[mike nixon]

Looks nice and { I hesitate to use this word on a 68 /9 ] Straight!

Mike

[Greg Reid]

Looks beautiful.

[webfoot]

Wow!

[John Eiseman]

Originally Posted by webfoot

Wow!

X 2 Your making short work of this project.

Looking good.

[68gtoMN]

Great build and wonderful pictures. BTW - Positraction tags were installed on the bolt shown, but were generally installed with the lettering facing the differential, then the tag was folded back over the bolt allowing it to be read and forcing this to be read/moved before the bolt was removed. Extra precautionary step. How was yours installed when you received it? Could have been changed by previous owners if that is not how it was found.

Also, as for Endura Delete option, one can tell by looking at PHS for box 67. If you find a 4 in that box, it signified endura Delete

[gtohurstjudge]

Very nice work......it will be a beauty when it's done. I do wish
it was still green. It seems that about half of 68 and 69 GTO's were painted some shade of green from the factory, and about 99 per cent of those have had a color change. The funny
thing about green is that it looks awful when the paint job isn't nice and gorgeous if it is done right. I've always been partial to green cars and have owned many over the years. Here
is my latest green car, a 2013 Gotta Have It Green Mustang. Yes that's right, Ford calls the
color "Gotta Have It Green". I saw the color and had to have it, just like the name says.
Here are some pics....

[Greg Reid]

That's a tough looking Ferd right there. ^^
I've never understood why Green cars are so universally despised today. Some of the best looking muscle cars that I can remember from my youth were dark green. A '70 GTO, a '69 Z-28 and a '70 SS Chevelle owned by friends during my teens come to mind right away.

[mudslinger]

Thanks guys.
The diff tag was on correctly when we took it off. I thought someone had put it on wrong.
Oh well, it just one more thing on our list to do over this winter
I know what you mean about green, I had a 70 Cutlass SX back in the day, it was dark green metallic, beautiful it was.
These kids now days have no taste when it comes to cars.
At this point of the build we slowed down some, I just didn't want the car to sit in primer one more winter. With paint on the body it was time to get inside trunk painted and work on the inside.
Ordered a roll of Rattle trap sound deadened.

Rad support and liners installed, getting ready to put drive train back in.

The dash pad and the bezel around the gauges where showing their age.
Went with a dash cover, and new bezel and wood grain insets.

Gauges where rebuilt by Pete Serio.
Brents eyes are a lot younger then mine and sure came in handy on the dash work


With the dash and gauges back in it was time to get the motor and tranny back in.
We had a garage that I have done business with forever pull drive train. They rebuilt the Munchie, put in new clutch ect.
The 400 checked out good, they replaced all the seals, waterpump, starter, alt,just about everything else that was bolted to the block, and painted it for us.
She runs

[Greg Reid]

How do you like the repop instrument panel? Looks great in the pic. Any issues?

[mudslinger]

For a driver quality car the repop instrument panel worked out ok.
I had some major issues with the glove comp. door.
This was the best I could get it and this was after spending half a day adjusting the door and filing out holes a bit.

If we had to do again we would have his old one repaired...had a crack under the radio cut out...and rechromed.
Nothing fits like oem !!

[68gtoMN]

What wood grain kit did you purchase for the dash?

[JLHarper]

Bezel looks nice, so does the car...glad your son painted it the color he wanted.

A bezel I sent out in early 90s for "resto"...a #s vert 68 GTO.

Big debate at the time over the blue/green color of the bezel gauge pod "holes"

I bet yours was a lot less costly and looks just as good, imo.

[mudslinger]

We used the heavy vinyl wood grain, sold by our host.
Install of the wood grain went really good and I am very happy with the results.
Test fitted the insets first then marked with 1/4" masking tape.
We applied vinyl with slightly soapy water, squeegee out the water and then a little heat from a hair dryer.

Bill

[Greg Reid]

I re-did my original a few years ago. Came out OK but I later found an uncut, undamaged original. Was wondering if I would be wasting my time restoring that second one when they have these repops available now.
By the way, that uncut undamaged original has a definite dark blue-green-grey color.

[mudslinger]

Brent started cleaning up the interior and detailing and painting the emblems.
We decided to replace the front buckets covers, foam, seat backs, bases and the chrome webbing. Drivers seat we replaced the lower springs. Also went with a new headliner and after looking at the carpets decided to replace those also.
The carpets where in pretty good shape yet, but who ever painted the car red the last time got red overspray all over them, red overspray on black carpets don't look too hot.


Replaced both sunvisors, headliner and the welt around the edges.


We had a gentleman I have used before through my shop. He came out and installed the headliner in my shop at home, made it nice cause we didn't have to load car up on trailer again.
He also did the seats, and recovered the console. The console now has stitching seams on the edges, it had been cut for speakers before and Brent wanted to put speakers back in those spots so we stayed with the old console. The stitched seams actually look pretty good and the speakers are far enough back in the console that you don't see em unless you are looking for em.

Been some time since I have had to line up doors with vent windows on a hardtop.
I wish I would of had vents windows installed in the doors during our final mock up before paint, would have made final install after paint a little less stressfull. I had to move the hinges on the drivers door to pillar just a smidge to get the vent to line up with the w/shield pillar......not a lot of fun when everything is painted.

[Greg Reid]

It's coming along very nicely. 8^)

[mudslinger]

Interior just about ready.
Finally got the steering wheel he had ordered 4 month earlier. didn't like it at all when he first installed it but it seems to grow on ya after awhile.


Car had the 8 track in it when he got it. Brent didn't think he would be listening to old 8 tracks much so he did some research and found a unit from Crutchfields that would fit.
It was my job to fab up a bracket that would work with the original hardware with out altering or modifying the original parts.

[JLHarper]

Looking great!

Would he want a set of the early AMES aftermarket Pontiac OE (factory) style front and rear floor mats in black...?

Cut you a deal since its your sons car, never used found in a box cleaning out shop and garage recently.

PM if interested.

Jeff

[mudslinger]

Thanks Jeff
Brent said he will try to look those up online and we will get back to ya.

No matter how many times you mock up the body before paint, I still lose more hair
every time I have to install and align a panel that is painted.

Had to use green electricial tape to protect the edges instead of black, my eyes ain't what they used to be.


Brent hasn't ordered the PHS paper work to verify that car came with endura delete, but this hood release might be the last remnants of the endura delete option.
Notice how far down it is under the bumper, always looked strange to me.

Shortened the release rod by about 2"


Bill

[rememberfireball#22]

I've always thought that when you can't decide on a color always go with black. But after seeing the original color on this one there is no way I would have put any other color on it.