[PB]

Steve, did you cut any of the new wires from electric limited to match the length of the original wires? Or did you match em close? I see some are a bit longer as near as I can tell.

[njsteve]

I measured the set and matched them to the intact old set I had (the one I had to replace the terminals on) and they were pretty close so I didn't shorten any.

Remember to take in to account that the terminals inside the rubber spark plug boot may be at different points in the boot, so that may throw off your measurement.

[njsteve]

I got the 1112127 unitized distributor back from Rocky, who set up the curve for me. (Thanks Rocky!). I installed it today and the car started right up. It actually sounds like its running smoother than with the HEI. The HEI had an old set of wires so it's probably the new wires helping things out.





Unfortunately it is snowing outside at the moment so a test drive will have to wait a day or two...

[njsteve]

I've been playing at the Votech class and doing more cutting and welding. It's quite amazing what you can get done in three hours when you have a dropdead time to move it out of the shop and head home when the class is over. I spent one class cutting and trimming the bad section of the upper drop-off that mated up with the outer wheelhouse on the passenger's side. The seam between the two panels was soft so I elected to cut the seam out so I had an easier area to weld from (inside the trunk), instead of trying to recreate the mated area underneath the car which is blocked by the frame rail.

Here's the before shot:



And after trimming:



I used the upper portion of the drop off and an extra leftover section of flange and welded them together to pre-form the mated seam between the trunkfloor and the drop off:





And here is how the replacement piece fits:

[njsteve]

The following week, I welded the replacement section in place and then grinded...a lot!



I also prepared the second replacement piece out of the aftermarket wheelhouse that I bought to serve as a donor supplier of repair sections. I also had to recreate a small section of the inner wheel house edge that the overlapping "flap" mates to. (All that crusty black stuff is old undercoating and will be scraped out of there soon).



And here it is after some minor body work and filler:



as compared to the opposite untouched side:

[njsteve]

And after consulting my "before" photos and examining the trunk in my Grandma's '75 Firebird, I spent yesterday using two tubes of seam sealer to replicate the horribly gooped up application of the factory seam sealer. After letting it set overnight, I then used some MEK solvent and a brush and nitrile gloved fingers to replicate the original look as close as possible. No matter what I did, it still looked "too nice" to be factory applied.

Here's Grandma's '75 Firebird trunk:



and the '72:



And the driver's side, too: