[Scarebird]

I had not really touched the T/A this month, kinda burned out and bummed about the fitment of the custom tail panel. I decided the hell with it and ordered a bunch of 70-73 components. The tail panel was chonged up pretty good; Ames said all of theirs were damaged, as were Classic's... so I finally sucked it up and massaged the deformations out so they may actually fit the light buckets.

Cut a test hole to take a look at what is going on...



combined arms assault: plasma, sawzall, snips, spotweld drill, air chisel...



most of the panel gone.



Testing an idea I read about; left side tail light has white painted reflecter, other side stock silver - not much difference I can see



Got my instrument panel from Randy Combs - looks quite nice. Will be fitting it out with gauges soon.

[Scarebird]

3 months since the last post, things have still been moving along. The 70-73 rear has been grafted on; quite a bit of work and fabricating fill pieces! GM used a lot of pooky on the tail panel, so will I.




The inside was reinforced more than stock - a piece of angle iron ties in the two frame rails and hopefully reduces twisting and flex. A heavier steel plate was welded on to the top of the frame rails and a gusset welded tying in all.



I originally was using a Mopar minivan master cylinder, but it did not move enough fluid, so a 1984-93 Dodge D150 master was used instead. I plan on a manual setup.



Another thing that vexed me was the imbecilic way Pontiac hung the nose. I carefully removed some urethane from the upper headlight brace, welded a tab to it then bolted that to the forward fender bolt. No more gaps.

[Scarebird]

Red letter day: it runs. Temporarily hooked up ignition power, tested fuel integrity, filled and pressure checked coolant. Will finish up filling diff and trans so I can drive on/off trailer.

[Scarebird]

We got the brackets in from the cutters. *They are a more refined design; simpler. *They use the 10379038 GM 2004-2011 Cadillac CTS *pedal assy. *These run around $70 from Rockauto and Nalley GMC. *We needed to weld an extension to fit the existing F pedal. We did try the Impala piece - the offset was wrong. This is the Caddy piece here:



We start with the bracket here:



The smaller piece off to the left is a backer we made as one of the firewall holes was stripped so we elected to use bolts. *Mounting 3 individual bolts is no fun, so we ganged them together, and left a shelf to mount wire looms to boot on the engine side.



We used 3 nylon spacers to clear the insulation for rigidity.



Mounted.



All finished. *I drove the car today to the paint shop - pedal motion is identical to a vechicle of 70's vintage. We will sell the bracket, weldable pedal rod and 3 nylon spacers for $38 plus shipping, just mention PY...

[Scarebird]

Back to paint. Engine started the other day; now moving under power. I was going to borrow Verdean's trailer - thought why not drive it there? Did a quick test drive, realized power steering works better with fluid...



As you see a few things are missing; all lights, bumpers, trim, etc. We wired in a single brake light and a race style ignition panel, with girl's mirror clamped to it for rear view. Did a fast alignment with an Iphone app and as Alan B Shephard said "lit the candle". Drove good, brakes stiff as master bore may be too big (will sort out later). Lotta low end power, weight hopefully around 3300#.

Now to get rework estimate - Nick was not in a good mood.

[Transporter]

Originally Posted by Scarebird

Back to paint. Engine started the other day; now moving under power. I was going to borrow Verdean's trailer - thought why not drive it there? Did a quick test drive, realized power steering works better with fluid...



As you see a few things are missing; all lights, bumpers, trim, etc. We wired in a single brake light and a race style ignition panel, with girl's mirror clamped to it for rear view. Did a fast alignment with an Iphone app and as Alan B Shephard said "lit the candle". Drove good, brakes stiff as master bore may be too big (will sort out later). Lotta low end power, weight hopefully around 3300#.

Now to get rework estimate - Nick was not in a good mood.

Personally I think you will be much happier with the earlier rear panels/tail lights in, everything else just doesn't look "correct" even with the big back window.

Turning out really nice.

[Scarebird]

Thanks.

Hinge time! Nick said the driver's hinge was shot - he was correct. Repop units are not well received and used hinges may be worse. There is a guy down in Cali who does rebuilds for a decent rate, but time/money is getting tight so decided to give it a shot.



I used a bunch of flanged bushings; 1/2" OD and 3/8" ID. The arms are made from 11 gauge steel (0.121" thick) so bushed length was trimmed down to twice that in a lathe, with a washer on the non-flanged end. The bolts nearest the hood had their heads trimmed down to clear, but the rest worked very well. I had to ream the holes all to 1/2" ID. Once tightened to spec the nuts were fused.