[goatman55]

Part one: The beginning
In may of 1991, I was about to graduate high school. I was wrapping up my high school buildup of a 55 chevy pickup that my dad was helping me with. I had been thinking about my next project, which I wanted to be a 66-72 GM A body with a 4 speed. I preferred the 66-67 body style, but at that point in my life, I wasn't going to be choosy.
One day I came home and my dad mentioned that there was a 67 GTO for sale nearby for $1600. He had already looked at it and said that it had good potential. He told me to go take a look at it. I figured "Why bother, I can't scrape up $1600" So we went and took a look at it and it was pretty complete other than drivetrain. The owner said that her husband had dismantled the car in 1981 because of some negligent driving tickets she had gotten with it. The engine and trans were still at her inlaws place. Little did I know my dad had already bought the car, and said this is your graduation present. I was amazed that the die hard chevy man would cross the line.



A couple of days later I came home from school and there it was on my dad's truck. The engine was disassembled and was in the trunk along with the muncie. For some reason, the back window was sitting on the rear seat. The parchment interior looked more like dalmation from all of the mold and mildew. Everything was there though, even the original bolts to the engine. The only real rust problem was the tail panel, which was still in stock at the local pontiac dealership.



I spent the next few months just cleaning it up and deciding what exactly I was going to do with it. Since I was still in auto shop, I hot tanked all of the engine pieces before I graduated.

[Tim john]

and ??? To be continued ? You have our attention.

Tim john---

[wytnyt]

Originally Posted by goatman55

Little did I know my dad had already bought the car, and said this is your graduation present. I was amazed that the die hard chevy man would cross the line.

the little nudges dads give help guide us throughout our life
nice potential gto

[goatman55]

Part 2: Putting the mess back together
Right after I got the car I discovered High Performance Pontiac magazine. The first issue I got had a red 67 gto on the cover and I was hooked.



There was only one other GTO that I had remembered seeing at the time which was owned by a guy that was a couple of grades ahead of me in high school. And his was a real piece of crap.

Warrior Racing had a big ad in this issue, and I ordered a rebuild kit for the 400. When I got the kit I realized the engine had already been built before, because it already had TRW forged pistons, aftermarket valve springs and an Engle cam. Even though the crank journals were covered in grease, they had some rust pitting, so the owner must have put the grease on after they started to rust. The cam was also beyond repair. The block was bored +.030 and I had the rotating assembly balanced. The only thing that eventually came back to haunt me was I trusted the opinion of the guy at Warrior as he recommended a Ram Air IV cam for my engine.

I eventually got the issue of HPP that had information on how to decode my car. I was a little disappointed to find out that it was a factory auto car. Everything else was original, so I learned to live with it. I replaced the 2.93 rear for a 3.55 Safe-T-Track and installed a rally cluster that I had found at a swap meet.

I spent mid 91 to mid 92 putting the engine together and trying to get the car looking acceptable with the paint and interior that came with it. I never got the thing to run during this time period because my Motors manual had a misprint that said that the distributor on a Pontiac turned clockwise.

More to come... I type really slow.

[ReelFun]

You're just trying to keep us dangling. Interesting so far though.

[goatman55]

Part 3: Digging into the body
By mid 1992, I had rebuilt the engine, rubbed out the existing paintjob and cleaned up the original interior. The body was good enough for a driver, except for the rusty tail light panel. I had an old mig welder that a friend was storing at our garage, so I figured I would attempt to install it. I had a quart of black lacquer so I decided to paint the new panel black just to get by. Well I thought it looked so good that a week later, the whole car was stripped down and I started priming and blocking it.



The body was pretty straight. The fenders and doors were a different story. The GTO had been repainted twice, both because of wrecks. At least one fender and door had been replaced and the other had dent puller holes just bondoed in.



After fixing all of the damage I sprayed the car with 4 coats of black lacquer and three coats of clear. Earlier that year I painted my friends girlfriend's jeep for free just for practice, so the GTO was my second paintjob. It turned out great. I chose black over the original silverglaze because the metallic paint was way beyond my skill level.




I had picked up 4 15x7 rally II's for $40 at the Super Chevy swapmeet (of all places) and repainted them and took them to Super Shops for a set of their really cheap radial t/a's. Once I got them on the car, I had to check if the Safe T Track worked...


It did!


Since the body turned out so nice I ended up trashing my original upholstery for seat covers and door panels. The previous owner had installed CalCustom woodgrained door handles and window cranks, which cut circles in the vinyl around them. It just bugged me too much to leave it alone.

The GTO was pretty much finished in 1993. I had a new exhaust system put in it in the mid 1990's and later made some suspension upgrades. I drove it daily for about a month while I was in junior college while I rebuilt the engine in my daily driver. It seemed about every other day something would fail on the thing and I was getting tired of fixing things. Every time I drove it I liked it less and the Ram Air IV cam wasn't helping matters. I eventually just parked it in my dad's shop when I went off to college.

Once I finished college, I had kind of forgot about the GTO. I was more into street rods by then but I didn't want to sell it because I figured I would do something with it in the future. I also didn't want to try to sell it because the old lacquer paint was fading and the car just didn't look its best. I would occasionaly try to rub it out, but the paint was getting thin in spots.




These last two pictures are right after I rubbed it out for the last time. From about 2003-2007 the GTO spent more time stored in other people's garages because I needed the space to work on their cars.

More to come, it gets better...

[GT182]

Looks great Goatman.

Glad you got rid of those Camaro rims tho. LOL

[Mr_GTO]

Nice story

[goatman55]

Part 4: The second time around
In 2006, I installed a new floorpan and minitubbed a 34 ford that a painter friend of mine in trade for respraying my GTO the original Silverglaze. I figured that unless someone else sprayed it for me, it would never get done. I also had other plans for the car and didn't want to get bogged down with the paint.

In mid 2007 the painter was really getting on me to get the GTO ready for him to do his part. I was in the middle of building a 32 ford coupe for another guy and didn't want to get too spread out on too many projects. I finished the '32 in mid August, went on vacation in Montana for a week and started tearing it apart the day after I got back.






Since the body seemed pretty straight, I was just going to sand and seal the lacquer. But after some research, I decided to get all of the non-catalyzed product off of the body and start over.

I knew that I needed to replace my passenger footwell because my heater core went bad a couple of years before I noticed it.



After looking at some of the other GTO projects on this board, I was feeling pretty fortunate to have so little rust, especially in such a wet climate. I felt that way until I got to the back window. I was picking around and found a little bit of bondo, so I took a hammer and chisel to to knock it out and a chunk of fiberglass the size of my fist came loose. This mess led me to forming new lower window corners (with stainless tubing drains), installing a trunk pan and reskirting the inner wheelhouses. While I was in the area I went ahead and replaced the lower rear quarters because of a marginal home made patch panel I lapped and booger-welded in 15 years earlier.



My painter recommended trying Marhyde's ultimate 2K surfacer once I got the body ready. It cost less than half of the PPG K36 that I normally use and worked just as well.





After I got all of the blocking done, I pulled the engine and stripped the firewall and re caulked everything. I then sprayed everything with a light gray sandable sealer.




I had bought a Pypes street pro exhaust system so the old 2" muffler shop exhaust system had to go. It had less than 1000 miles on it so I didn't want to cut it up. I carefully removed it in one piece and took pictures of it.



I put it on craigslist for $100 and sold it in 30 minutes. The guy even paid me to deliver it. When I got there he had a 1968 buick with a 455 olds in it. I said good luck trying to get that exhaust to fit. I guess all that trouble keeping it intact was a waste.

Next installment: Paint and maybe some other stuff

[6 Grrrs]

cool story

[goatman55]

Part 5: Paint

I dug into this project because I was tired of seeing the black paint on the GTO. I had three black vehicles and one of them had to go. Silverglaze was the original color, but I had never seen what that color looked like on a GTO. I figured, since it was so uncommon, it might be hideous. I considered other colors. Red seemed interesting, but too easy. I have never really cared for blue cars, so that was out of the question. I decided to take a gamble with the stock color. All of the paint stores that I went to didn't have a base coat code for silverglaze. I had a choice of lacquer, acrylic enamel or picking a similar silver out of a modern chip book. While I'm not colorblind, I don't feel comfortable picking colors from little samples. I ended up going with a DuPont Chromabase color because the lady at the counter took the time to help me match the color.

By the end of January, the body was ready to spray. I brought the car down to the painter Friday afternoon. The next morning, I helped him scotchbrite and wipe down the panels. He sprayed it that day and I brought it back home on Sunday. I was really pleased with how it turned out.





I spent about a week on my back underneath the car scraping undercoating. What a miserable job. The only reason I wanted it off was the new sections of floor wouldn't match the original undercoating. This was the one time when I wished I would taken the body off the frame. I bought a cheap Harbor Freight pressure pot and sprayed the floor with black Zero Rust. I painted the frame chassis black and the firewall underhood black.







And for a little bling, I painted all 4 calipers red with G2 caliper paint.



My original chrome valve covers had seen better days. I had saved a pair of Cal Custom finned aluminum valve covers off of a '64 Bonneville convertible that my dad had for a while. I had kept these for a possible Pontiac powered hotrod project, but I figured I would never get to it. They were pretty scroungy looking, but polished up fine.



I personally like the looks of these over the M/T valve covers I see so often.

I removed the ram air IV cam in favor of a Crower 60916 which was highly recommended by others on this board and by tech contributors in High Performance Pontiac. While I was in there I replaced the rope seal with a BOP viton seal and installed a sleeve on the damper hub. I also installed a lower dipstick tube, to ensure the dipstick was going into the right place.

My old engine paint didn't stick to anything really well, so I used paint stripper to remove the rest and then cleaned it really good. I have never had any luck finding Pontiac metallic blue around here, so I decided to make my own. I had some 1965 Nassau Blue left over from a Corvette that I painted and some 1988 Chevy Ultra Silver left over from my dad's old truck. I mixed them together until the color matched the left over paint from the first time I sprayed the engine. Its alot glossier than stock, but thats how I wanted it.



I also bought a set of coated R.A.R.E. 2.5" coated HO manifolds.




Here is the most recent picture as of now. The stainless hasn't been put on because I needed to do the final polish and glaze. The car is almost done and I'll post completed pictures hopefully this weekend.



Dave

[Qball]

Great story! I've thouroughly enjoyed reading this thread. Thanks for taking the time to write it up!

[pontiac poncho]

Good Looking car and a great story! I have a Silverglaze 67 also and thinking on painting it back the original color. Do you have the Dupont number for what you used?
Thanks,
Jason

[goatman55]

Originally Posted by pontiac poncho

Good Looking car and a great story! I have a Silverglaze 67 also and thinking on painting it back the original color. Do you have the Dupont number for what you used?
Thanks,
Jason

The DuPont number is MM354K




Dave

[goatman55]

Part 6: Finishing touches.

I worked on it for 3 days straight as I buffed off the little bit of overspray that had accumulated over the past few months and installed the remaining trim and emblems. I'm pretty pleased with how the car has turned out, even though I went way beyond what I initially had planned to do to it.

There was a thread a few months ago about steelies and dog dish caps and this chevelle with the redlines and body color wheels got me interested in ditching my rally II's.


I found some 15x7 wheels at a swap meet and used my economic stimulus check to pay for most of a set of diamond back radial redlines.


Its a little too stock looking for me right now. I've got alot of compliments though. I wanted something different, and I got it. Its not that I don't like it, its just a little too buisnessman looking to me. The look is growing on me though.




Other than replacing my sail panels, my upholstery is the same as when I installed it in 1992. I repainted my dash and window sills with gloss urethane to make it easier to clean than the semi gloss.


My engine compartment turned out better than I expected. I tried to make it look as close to factory with the exception of the air cleaner and valve covers. I bought an extra rear compressor bracket and modified the shape to clear the Cal Custom valve covers.




I am also very pleased with the Pypes street pro system I bought. It sounds really cool and has alot of ground clearance, even for a lowered car.


I coated my floorpans with Dynamat Extreme, and I can really only hear the exhaust when the windows are down.

Am I happy with the car? Yes
Do I know how much I spent? I think so
Will I add up the receipts? Hopefully not.
Whats left to do to it? Charge A/C and try to get WS6 rear discs to ratchet properly.
Future upgrades? Next winter, fix tach, replace wheel well trim, add idle bypass passages to my quadrajet and do something about the scratched aluminum window moldings.
Was it worth it? I hope so

The best thing I did to my GTO was replacing the Ram Air IV cam with a Crower 60916. It now idles, has bottom end and my clothes dont smell like unburned fuel after I drive it. Now that the car is easy to manage, it takes very little to persuede me to drive it into town to get lunch. I guess I accomplished my goal. Too bad the price of fuel had doubled since I took it apart. Timing was never my thing.

Dave

[leecorrell]

The GTO looks good. I'd say the business look is almost all in the wheels. Since that's easy to change you can get another set to swap on when you want a different look and still go back to the plain wheels when you want.

It's amazing how similar our stories are! I got my '67 Lemans in December of 1991 - my senior year in high school. It was turquoise just like the pictures of when you first got yours. My dad and I spent the next several months getting mine road worthy - it had been setting in a guys back yard since 1982. I stripped it to bare metal, we did some hack job body work and had a friend paint it midnight blue. I had it back from being painted just a few weeks before I was going to graduate and I wanted to drive it to school. I remember the fuel pump went out and we had a hard time finding one - I believe I drove my motorcycle on the last day of school. Mine stayed at my parent's house while I went to college. Dad and I worked on rebuilding the engine on the weekends when I came home from college. Then I got married my senior year of college. The Lemans became our family daily driver for the next several years and it went down hill fast - darn Indiana winters and salty roads. Four kids and several moves later and my Lemans got a new start on life. My wife and I took it on the 2001 Hot Rod power tour - went all the way - the long haul. Then it got a built 455, then I hit a deer, and the three year long full frame off restoration started. It will be 3 years in mid August and I have it just about ready for paint. It would be nice to have it done by or before the 3 year mark, but I'm not going to get into a rush.

[goatman55]

Originally Posted by leecorrell

The GTO looks good. I'd say the business look is almost all in the wheels. Since that's easy to change you can get another set to swap on when you want a different look and still go back to the plain wheels when you want.

It's amazing how similar our stories are! I got my '67 Lemans in December of 1991 - my senior year in high school. It was turquoise just like the pictures of when you first got yours. My dad and I spent the next several months getting mine road worthy - it had been setting in a guys back yard since 1982. I stripped it to bare metal, we did some hack job body work and had a friend paint it midnight blue. I had it back from being painted just a few weeks before I was going to graduate and I wanted to drive it to school. I remember the fuel pump went out and we had a hard time finding one - I believe I drove my motorcycle on the last day of school. Mine stayed at my parent's house while I went to college. Dad and I worked on rebuilding the engine on the weekends when I came home from college. Then I got married my senior year of college. The Lemans became our family daily driver for the next several years and it went down hill fast - darn Indiana winters and salty roads. Four kids and several moves later and my Lemans got a new start on life. My wife and I took it on the 2001 Hot Rod power tour - went all the way - the long haul. Then it got a built 455, then I hit a deer, and the three year long full frame off restoration started. It will be 3 years in mid August and I have it just about ready for paint. It would be nice to have it done by or before the 3 year mark, but I'm not going to get into a rush.

Thats pretty cool. I'm single, so I was able to bust my car out in 9 months. I also work construction, so the weak economy gave me a little more free time to work on the car over the winter. I try not to set deadlines to complete projects like this. I feel it sacrifices quality. When I am busy I try to set aside "x" amount of time per week to work on the car. Even if it is a small amount of time, any progress, no matter how insignificant it is, its still progress. Hang in there, it sounds like you're getting close.

Dave

[cuz68]

Great story and a very nice 67, How does it run very strong?

[goatman55]

Originally Posted by cuz68

Great story and a very nice 67, How does it run very strong?

It doesn't have the top end that the ra IV cam had but it will definitely put you back in the seat. I have a '81 RX7 with a SBC with a 5 speed, the GTO doesn't hold a candle to the violent acceleration that it provides though. It makes up for it in the coolness factor.

I drove it for about an hour today after work. Its definitely more enjoyable now than it was before. I got caught behind a road striper that pulled out right in front of me. Going 10mph for about 4 miles in 80 degree weather didn't make it heat up very much. I was pissed, but the car worked great. I'm glad I got the correct size fan and new fan clutch.

Dave