pinion-kit.html
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Jul 21, 2014 22:41
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IOwnCalculus posted:At any rate... for reasons I can't determine, the random Autozone rebuild box I got seems to be a full turn quicker than the one I took off. I haven't driven it at speed yet but so far I'm happy with it. Sounds like a good deal as long as it didn't take the full turn worth of turning radius with it Didn't do much tonight. Too drat hot. Rented an axle bearing puller and popped the old bearings right out of the 8.5". I was shocked that I had a rental tool that did exactly what it should with zero fuss and didn't require an engineering degree to assemble/operate. I got a little more paint on it as well. Just imagine that last picture with the other axle tube painted. This has been an expensive month and I've almost chewed through my budget so no more parts for a while. I'll finish getting the 8.5 painted and the inside cleaned up, then I'll start bending brake lines. Luckily, I've got a 25' coil so I can afford to gently caress up a few flares. Yet another first on this project. ShittyPostmakerPro posted:Loving the thread so far! You've come a long way already. Please don't die, thread. I won't let it die, but I'm guessing the good majority of posts will be from me. I don't foresee a lot of traffic in here because I chose an extremely ambiguous thread title and no one knows who the gently caress I am. 
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Jul 22, 2014 02:09
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LloydDobler posted:One? I have four and counting. They will actually hold up an entire car. I've wondered about that. They claim they're good for 1000 pounds, but I don't know how much I trust that. I should have bought a couple a long time ago and put the engine/transmission on them.
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Jul 22, 2014 22:53
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LloydDobler posted:They are way more awesome than they have any right to be. Hell yeah. I love mine. I wish it had some brakes though.
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Jul 23, 2014 01:04
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Red_October_7000 posted:What was wrong with the steering that the box needed to be replaced? The only time I've heard of those going wrong is on ex-livery Town Cars with 500,000-750,000 miles on them. Nothing actually wrong with it. No leaks and not a peep from it when I drove it home. But the ratio absolutely sucked and the effort was super low. Stock ratio was 16:1 and the Camaro box is 12.7:1. Response should be a ton faster and it will take more than a lazy finger to turn the wheel.
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Jul 23, 2014 02:35
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CroatianAlzheimers posted:If you really want to get fancy, get a set of these bad boys - Go-Jacks Sweet Jesus, 500 bucks?  I don't even have wheels on the loving car. I use the dolly more for moving various heavy poo poo around anyway.
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Jul 23, 2014 14:00
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CroatianAlzheimers posted:More like a thousand bucks, 'cause you need four of them. I used to be a commercial automotive photographer, and we used these things to push cars around studios and parking lots all the time. They're great, but they're overkill for what you're doing. I love the Nova, by the way. Is that green a factory color? I'm sure they absolutely have their place, but that place is not my garage. That is indeed the factory paint. Paint code 43 - Lime Green.
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Jul 23, 2014 17:07
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Fucknag posted:Low effort due to powerful assist /= low effort due to extremely low gearing; manual steering gears use mechanical advantage to make the wheel easy to turn at the expense of less wheel motion for each rotation of the steering wheel. It can be as low-effort as you like, but if you have to turn it 4 turns to reach full lock, it's not gonna turn very fast. Sacrificing just a little steering effort (which will still be fairly easy at speed) for fewer turns to lock will absolutely be beneficial. Ding. Yes, it's a power steering car, but like I mentioned earlier, the steering ratios are totally different. I went from a variable ratio (16:1 in the center moving to 13:1 at end of travel) to a solid 12.7:1. Super fast turning the steering wheel =/= super fast turning of the road wheels. Either way, the Camaro box is about 20 years newer  .Weather was awesome today so I spent a little more time in the garage. Pulled the rear wheels off just to do it and get them out of my way. Anybody want to buy a set of 15x7 steelies with 235/60R15 BF Goodrich Radial T/As? The 8.5" and the yoke are both cleaned and fully painted. I need to pick up some brake cleaner and get to work on the LSD. Started bending up the lines from the master cylinder to the prop valve as well. I need to either rent or buy a flaring tool. Any recommendations on brands that don't totally suck?
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Jul 24, 2014 03:00
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Jonny Nox posted:Can you please continue to be wordy on your updates? You have an engaging writing style, I enjoy it. Thanks. I always feel like I write strangely online. Maybe it's like how hearing your own voice is weird. It's kind of a stream-of-consciousness sort of thing. I tend to write how I speak. It's gonna be hot and nasty again this weekend, but my schedule is wide open. I need to do a little work on the Mustang's brakes then maybe I can gently caress up some brakelines for the Nova. I'll see if Pep Boys has a flaring tool worth a gently caress. BRAKES
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Jul 25, 2014 21:37
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Well this weekend was not very productive. Rented a flaring tool from Pep Boys and that loving turd couldn't make a straight flare for poo poo. I made about a half a dozen flares and not a single drat one was centered on the tube. My last few flares themselves looked good, but they were off-center and a bit oblong. The tool obviously had some miles on it and was pretty beat up. Luckily, my wife is nice enough to return that one today and go get one from Advanced while I'm at work. The last tool I got from Advanced was actually brand new, so I've got a good feeling about that one. Since brake lines were a bust, I figured I'd do a little cleaning on my 8.5" parts. Picked up a can of Brakleen and made short work of it. Hosed out the axle tubes and ran some rags through with a broom handle (only the finest engineering in this garage) and sprayed/wiped/sprayed/wiped down both differentials I have. Popped the ring gears off as well. I have a matched set of 2.73:1 and a lone 40-tooth. Maybe I'll try to sell the set and turn the 40 into a clock or something. Anybody wanna buy an 8.5" Series 3 open diff carrier? My workbench now looks like it belongs to a guy that knows what he's doing. 
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Jul 28, 2014 16:12
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First flare tool from Advanced was garbage. The taper on the yoke was all hosed up so it got swapped. New one looked good, made 1 good flare and 1 decent flare, then the taper on this one was deformed too. What a load of bullshit. The taper is made of softer metal than the inserts so it gets all hosed up when you crank down the first part of the flare. This is incredibly frustrating. I should have these loving lines done but I keep getting hosed by bad tools.
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Aug 1, 2014 04:16
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IOwnCalculus posted:This is a big part of why I was quite happy to be able to get pre-flared, hand-bendable lines The real bitch of it is I need a new driver's front hardline because one nut is completely trashed and the other is now the wrong size. I've yet to find somewhere to only buy one reproduction line with custom nuts. Think inlinetube.com would just sell one?
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Aug 1, 2014 14:55
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Since it's now August, I went out to the yard again with the goal of getting some gears. 1977-1994 GM half-ton trucks and vans were equipped with the 8.5" and often came with 3.42:1 gears. That should go quite nicely with a T56. I got a list of potential victims together and started with the youngest of the bunch. '93 GMC C1500. Initial inspection confirmed an 8.5" so things are looking up. I'm going to interrupt myself here and say that I had no power tools with me. I figured I could wedge the yoke with a big screwdriver or other means and get the pinion nut off, then rig up a way to hold the diff carrier while I break the ring gear bolts loose. Anyway, I've become pretty damned efficient at tearing down 10-bolts, so I ripped the cover off, counted ring gear teeth, and confirmed a possible 3.42. Undo cross pin bolt, take cross pin out, push axles in, remove C-clips, remove axle shafts and brake drums. At this point, I needed to get the driveshaft out so I could spin the pinion and count teeth. Undid the straps, pry on driveshaft, no movement. Introduce big-rear end screwdriver/prybar and the BFH to the situation and driveshaft removal follows shortly thereafter. Now I can spin the pinion, count my teeth, and confirm my 3.42. Got it on the first truck. Cool beans. Now I remove the bearing cap bolts, bearing caps, and work the carrier out. This one was a little more reluctant than the other ones I've taken apart, but it came out without too much of a fuss. Gears are still in great shape. The time comes to employ my grand plans of leverage to get these gears separated from their respective prisons. I started with the pinion. I managed to wedge my screwdriver into the yoke and against the exhaust. This held the yoke so I could actually get some torque on it with a ratchet. Unfortunately, I am apparently not strong enough to tackle the likes of a  GMC TRUCK and couldn't get that motherfucker to move. Knowing that at this point I was beat, I made a feeble attempt to remove the ring gear bolts and was met with similar failure.It's painfully obvious at this point that I need a cordless impact wrench. I'm not about to buy an entire rear end just to get it back to my garage so I can get the gears off. I've decided I'll buy an HF impact with a 20% coupon, use it to blast these bolts/nut off and take it back. Anybody have any experience with this turd? http://www.harborfreight.com/12-in-18-volt-cordless-impact-wrench-60380.html I just need 11 fasteners worth of give-a-poo poo from this thing. Next trip to the yard should be much lighter. Impact, 2 sockets, extension, screwdriver, and hammer. Sorry for lack of pictures. More focused on the job. I'll get some next time.
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Aug 4, 2014 19:02
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Yeah, the thing is that I don't see myself making very many trips to the yard after this and I have every intention of returning it when I'm done. I think all I'll need from the yard after the gears is a backing plate. I can get that with hand tools no problem.
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Aug 5, 2014 03:29
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Fucknag posted:Even if you don't strictly need it, an impact is nice for zipping things off quickly, especially if it's something preloaded so you have to keep cranking on it for a few turns before it spins freely. I've actually got an electric impact at home, but I cant exactly run 12 miles of extension cord to the yard
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Aug 5, 2014 03:56
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Hit the yard on Saturday to finish grabbing the gears out of the GMC that I found. I did pick up an HF cordless impact for my trip to get the nut off the pinion and attempt to get the ring gear off the carrier as well. I was traveling pretty light with just a bag containing the impact, 2 socket extensions, 3/4" socket, 1 1/4" socket, screwdriver, gloves, hammer, Aerokroil, and a towel (always bring your towel). Now, last week when I pulled the carrier I didn't have the tools to get the pinion or ring gear actually off, so I just tucked it underneath the truck so I could come back to it. I was a beet leery about this, but figured "nobody wants that drat thing" and didn't really think much about it. Naturally, when I got there on Saturday and went to the truck the carrier and ring gear was no longer there. After the initial mutterings, I figured I might was well try to find it since I didn't have the tools to pull a different one. Despite all odds and laughing in the face of my notorious bad luck, I found it sitting in the bed of the truck right next to the original victim. Couldn't believe it.  The pinion came out easily enough. HF impact spun the nut off without problem, but I did have to use the axle shaft I had pulled the week prior as a hammer to actually knock the gear out of the axle. Made sure to spin the nut back on to give me something to hit so I didn't trash out my pinion. Once the pinion was out, I could set up shop on the tailgate of the next truck over and actually work on my feet for a bit while I tried to get that ring gear off. Now, the thing is with the 8.5" gears is that the ring gear bolts are all left-handed. Not normally a big deal, but when you try to use an impact gun that's designed more for breaking nuts loose (counter-clockwise) than tightening them (clockwise), you quickly realize that the odds of pulling this off just went down the shitter. I managed to get 2 bolts out of 10 removed at the yard. I then admitted defeat, grabbed the whole drat thing, and went home. Counter guy gave me a break since I told him I really didn't want the carrier and the spider gears were already gone. So I dragged it home, threw it in the vise, and tried to blast the rest of the bolts out with my corded impact. When I did the LSD out of the Firebird, my impact spun them right out. Couple seconds of hammering, then they'd let go. Not so much here. gave a couple bolts 10 or 15 seconds worth of hell and then decided to just go for the breaker bar/cheater pipe combo. Short work was made of the bolts.  Both were given a thorough Brakleening, then put away for later assembly. I blasted through my August budget in a hurry with this acquisition, so it will be mostly cleaning and other small jobs this month. Next month is my anniversary, so maybe I'll get lucky with some new parts. In the meantime, there's a couple car shows that I'm going to be heading to in hopes of getting rid of some of these extra parts.  Seriously, anybody want to buy some gears? 
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Aug 11, 2014 04:10
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I honestly didn't use it for long enough to make a good judgment on that. It spun the pinion nut off just fine, and managed to get 2 ring gear bolts out, but I think those were flukes. It didn't lose any power while I was hammering on those bolts, but it got pretty drat hot. I've used my corded one for longer and not had it get nearly that hot, so I'm kinda leery about that. If I were to buy one to own, I'd pony up the bucks for a Milwaukee or the like. I owned it for less than 24 hours so it's really hard for me to say it was worth the money. I could have just spent the money on a name-brand one since I was returning it anyway, but I didn't want them to be all "no returns on used equipment rear end in a top hat" and then I'd be sidled with a $300 tool that I'll rarely use. With the current 20% off coupon, the HF gun was just over $100, so if somebody wants to potentially eat that in the name of science, go right ahead. HF return policy on power tools is 90 days, so depending on amount of use, that gives a pretty good window to paint a picture of the overall quality. I got their 4.5" grinder for $19 with the coupon and I already replaced the garbage grease with some hi-temp poo poo so we'll see if that thing wants to stick around. Edit: ^^^ In case you're wondering, there are two signs there that I'll be wearing as a sandwich board. Hopefully I don't get kicked out for soliciting
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Aug 11, 2014 17:20
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Went to the show, wore my sign, came home with all my parts. Had a couple nibbles on the wheels and gave some business cards away. Maybe they'll tell their friends. I've got a swap meet and another show to head to this summer so maybe I can get somebody to pull the trigger on these things. My parents were visiting this weekend so I didn't really get much done. Dad brought me a pretty sweet dial indicator with a magnetic base, so that should help in getting the rear end together. I've been putting off the brake lines since I'm reluctant to rent another POS tool, but it's going to have to happen sooner rather than later. I finally cleaned up the instrument panel a bit and put the speedometer back in. This is a pretty good picture of the butchering done by some jackass PO for the hackjob stereo install. Any input from you guys as to what I could do with it?  I'll probably go over the lettering for the controls with some white paint.
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Aug 18, 2014 03:33
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IOwnCalculus posted:Blech. My first reaction there honestly would be to see how much a repro bezel would cost. 300 bones. http://www.classicindustries.com/product/1971/nova/parts/n668205.html I may wait until the interior gets redone and pick one up. There's also these, but they look pretty tacky to me. If anything, I'll just take the speedo out of the factory bezel and rig up mounting for other gauges. http://www.classicindustries.com/product/nova/parts/46951911.html
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Aug 18, 2014 13:49
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Powershift, that was the color of my '72. So I mentioned earlier that my wedding anniversary is rapidly approaching and that may lead to a budget adjustment. Well fortunately the CFO approved an extension for the month of September on stipulation that we wait until her first paycheck of the season shows up (she's a teacher). I've been getting my thoughts together as to what needs to be tackled next and I will now present to all of you those ideas in full Slung Blade fashion. I've been running this list for a couple months to keep track so I'll omit the things that are already done. - Get that loving driver's side brakeline finished and reinstalled - Buy the Richmond Gear kit and get the 8.5" together - Pull out the old 8.2" and get the hardlines moved over to the 8.5" - Buy some pretty new softlines from Kore3.com to go from my old hardlines to the new calipers - Buy rear rotors - Check fitment of rotors on axle shafts. Get hub faces machined down if necessary and get new wheel studs. - Install the 8.5" - Install backing plates/axle shafts/rotors/calipers - Install all my new softlines - Double check all brakelines and go buy fluid - Bleed master cylinder - Bleed brakes - Start buying wheels and tires. I'm pretty sure that the wheels and tires I'm going to buy will fit, but I'm starting off piece by piece. Buy front wheel, verify front fitment, verify back fitment just in case. Buy front tire, mount, check front and back fitments. Buy BACK wheel, repeat process. Once I verify everything fits where it should, buy the other 2 wheels/tires and strap 'em on. -  PUT THE loving ENGINE AND TRANS BACK IN!- Check all my torque settings for the front suspension steering once it's back on the ground Once all that poo poo's done, I'll start buying suspension parts.
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Aug 19, 2014 21:19
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Slung Blade posted:Hahahahhaa, awesome. I hope this becomes a thing. Your Coronet is pretty goddamned cool too. All I need is to put the engine back in it, finish the brakes, buy new wheels and tires, put the dash back together, renew the license sticker, and get it insured. Loser hangs up the winner's flag in the garage?
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Aug 19, 2014 22:54
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I sense the purchase of a Canadian flag in my future...
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Aug 20, 2014 00:47
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Huggable Bear King posted:Here's one on ebay for $50, looks a little rough though I actually saw that one the other day when I was looking around. Too bad that radio slot's been gutted too. I actually found a place that specializes in Novas about 10 minutes from my house so maybe I'll drag mine over there to see if they can do anything for me. Well Slung Blade lit a bit of a fire under my rear end to get things rolling so I decided that I'd rip out the old rear end last night to make way for the 8.5". The victim:  You like that muffler install? There's a soup can under that clamp. Only the finest in this garage. I approached this a bit differently than when I pulled the 8.5" as I plan on actually driving this car and possibly reusing some of these parts. HULK SMASH doesn't really apply here. FSM provided a good jumping off point for the process, but naturally it never goes exactly as it does in theory. I apologize for the lack of pictures, but I wanted to get this done fairly quickly as I knew today would be a long day at work. I'll also add here that I am still completely loving astonished that every single nut that I spun off put up no fight whatsoever and came right off. Couldn't loving believe it. Removal was as follows: - Go buy another HF moving dolly. - Jack up the diff so I can reposition my jack stands. - Undo lower shock mounts and make sure shocks are free from the axle. - Undo the 4 nuts per side holding the axle tubes to the leaf springs and remove the lower plates. Note: no U-bolts. The top half of the clamp on the axle tubes has little studs that run through the clamp around the leaf. Didn't even realize it before last night. - Realize that I shouldn't have hooked the parking brake cables back up and loosen it all to get enough slack in the cable to free the ends going into the drums. - Go against factory procedure and leave the front leaf mounts connected. Hope that doesn't bite me in the rear end. - Notice that there's no loving way I'm getting the lower rear shackle bolts out without dropping the tank. - Link up some combo wrenches to get enough leverage to break the top rear shackle bolt loose. Proceed to take for-goddamned-ever to twist the nut off with a box-end because my ratchet won't fit. Note to self: buy 11/16" ratcheting box-end wrench. - Pry out top bolt and drop the drivers side spring out of the way. - Rinse and repeat for passenger side. - Notice that I completely loving forgot the brake line from the body and miraculously undo it without rounding off the nut or loving anything up. - Transfer the 8.2" from the floor jack to the dolly and roll that fucker out.  I'll be heading back out there momentarily to gently caress with getting the hard lines off the 8.2". Edit: Might as well just tack this on here. Went out and pulled the brake lines and parking brake cables out. Cables kinda sucked since I had to rip apart all the drum hardware to get to the end, but oh well. I think I've finally resigned to just scrapping the 8.2". Nobody with any sense is going to buy it. Brake lines and bracket are in/on the vise, cables are on the stool. Soft line with the tee fitting feeding the two hard lines will be getting replaced with braided stainless from Kore3. Gonna have to figure out a way to get these cables to work with the Camaro brakes. 
Boaz MacPhereson fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 01:52
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With the rear end out, I've got pretty good access to the rear floorpan of the car. I probably won't get this kind of access again, so I figured I'd better clean it while I can. I pulled the driver's side shock and leaf to give myself some room and rolled under to take a look. Ugh.  Gross. I suited up with a dust mask, glasses, and a face mask and gathered my tools. Garden hose, Simple Green, various brushes of the scrubbing and wire varieties. I hit it all with the hose and gave it a heavy bath with the Simple Green. Gave it a minute to soak and started in with the brushes. Once I was sufficiently coated in 40 years of crap, I hit it with the hose again and was pleasantly surprised.   With that done, the next purchases will be new hard lines for the axle and a gear install kit from Richmond Gear. I'll keep myself busy for the next couple weeks until I buy those so updates will probably be sparse.
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Aug 26, 2014 21:24
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Been a while. Apologies all around. The weather was too good tonight to not go work, so I figured I'd go tear some poo poo up. I pulled the axle shafts and the carrier out of the 8.2" so maybe I can get a little more money for scrapping it all. If not, it will at least make it lighter to lug around. Cleaned up the diff cover off the 8.2" since it will work on the 8.5". Figure I'll use it at least temporarily until I buy a nicer one with drain and fill plugs. A couple weeks back, I cleaned up and painted the leaf spring plates and the driver side front leaf mount. No pictures unfortunately. Sorry. Finally ordered this tonight: http://www.summitracing.com/parts/RMG-831021M. Comes with pretty much everything I'll need to put this 8.5 together finally. That does remind me that I still need to get the pinion races out of there. Should have done that tonight. I made a weak attempt a few weeks back with some brass punches, but didn't make any progress. I need to just sit down and get it done. I'm heading out to a new (to me) yard on Saturday and I have no idea what they have for inventory. Maybe I'll get lucky and find that second F-body backing plate. Next up on my poo poo-to-buy list are new rear hardlines, fancy new softlines from Kore3, rear rotors, and that backing plate. Again, sorry for the lack of pictures. You guys can make fun of me for spending money on a sedan if you want.
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Sep 19, 2014 03:33
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Spent the majority of yesterday in the garage. Started off by popping the new pinion races in the freezer to hopefully shrink them down a bit. It was then time to remove the old races. Already removed in this picture.  As you can see in that picture, there are notches on each side behind each bearing race. Get in there with a punch or screwdriver and a BFH and eventually they will work free. I got my fancy new bearing race/seal drivers ready to go so I could be ready when the races came out of the freezer. Also pictured is the Richmond Gear kit that I bought for assembling the 8.5". New bearings and races all around, axle bearings and seals, pinion washer and locknut, crush sleeve, ring bolts, diff cover gasket, and various compounds, lubes, threadlockers, and RTV.  I also installed the new axle bearings and seals, but failed to grab a picture of that. With the old pinion races out and the new ones still chilling, I figured I'd get the new wheel studs installed on the axle shafts. SOP for installing press-in wheel studs is to put the studs through the hole from behind, run a lug nut on (flat side in) and just crank the poo poo out of it until it pulls the knurls up into the axle shaft. This method works just fine, but if you're using old lug nuts, expect to buy some new ones. I'd already planned on buying new nuts to go with the new wheels, so I didn't care about sacrificing these to the cause.  And the final result:  So I eventually got the new pinion races installed, but didn't grab a picture. Looks a lot like my first one up there, but with shiny new parts in that hole. Now I just need to figure out what to do with all this scrap. 
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Sep 29, 2014 14:10
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