[Ponchofan]

Been through it. Prayers are with you and your dad.

[Greg Reid]

Very sorry to hear that Fred. Sympathy and prayers to you and yours.

[cuz68]

Same here Fred, This is very sad news

[2cdavis3]

Thoughts & prayers for you and your dad

Craig

[nh68gto]

Sorry to hear the news. Spend time with dad.

[fbrown]

I sad to say my dad passed away on Feb 15. He would have been 91 in April. He broke is hip in late November which set up a down hill decline from there. A blood clot formed that could not be treated due to his age and health.

[fbrown]

I had reported having difficulty sanding orange peel out and buffing. I was using Meguiar's Solo products and found they were not aggressive enough. Maybe they would have worked have the car been cut and buffed within a week of being painted, but after three months, they just didn't cut it (pun intended). I bought Meguiar's 105 and 205 cutting and polishing compounds which allowed a decent buffing job.



It looks like I will be repainting the hood. There are too many flaws, I have a run and too much trash in the paint. I knew about the run as I tried to repair it during the original painting, but was running out of time and rushed the repair. The repair didn't turn out so well.

[Greg Reid]

Originally Posted by fbrown

I sad to say my dad passed away on Feb 15. He would have been 91 in April. He broke is hip in late November which set up a down hill decline from there. A blood clot formed that could not be treated due to his age and health.

Sorry to hear that Frederic. My prayers and condolences to you and your family...On the other hand, sounds like he had a helluva run though...
Ironic that you posted today also. I was just reviewing this thread last night and your pms to me so I could order some things to get me ready to paint....I'm afraid the pollen may catch me though. In that case, it'll be a couple more months.

[6 Grrrs]

Originally Posted by fbrown

I sad to say my dad passed away on Feb 15. He would have been 91 in April. He broke is hip in late November which set up a down hill decline from there. A blood clot formed that could not be treated due to his age and health.

Sorry to hear Fred. My condolences.

[ponjohn]

Originally Posted by fbrown

I sad to say my dad passed away on Feb 15. He would have been 91 in April. He broke is hip in late November which set up a down hill decline from there. A blood clot formed that could not be treated due to his age and health.

Very sorry to have read this.

My condolences.

[2cdavis3]

Hey Fred hows things going any progress?

[cuz68]

HI Fred, Have you started your GTO or done any more body work on it? Long time no here from you. Hope all is well Your friend Randy.

[pont3]

Sorry to hear about your father. Our prayers are with you. I'm sure he was a tenacious guy as you have demonstrated with your project. Best wishes.

[cuz68]

Sorry to here the sad news, Fred my prayers are with your family, Your friend Randy.

[fbrown]

A couple of pieces came in today. UPS delivered kick panels with cutouts for speakers. I going to use Infinity speakers. The headunit will be a RetroSound Model 1.



I have been working mostly on non news worthy items. Final adjust of windows. Installation of weather strip, door, window, trunk, etc and other boring jobs.

I ordered most of what I need to finish the interior. I say most, because I probably forget something and won't figure it out until I putting everything in.

[cuz68]

Was the weather strip for the windows hard to put in? My 68 needs them bad Thank you.Randy

[cuz68]

Good to hear from you, Your car is looking great my 68 GTO came with power windows also, Take care your friend Randy.

[Greg Reid]

That's going to be an awfully nice car when done. Hope to see it one day.

[fbrown]

I ordered a Denny's driveshaft today. Denny's balances their driveshafts up to 10000 rpm to assure there is no vibration. In about three weeks the car should be moving on it's own power.

There are still a lot of things left to do, but the list is getting smaller. I have been working on the wiring on and off. I now have the power windows powered through a relay so they only work with the key on. I have also wired the power door locks and hooked up a remote entry system. The remote entry system will hold the dome light on for 30 seconds when doors are unlocked.

Video showing remote entry in operation.

http://peripheraltech.com/gto/lock.mov

The vinyl of the rear seats was good in the seating area but had rotted where it is hog ringed to the seat frame. Since I don't really know what I doing, I'm not going to say much about the recovering process, but here are some pictures showing the work.

The vinyl should have been hog ringed to the wire I should the pink arrow. This part of the seat had rotted away.



This probably would have cleaned up if the back side have not been rotted.


The recovering. Although not shown I did install a layer of cotton batting between the foam and the vinyl.







Finished result.



I installed a trunk divider with jute.





The seats installed.




Carpet installed.



JL Kick panel speaker.



Since I installed a deep speaker, I have to cut some bracing, I bolted a strap on to make up for what I cut out. It would have been better to weld this on, but I'm going to risk weld splatter burning something. I should have test fitted this much earlier in the project.

[fbrown]

It seems like there are millions of little things to do and sometimes the little things get very time consuming. I tried to pop the trunk with the electric trunk latch. All I got was a buzz and no unlock. Since I had tested the latch with a battery many months ago I assumed that it was something in the wiring. I ran a ground wire from the trunk lid to the body, nothing changed. I finally took the latch out and tried it at the battery, loud clank and the latch opened. Installed the latch again, no luck, sounded like the solenoid was moving, just not hard enough. Removed the latch again, shot some silicon lubricant in the moving part and reinstalled. This time I only put the bottom two bolts in. This time the latch worked. Put the upper bolt in and tested one more time, this time no motion, a weak click. It turned out that the mounting surface for the latch was slightly distorted, the upper surface of the latch was about 1/32" from the mounting surface and when tightened it caused the latch to distort around the solenoid to the point that it seized. I gave up on installing the upper bolt, its not really needed. A number of the available power latches only have the lower two bolts anyway. I mainly chickened out on straightening the latch mounting surface, since I didn't want to risk damaging the paint. This little problem killed about 3 hours of time.

I'm hoping to get the electrical system compete and the car ready to crank by the time the driveshaft arrives. If I have too many problems like the trunk latch, I may not make it.

This is the mirror I'm using. It has a compass, reads outside temperature and has two map lights.



A shot of the kick panel with the speaker grill installed.



I have started on cleaning up the wiring under the hood. I used a plastic wrap to wrap the PCM harness and GM under-hood harness together.



Power distribution is complicated on this project. Ground from the battery connects to a bracket on the frame. The other wire on the frame connects to the engine. +12 connections are done, except for the amp. I don't have everything connected since I don't want to power everything just yet.



The body gets it ground from the firewall to the frame. That's a 8 gauge wire. The brown wire on the frame is for the PCM.



The core support needs to be grounded for the head lights to work. This a 12 gauge wire, but I have determined that it may be marginal and will replace it with a 10 gauge wire.



Other problems I am facing are the fuel lines. The hose I am using is no longer considered good enough for E10 fuel. It has been suggested that the hose I am using would need to be replaced every year or two. It seems the only fuel line that you can install once and forget for years is a Teflon lined hose. The OEMS were using a nylon line but OEMS are switching to Teflon lined fuel line. I have two short sections between the tank and the steel fuel lines (supply and return) and another short section where I need hose between the steel lines and the regulator.