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Sons 68 GTO
Brent...that be my son bought this 68 in July 2011
Non #s matching, block dates to 69, 4 speed, 3.55 rear,supposedly Endura delete, P.O. lost the paper work from PHS It's was a driver but I talked him into putting it on a trailer for the 400 mile trip home over the Cascades from Eastern Wa..... luckily he had the trailer cause he no sooner then bought it and the tranny got locked up in first loading it on the trailer...he was told car had new clutch and Munchie shifter.:rolleyes: http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...pse6915674.jpg http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps7ff26594.jpg Demolition started in Oct. of 2011. I told him he would be driving it by the the following summer...as you can guess we didn't make that dead line http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...psa5e42a0f.jpg http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps48db1c4c.jpg It looked like the car was a older resto...albeit not a good resto. Paint was blistering over the entire car, l front corner was tagged pretty good after the poor restoration. L front frame rail was swung just enough to make alignment of body panels impossible. Besides all that the car was pretty much complete and fairly solid. It had some rust in the back window, lower front fenders and around the rear wheel arches on the quarters. Floors and windshield where solid...all and all not a bad foundation to start with. We had the drive train pulled and towed the car to my auto body shop for the frame repair. My shop was closed for 3 days for new years, as the date shows that's how we spent celebrating the New Year http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps84f2f76d.jpg We brought the car back to my shop at home after fixing the frame, we did the majority of the rebuild in my shop at home We had the hood, fenders,trunk and doors blasted Hood didn't survive the process. We opted for a repop hood :eek: We shot BASF epoxy primer on the panels prior to body work. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ill/gto003.jpg |
Looking good, What color was it new? TKS Randy.
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Looking good! Lucky boy!
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Car originally was Nightshade.
I tried to talk him into painting it that but he wanted no part of green. This was the worst corner, L front. Bumper had rolled back into the fender about 2". PO had adjusted bumper as far forward and applied a couple inches of mud. Not the best photo but it shows the front edge after we drilled out the spot welds and removed the front brace in the fender for straightening of front edge of fender and brace. Fenders must have been installed off of a lemans at one time. we welded up the holes for the lemans emblems. Car is a true 242. The front end of this thing had been around the block a few times in its 40 some years. The endura bumper was a royal pain. I walked away from if more than once. I don't have any good photos of the repair process but we had to bend, cut and weld on the metal reinforcement , add and subtract on the bumper substrate. We used the Fusor line products on the bumper, only because that is what we use in my shop. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps284d51fb.jpg |
Nice car and barn.:)
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Nice ride!
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All Metal applied over top of welded areas and seams.
http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ill/gto005.jpg Once we had the fenders in prime we moved on to stripping the body and jams. After our problems with the hood that the blaster destroyed :(we decided to strip the body with a razor blade and a D/A http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w.../gtofeb006.jpg We use Glasurit in my collision shop and they want a etching primer applied before the epoxy on bare metal that was sanded. We applied 1 coat of wash primer/etching then a coat of gray epoxy. This is the etching primer. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...to3misc020.jpg |
There were VERY few Nightshade Green cars made. VERY cool color - I own TWO Of them. There are some posts on this forum and elsewhere stating that approx 300 were made, but I have NO way to validate that assumption. It's not a heavily GREEN car, but more of a Charcoal Grey with a dark green tint that changes color in light. :)
Good luck. Here are a couple of shots of Nightshade I had handy... First pic of trunk is more accurate. Pictures in Sun (Florida, I believe) do not have the right filter / exposure. http://i39.tinypic.com/2q1x54x.jpg http://i41.tinypic.com/2zizcpz.jpg http://i43.tinypic.com/2nu5e0y.jpg |
Love Nightshade. Very pretty and unique color.
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That's the color all right.
Car had been taking down to metal on the outside when it had been done before When we took it apart we found the originial nightshade color under the roof pillar weatherstrip channels Color was for sure more gray than green. I have been in the auto body trade going back 50 years or so..... I can't say for certain but I don't think I have ever run across that paint code before. Bill |
Rear shelve had some rot in the usual spots. this was in epoxy primer
http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps36ef7a6d.jpg Some rust showing under the w/o moldings on qtrs Doesn't look bad but we kept chasing it http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps5c917969.jpg At this point decided car needed to go back to town. I don't have a lift at home and I wanted to try my hand at the resistance spot welder I have at my body shop. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps771b487d.jpg We ordered outer qtr skins and wheel houses. Our a/m supplier sells us the parts at wholesale and no shipping. We figured if the panels where nice we would use the entire panel. Well as you might have guessed, we opted to use just a few inches around the arch on each side. We used the entire wheel house on the l side but the r side was such a bad fit we ended up welding the old wheelhouse back in after we repaired the bad areas on it. We also tried to stay away from the factory seams if possible This shows L wheel arch in place and we where ready to install the outer http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps18801f43.jpg This is of the r side before we removed and repaired the wheel house http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps28461380.jpg This is how much of the after market sheet metal we ended up using on the r side. Left side we didn't even need the section behind the wheel http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps321496ee.jpg Rear shelve we did the same staying away from the seams. We got a good look at it from under side and only replaced the area needed saving as much of the orginial metal as possible http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps6c12e490.jpg |
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Here's another few pictures, including someone's youtube video of nightshade green http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7H9YGvsLJo http://www.highperformancepontiac.co...8_pontiac_gto/ nice story - keep it coming and good luck! |
Looks to be a pretty solid car to start with.:)
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After panels where welded in the car went back to my shop at home for the mud work.
You guys have probably seen enough photos of bondo so I won't bore you with a bunch. Body ready for primer, shot some etching primer over the bare metal spots. After making a mess of my shop and boat when we did the mud work on the front and doors, we wised up and hung some plastic from the rafters to contain the dust and primer overspray. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...psd4d114ae.jpg This is Brent dry sanding primer. Dirty job but someone has to do it.:D http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...pse1a27d00.jpg Mocked up body one more time....Makes me shutter just thinking about how many times we had the front sheetmetal, doors and front bumper on and off. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...psb640a825.jpg Bill BTW I lost out on talking him into painting car the original color :( |
Hey Mudslinger, how many guys you have working on that thing? The work you got done in a week would've taken me a month. BTW, you'll probably still get to paint the car the original color, just wait about 10 years or so. And nightshade is definitely a color I would have considered had it been available in 69.
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Me,myself,I and Brent :D We had the car at home so we could only work on it evenings and weekends. At age 23 Brent helped out when he could, but I am sure we can all remember what life was like in our early 20's.;) Bill |
Both myself and Brent needed a break from body work.
With everything in primer. We started cleaning up the interior floor. The floor was really clean of rust, we just cleaned it up good and shot some epoxy primer on a few spots that we had taken a wire wheel to. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps422f610e.jpg Also wanted to rebuild the front suspension and paint the forward frame. I never planned on doing a frame off but we wanted to clean up the frame and underside a little. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...psb16397a0.jpg Applied Ditzler DP primer first then single stage Concept with a flattener.we weren't concerned about being factory correct on the gloss. We did the frame in semi gloss, firewall and suspension parts in satin I think. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps08cba050.jpg We went with Moog on the rebuilding the front end. Also went with QA1 coil overs. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...psecc66bca.jpg |
Another vote for Nightshade. One of the coolest and rarest colors ever offered on a GTO in my opinion. I've never even seen one in person. Not that it's up to a vote though... It's going to be the color he wants it I'm sure...lol
Nice car by the way and nice work! http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...ngers_Side.jpg http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n..._Side_View.jpg |
4-piston caliper brakes! :) Are they sleeved yet? Man, these things stop the car NOW when working properly. I have several with this and several spare sets
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Well he went with black. Of all the colors he kicked around beside the original I could live with black, tho I started wondering about our body work. Trunk was ready first.
http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...psa6920402.jpg With other things going on during the summer our progress went rather slow. We managed to get some more painting done and work on getting the body ready for paint. We wanted to get paint on it before the weather turned. And BTW, I didn't do the laying down of the paint, I left that up to my painter, I put down the spray gun close to 10 years ago and let me tell ya...I don't miss it. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...psa04c0f1f.jpg The body was ready for paint and we also wanted to spruce up the rest of frame and under body...needed to use the lift in town so off to town again. The underside was dirty but in pretty nice shape. We cleaned it up and sprayed the underbody and the frame http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps93cb1826.jpg http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps618e3cb0.jpg We had the diff out while we where at it, we found this pink paint on it. Any ideas ?? http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...psa2db8a72.jpg We installed QA1's and changed out the arms with ones from Spohn http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps7f87639e.jpg We got the body all ready for the painter in the morning http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...psfeb88f2a.jpg And back home. The color has just a touch of pearl that only shows up when the sun is out. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps762d2e7e.jpg |
Looks nice and { I hesitate to use this word on a 68 /9 ] Straight!
Mike |
Looks beautiful.
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Wow!
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Looking good. |
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 |
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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.... |
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. |
Thanks guys.
The diff tag was on correctly when we took it off. I thought someone had put it on wrong.:o 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. :rolleyes: 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. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps481cfa50.jpg Rad support and liners installed, getting ready to put drive train back in. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...pse14310e0.jpg 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. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps30151f48.jpg Gauges where rebuilt by Pete Serio. Brents eyes are a lot younger then mine and sure came in handy on the dash work http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...psc7da204c.jpg http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps0e3a4e7b.jpg 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 http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps2d76b789.jpg |
How do you like the repop instrument panel? Looks great in the pic. Any issues?
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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. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps3f43671a.jpg 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 !! |
What wood grain kit did you purchase for the dash?
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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. http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j1...r58/Image3.jpg |
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 |
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. |
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. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...psf7015fd0.jpg Replaced both sunvisors, headliner and the welt around the edges. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...psf23d092e.jpg 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. :eek: 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. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...psd6996e90.jpg |
It's coming along very nicely. 8^)
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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. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...pse4d7312a.jpg 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. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps0618616c.jpg http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...psbbd9691c.jpg |
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 |
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. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...psac1445c4.jpg Had to use green electricial tape to protect the edges instead of black, my eyes ain't what they used to be. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps801ce6cd.jpg 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. http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...psc2507f4b.jpg Shortened the release rod by about 2" http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps6e25f12c.jpg Bill |
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.
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Nice quick work! When's the first ride? Be sure to take video!
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Sorry for no response lately
Car had a setback 2 weeks after we got it on the road. #5 cylinder cracked a ring. The only part of the car we didn't rebuild...PO told Brent entire running gear had been rebuilt :rolleyes: Ends up they had installed a new cam but hadn't lined it up right. Anyways that's water under the bridge.....engines at a rebuilder and Brents deciding whether to stroke it or not. Here's a look at it right after we got it on the road before the engine took a dump http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...psec484ddd.jpg |
Turned out real pretty.
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That's a sharp car. I dig those 17s with redlines.
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Lucky kid!
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Wow, that car looks great!:)
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Good looking Goat!
I would also stroke the engine, never have enough power. :D |
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Car looks great and how cool the two of you did it togeather. Mudslinger, I am assuming you have a goat and that's how the kid got into it, or...... |
[QUOTE=GOAT WHORE;5055034]X2
Car looks great and how cool the two of you did it togeather. Mudslinger, I am assuming you have a goat and that's how the kid got into it, or......[/QUOTE No goat for me. I have do I dare say a chebby. I bought a 69 Corvette back in 75 and still got it. I own a body shop so Brent's been around cars his entire life. From age 13 he has wanted a piece of American muscle. He sold his Toyota 4x4 to buy this car He found the car on his own. First time I saw the car was when he pulled into the yard with it on a trailer |
Nice! Your son and I would get along just fine!
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