70 Formula 400 Build
 

I finished stripping down the formula this week and it left for the body shop today. The body man/painter said one to two months but I have never met a body/paint guy who told me the truth, so we will see. This is a real formula 400, 4 speed car that was originally castillion bronze with deluxe sandlewood interior. I am not doing a frame-off restoration, mostly because the original engine and trans were gone when I got the car, and also because I intend to drive and enjoy the car and I want to keep the cost down. Therefore, my intent will be to build a nice driver. Fortunately, this car is very solid with no rust issues at all, (although I have not pulled the front and rear glass yet). While the car is gone I will work on restoring parts to be installed when the car returns. I'll post as I go because I'm sure I will have a ton of questions.

Nice ride!! check those subframe bushings for dry rot :)

Cool Chris! Glad to see you are building it. Should be a great ride when done. What are you planning for the motor/tranny?

Pat,

The car had a 350 Chevy in it when I bought it but it also came with a 73 455 Pontiac ready to assemble. The 455 was already bored .060 over and had new forged pistons and new rods pressed on. I also got a nodular crank, all the bearings, rings, and gaskets, etc... A set of 6X heads came with the car also. I had to have everything balanced but otherwise all I needed was the cam, lifters and an oil pump. I went with the comp cam 268 and used a stock 72 cast iron intake with RARE repop exhaust manifolds with the oversized outlets. A factory HEI came with the car so I went through that and will use it. I got an aluminum flywheel cheap so I used that as well. As I said before, I'm trying to use what I have and keep the cost down.

Chris

Just a thought, you should get that block sonic checked, .060 " over is border line for a 455.

Pat,

Here is how the engine looks right now. I still need to bolt on the exhaust manifolds and buy a fuel pump.

For the transmission I will use the muncie M20 that came with the car. It is a 1970 trans but not original to the car since it is dated about a month after my car was built. I went through the trans already and the gears are all in very nice shape, it just had a bad rear bearing so I went ahead and replaced all the bearings and brass. The shifter the car came with was an aftermarket so I picked up a correct one on ebay and set it up so the trans is ready to go in. The shifter I bought had the correct backdrive linkage which was missing since the prior owner was using headers.

The block was sonic checked when I had the balancing done.

By the way, nice build up, it will be a very nice car, I love the 1970-73 Formulas Firebirds ...

great color combination..........cant wait to see it done.........

Great!!!!!!!!! I think you are 100% on the right track......... Not every car needs or warrants a resto. One can do a lot of detailing and painting with a frame bolted to a body.

I'm doing same with my 72. Car is undercoated from probably new, and I am leaving it. I need to super clean or attempt to someday the underside, but nothing is rusty funky due to undercoat. I just checked my body bushings myself and mine are fine, amazingly.

Please leave no spoiler...... :)

You have the 12 bolt in it? Posi? gear? That is a real interesting point on the 70's. I am putting a 70, 12 bolt 3.55 posi in mine if the shop ever gets done with putting it togethor.

I think your color combo is great. It is one I remember seeing in person on some, and some magazine cars from the time were often in that color.

I'm not partial to brown, although I don't dislike castillion bronze. However, I had planned on painting the car atoll blue and leaving the interior sandlewood. Then I pulled the fenders off and got a glimpse of the original color on the side of the cowl. Damn, that is nice! So, now I'm leaning more towards keeping it the original color. The pictures don't do the color justice, it is much nicer in person.

The original 3.55 peg-leg 12 bolt is still in the car. I'll leave that till the end. I plan on adding a posi but want to drive the car with the 3.55's first. If I think it is too low I can change the ratio when I add the posi. I would have like to have gone with a 5 speed but the cost was too high.

The car does not have a rear spoiler and I will not be adding one since I prefer the non-spoiler look on the formula.

that color is excellent......with a high quality base/clear coat finish it will look great......I pulled the sub frame on mine because I wanted to do the bushings and paint under it.........you're only four bolts away.......

Chris,
Great call on finishing it up! Can't wait to see it.

Cool car Chris,,,,, enjoy and the color is great by the way (not so many of them around it seems when at shows).

Today's project was the pedal assembly. This car was very solid, there was no rust in the floor or under the dash. However, the pedal brace was very rusty which leads me to believe it was not painted or plated.

Might have come off a junkyard item if the original one had been damaged/ needed replacement at some point in life....looks a bit extreme rusty if there is no rust elsewhere around there :confused:

I sandblasted the pedals and brace, but even then the brace looked like crap. I used rust remover (acid) on the brace to kill the rust. It's pitted but since it's under the dash it will have to do. Besides, it's date coded so it's numbers matching :)

I used red primer then rattle canned the pedals two colors to simulate the original paint surface where the factory dipped the pedals in black paint.

good job! - looks great again

ok, that excludes swapping....weird. If I look at the bare interior pictures on top post of the floor & firewall, it's all clean and solid. Indeed strange how the pedal got so rusty.....
production fault?

Here is the date code, it's somewhat hard to read but it is March 1, 1970, and the car build date is late April.

I'm sure that you know this but don't forget that you will need a bellhouising to go with that Pontiac engine. Different bolt pattern than a Chebby.

FTR: Leave the car the original color. You'll be much happier in the end and it's easier on your painter.

I also think you will find that the 3.55's will be plenty for a built 455. Traction will already be an issue and you'll easily be 3000 rpm on the freeway.

Bob,

I am aware that chevy bellhousings are different. I did get a Pontiac bellhousing with the car but it wasn't pretty. I don't have any before pics, but here it is after refinished it. I sandblasted it first, then painted it with aluma-blast, then used Eastwoods satin clear on it. It actually turned out pretty good.

Chris

Here is the pedal assembly after I put it back together. Since the clutch switch wasn't broken I will wait till I hang the pedals back in the car to install the switch.

I need some help identifying the clutch Z-bar since I'm not sure if this is the correct one for a 70 Pontiac F-body. I would hate to drop the drive train in and find out this was for a Camaro. Can anyone verify it is correct for my car?

Today I'm working on the door hinges. I had an extra set sitting in a box so I ordered a pin kit for them. I took one of the hinges apart and sandblasted the pieces. I then shot them with blue lightning metal prep and installed the new bushings and pin. The metal prep will prevent the metal from rusting till they are painted. When I'm finished with all four hinges I will drop them off at the body shop to be swapped for the ones on the car.

I was a little pissed off when the pin kit came without any instructions, but it was actually so simple that none were necessary.

Chris, my TA is not in a place where I can get a super good look at the Z-bar, but I looked it over as best I could and it looks just like the one in your pic....

I went by the body shop yesterday and snapped some pics of the formula. It has been stripped to bare metal now. The passenger door is full of bondo so I dropped off a replacement. There is a small patch on the lower drivers quarter panel behind the wheel but it looks to have been a good repair and will not need to be redone. There is a weld seam near the rear bumper on the drivers quarter and I have not idea what was done there. The passenger quarter has been replaced and I think it may have been damaged again afterward because the entire quarter appears to have been replaced but there is old damage and bondo in the sail panel area. It also looks like there is a welded seam along the belt line. Again, it does not make sense. However, the car is in fairly solid shape given it's age. The glass is out now and the window channels are in good shape and will not require any repair. My body man will not be patching anything, he said all the metal is good and he will just repair what is on the car.

More body pics

Nice and clean. I've got my 71 body in about the same stage and found a couple of small spots around the back window to fix. Interesting, I haven't seen that style parcel tray before..I wasn't aware that 70 models were different.

When i stripped mine down to bare metal I found a bullet hole in the drivers door...........lol........

Nice job on the '70 Chris. You'll be happy with the Castillion Bronze color when it's done.

From what I have read, the rear "parcel tray" was redesigned for 1971 and later to accommodate the vent stove pipe on the evap system, hence the 1970 one-year-only.

Hey Capt,

Maybe your Formula was the getaway car in a liquor store heist!

Nice car Bob,

Please post some more pics, I'm collecting Castillion Bronze photos. What color is the interior?

Chris

The guy who originally restored the 70 Camaro RS/SS I owned a few years back told me he found a bullet hole in the rear quarter.
people must have a thing for shooting at F-bodies?????

When I got the car it came with a set of 15 x 8 snowflakes. Although I like the look of those rims I don't think they look right on an early second gen car, (JMO). So, I swapped the 4 snowflakes for a set of 5, 15 x 7 rally II's. I have a sandblast cabinet but it takes forever to blast rims so I took them to a local sandblasting place and had the blasted. It cost me $25.00 per rim and another $10.00 each to have them epoxy primed. I had a choice of black or gray primer and I picked the gray. I had ordered all the paints and stencil kit from Eastwoods a few years ago for another project that I never finished so I had everything I needed to restore the wheels. I didn't care for the stencil kit, they didn't stick well (maybe due to age) so I wound up just taping them off myself. It's time consuming, but I'm happy with the results. I used all Eastwoods stuff, the silver, charcoal, and satin clear and the wheels turned out real nice. I left the back of the rims unpainted I just clear coated right over the gray primer.

I'm going to run 245/60/15 tires and I had intended to use trim rings, since I think they would accent the paint nicely, but now I'm not so sure. I would really hate to scratch those rims by putting trim rings on.

Hey Chris, they look great. Nice job!

I've had the same experience with the masks -- won't ever buy them again. As tedious as taping is, it's the way to go.

I think Formulas look a bit naked without rings, but I'd have a hard time scratching the those pretty rims, too!

BTW (and you probably know this), the correct P-metric replacement for an F60x15 is a 235/60 x 15. I've always thought the 245s look ever so slightly blimpy on a 7" wide rim....but I'm probably a minority/overly picky about that stuff. For new production stuff, we wouldn't fit anything wider than a 225 on a 7" rim.

Are those Jeep Cherokee rims on your car? I didn't realize they are the same bolt pattern.

Later-

Keith,

I had 245's on my old 70 trans am and I liked the way they filled out the wheel wells, however, I'll keep your recommendation in mind. These were the best pictures I could come up with short of spending a couple of hours looking through CD's full of old pictures.

Chris

I'm pretty sure the mags shown in the pictures of my formula are old "Western" mags. They were on the car when I got it, sans center caps, and I'm only using them as rollers till the body and paint work are done, after which I will install the rally II's.

Nice job on those wheels.

Here is an original owner 70 formy in your color combo.

http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...ZEFormula2.jpg

http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...r/IMG_3622.jpg

http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...zeinterior.jpg

Bob,

That is way cool! Thanks for the pictures, what a nice, original car. Mine was optioned pretty close, same color combo and mine has the same steering wheel, console, 4 speed, and standard seatbelts. Mine came with standard gauged and rally II's though. If you have any more pictures, please post them or send them to me. I am especially interested in the original carpet color since I have heard some people say it is brown, tan or black.

Chris

A couple of more of that car. Spotted at Tipp City 2006-8... it wasn't there this year.

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...1&d=1252466935
http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...1&d=1252467012
http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...1&d=1252467012
http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...1&d=1252467012
http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...1&d=1252467012

Another Castillian Bronze. This one RAIII!

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...1&d=1252467803
http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...1&d=1252467803
http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...1&d=1252467803

The carpet in the photos above appears to be a light brown and matches the carpet strip on the bottom of the deluxe door panels.

Here is a standard sandlewood interior picture from the site Tranz-Am. The carpet appears to be a similar light brown or tan color, but it may not be original. I think black carpet would be unsightly.


http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...Sandalwood.jpg

Steve (RAFormulas), I didnt see you at the nats this year. Sorry I missed you.

Bob

Bob, I was there Thursday night through Saturday. Left after the Tipp City Cruise, blew off Sunday. Stayed at the Drury again this year. I was looking around for ya... guess we never crossed paths. Have to try again next year. I will be taking one of my Lucy Blue 70 RA cars next year so it should be easier to spot me.:rolleyes:

stunning pictures! very chique color!

Another nice Castillian Bronze car

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnoQuTctICU

I'm pretty sure that car belongs to a guy named Ray, who is friends with Keith K. If so, that car didn't crack 10K on ebay. There is no way you could build it for that.

I would like to see more of the silver bird in the background, you sure don't see many that color.

Yep... that's Ray's car. It did sell, but not on ebay - went overseas (somewhere in Scandinavia, I think he said). Buyer got a nice car.

Ray's a forum member, so he can probably chip in more on the silver one. It's a '71. Some pics are here:
http://www.midmichiganmuscle.com/71formulathumb.htm