Spent some time in the garage this weekend.

Admittedly, I have not had the time to spend in the garage so far this summer as I would like.. Unfortunately, as happens too often, life gets in the way.

But this past weekend I finally got to spend some ‘me’ time doing what I love the most, wrenching on real musclecar’s. My brother in law needed a little work on his 69 Nova.. He needed a ball joint replaced and had a problem in the charging system.

When it comes to GM muscle cars, I have always believed in replacing all 4 at the same time (unless of course any have been recently replaced). Turns out the one that was worn to the point of being a safety concern, was an aftermarket unit.. the other 3, which were showing only a minor amount of wear, were the factory joints! I was shocked to say the least!

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Hennessey VR1200 runs 220.5 MPH!

If you read my previous post (Titled “Not your grandfathers Caddy!”) about the Hennessey VR1200, you should understand the respect I have for this machine. Rather than just running on a dyno, they hit the open road to unleash this monster. You really cannot help but respect this machine! Pay close attention to the speedometer, and its value when he shifts.. Simply amazing!

Not your grandfathers Caddy!

The guys at Hennessey Performance have really built a Cadillac for our generation. There are very few cars today that get me drooling.. If I had the cash to buy it, there would already be one with a NH license plate on it! 😉

Check out the video below for the dyno test of the first of only 12 cars to be built!

I’m not sure what is better, hearing the turbo’s spinning up, hearing them go wide open, or seeing the tires starting to break loose from the dyno rollers. This really takes todays muscle-cars to a whole new level. With the parasitic power loss of the drivetrain, I will let you do the math to figure out HP and torque at the flywheel.

2012 Hillsborough Auto Show

This past weekend was the Hillsborough Balloon Fest, and on Sunday we had the annual Classic Car Show.   This is the first time I have ever helped with putting on a car show, and I learned a few things.

First, I will say that while there were not as many vehicles entered as I had hoped, although there was more than I expected. I believe the total was 23 vehicles.  Next year I hope we can get the word out in a more efficient manner and my goal will be 40+.

Now there were really only a few problems that we ran into.  1st was we had 2 classes that each ended up having a duplicate car number.  2nd, when it came time to announce the winners and hand out the trophies, all we had were the car numbers; No names or vehicle info. Lastly, when counting the ballots, one of the winners was announced as being classified as being in the ‘pre-1940’s’ category, when he was actually in the 1940’s.

For the 1st problem, we were able to easily resolve it by granting the 1st car that came into the show as the correct one, and dropping the other vehicle.  We of course immediately refunded the entry fee for those two.   This doesn’t solve the issue of split voting (meaning 1 car in each of these classes may have gotten extra votes from the other vehicle), but unfortunately there is nothing we could do about that as there was no way to restart the voting process (voting was done by the public as they came through the show area).  Thankfully the 2 affected vehicle owners were very understanding.  The issue occurred because we have a large surge of vehicle’s coming in at once, and with two people running registrations, and in hindsight, the error was easy to occur.

For the 2nd problem, we simply did not record the info as we did not believe it was necessary.  But at the end of the show, it would have been helpful to have as it would have been nice to announce the owner name and vehicle info.

For the 3rd and final problem, it was easy to work around by simply reviewing his registration card to be sure he was issued the correct trophy.   The only real concern with that was we had to pause while someone ran to the car to retrieve the card.

I have a plan to get around these problems for next year, and it should actually streamline the registration process.

First, we will pre-print a number of vehicle registration cards for each class.  This way as they come into the field, the person registering the vehicle simply grabs the next card in the pile.  At the same time we will have a ledger system to record owner name, cell number,  and vehicle info.  This also has the advantage of if we have a large number of cars come in at once, they can simply park the cars and go back to them afterwards to gather the owner info for the ledger.

Some lessons were learned, and a good time was had by all that attended.

The good news is that we have a little less than a year to put plans in place for next year!

Tearing down the Chevelle.

For those that do not know me, I have a 1968 Chevelle that I have owned for more than a few years that I am finally restoring.

Today I was able to get back to the Chevelle and continue the teardown. My nephew Luke came over today to help, as he has been itching to get his hands dirty helping with taking it apart. Inspiring the next generation of gear heads most definitely has it rewards. (The extra pair of hands helps too!).

I really wanted to pull the engine first, then the transmission, so I could avoid tilting it back and spilling about a gallon of the red stuff. Unfortunately due to a leak from a crack in the head for cylinder #7, the rings were well rusted to the cylinder wall. I soaked the rings for a good hour, and while I got the piston to move down, the rust is too extensive to get it to move up.. And the piston was already nearly at bottom. There was no way I could move it far enough to get to all 3 bolts holding the torque convertor to the flexplate.
So I decided to bite the bullet and pull the engine and transmission together. I figured there was less oil in the pan, than in the converter. And it would make for a smaller clean up. It made a mess, but it got the assembly out.

I have a buddy who asked if he could have the engine, since I was not going to keep it. (I plan on buying a crate engine, so as long as I don’t need it for a core..) He wants to rebuild it with his son… The rust it quite extensive in the cylinder, so hopefully it a .030 over bore will clean it up.. If not, he will be looking at a sleeve.

It was good to get some more progress done, and I look forward now to stripping the interior, and pulling the body from the frame..

Anyone have an auto body rotisserie they could lend me? 😉 <jk>

 

The front clip is finally off the Chevelle!

Man.. I have to say just getting the front clip off has really taken a lot longer than I would have thought.. To be honest, I could have had this done in a few days, but there are the other demands of life.. (In case you dont know what they are, that would be a wonderful family!)

Back on toping however, the front clip is finally removed.. What I did find was some serious rust in the body tub, just behind the rust in the LH fender. You can see it in the pic above. So far I think this little area of rot is really going to be the biggest hurdle I am going to have to overcome on this project.. (and by that I mean it is going to challenge my fabrication skills the most)

It really does not look like much, but, the rot goes clean through. And there are a lot of complex bends.

The other GM A bodies I have built, and done body work to, or helped out with, never had rot in this spot.. I am going to look for a patch panel.. I am hoping some company makes one as it will save a good weekend of fab work..

Pulling the front clip from the Chevelle.

See that HUGE rust hole at the rear of the LF fender? That is causing me more heartache than I wanted.

First I wanted to disassemble the front clip a piece at a time.. Which was going great until I ran into the two bolts that hold the fenders at the bottom, behind the wheels..

When I tried to simply remove bolts, the captive nuts behind them of course broke free. I was really, REALLY, hoping these would just come out. Alas, they did not..

So now I am down to two choices..

1.Cut the heads of the bolts off, thereby releasing their hold on the chassis.
2.Run the cutoff wheel right below the body line, again releasing the hold of the fender to body..

I thought to myself, ‘this is only one side’ and went to the other.. I’ll save you that torment.. Suffice it to say, it is much worse.
Now I am onto pulling the front clip as an assembly.. It will make drilling the cutting the remaining nuts and bolts easier..

The Chevelle teardown continues!

So I am continuing tearing the Chevelle down.. And I unfortunately had to put the tools away because it was time for Caiden’s nap; the impact wrench and cutoff wheel are a bit loud.

Anyway, I figured it would be a good time to take a step back and ponder the details I have not thought of.. And the first one that came to mind while looking over where I am, is the gap behind the doors.. For its day, this was the norm.. But me, I’d rather tighten this gap up, to say 1/8 inch. (remember there will be weather strips behind to door to seal the air leaks.. So this is strictly a cosmetic discussion) Closing that gap will require metal work, and a fair amount of it, I’d have to guess a good weekends worth of work.

So I ask those in my friends list, would you invest the time to make this gap a whole lot tighter? I’m thinking I will..

My wife’s cousin just posted on Facebook that I should go suicide.. It was a thought I had a one time.. But I think it’s time to revive that thought process.. I really have never seen a 68 Chevelle with suicide doors..

A Chevelle update – after many years

So here we are. Almost 11 years since I picked her up down in PA.. Unfortunately over all these years there has been reason after reason why I have not been able to start building her. For the most part I blamed it on not having a garage. Or that I was a young father. Poor excuses, I know.

A little over a year and a half ago I bought a house, with a two car garage. And I have had every intention to start the build as soon as I got on top of my bills, and started saving again.

Well, as life often does, another curve ball was thrown.. I had met a wonderful woman and got married. We decided we wanted to have a child together, and our son is due in late March. With that I need to finish the basement, as we need another bedroom. So it will have to wait probably another year or two..