[cabhop]

The car looks great!
Any color variation from painting the car in pieces? I'm still on the fence doing mine this way.

[Formulajones]

I'll do them either way depending on what the customer wants. But my preference is to do them in pieces so I can control things a bit closer and do a more thorough job on coverage. No problems with color variations at all as long as you follow some simple tricks and practices.

Hang the pieces for painting as they would hang on the car. Especially metallic paints so the metallic lays the same way throughout the car.

Make sure you are consistent with the air pressure at the gun

Make sure your spray technique doesn't change (ie: same distance, same spray patterns etc..)

Make sure the temperature and humidity are close to the same.

I prefer to do all my painting very early in the morning (4am) When humidity will be at it's lowest (Arizona doesn't have much of that anyway) but it's also when the temps are lowest.

[Formulajones]

And some more pictures...

Got the deck lid on this morning and dad couldn't wait to put on the decals, lol.

Jack decal is where it's supposed to be. These cars never had a posi sticker that I'm aware of but couldn't resist putting one on so it went on the left side. Typically on GM cars that used a posi sticker the jack instructions went on the left and posi decal on the right side. We didn't want to change the correct location of the jack decal so it went this way.

I think he's trying to fool people with his RA IV decal, lol.

[salem1912]

Nice car,good luck with the build.(over 250K wow!)

[Formulajones]

Well the body and the interior does, lol. I don't have to tell you he has enjoyed the hell out of this car over the decades. The original engine/trans/rearend had about 180,000 on it before it was pulled for the first refresh that started with a 455, rebuilt original 400 turbo, and a chevy 12 bolt swapped in. That was back in the late 80's or early 90's. Eventually that morphed into a couple more 455's getting progressively faster. That led to the current 571 cube Pontiac about 2 years ago, and a different 400 turbo beefed up at that time. The original 400 turbo was then retired permanently and resting next to the original engine and rearend now.

All the front suspension was rebuilt back in the late 80's as well. This time around the front suspension is getting refreshed with some tubular components installed, a different set of springs etc...

More of that with pics will come later this week, then the engine and front sheet metal will go back on. Try to have this ready for the big Watson Lake show first weekend of August.

[Formulajones]

Engine is out for a detail. Pulled the pan to check things. Interesting how the piston skirts were ground to clearance the crank. Looking at other details and you realize there is a lot of effort in assembly.
I got up this morning and shot the bumper, lower valance and a few small pieces. I'll take pics shortly.

[TedRamAirII]

Is that a "thin" oil pump plate? I thought everyone used the "thick" plate? ; )

[Formulajones]

Here ya go Ted, a better picture of the pump. It has all kinds of things going on with it, lol. What ever Tony deemed necessary I'm good with it. Dad says it has about 85 lbs. of oil pressure.

[Formulajones]

More pics. Engine is sealed back up and painted. Sending intake and valve covers over to a friend of mine that does powder coating.

Bumper and valance and other small parts are painted. Now it's on to ripping the front suspension off and stripping the firewall.

[Formulajones]

That fender troll managed to come back and steal everything this time

[GTO JONES]

I'll bring it back, trust me.

[77 TRASHCAN]

What kind of front end parts? Fancy 12 piston calipers? Special control arms?

That pic of bottom end, post 46 looks weird. Looks like the crank is pulled up out of the main saddles 2-3 inches...LOL as it should! 4-3/4" stroke is a monster.

I bet all kinds of stuff got ground on, in this engine!

[Formulajones]

77 Trashcan,
He bought some tubular control arms, and Spring Specialties (I have the name wrong) is making some custom front springs that give a stock ride height but has a lot of rebound built in to help the front end come up on launch. Brakes will be the stock disc setup unless he changes his mind on that before I'm done. I kind of doubt it though since he's in pretty deep money wise already Tore down for a simple paint job and it's just a domino affect.

[Formulajones]

Okay, some fun. Lets guess what this is. I found this today while blasting the firewall. I fully expected to find some grease pencil markings under the paint.

I think I have it figured out but thought some others would like a stab at it.

[Formulajones]

Back in the booth for some black in various shades and front end assembly.

[Formulajones]

Here's something I found interesting and I have no explanation for. I started blasting the core support today. Before anyone shoots out a guess, it would help if I tell you this is in fact the original core support to the car, never been removed, dad bought the car brand new so history on the car from day one is known.

But look closely at these pics. As I started to remove the original coating of black paint, underneath a Frost Green started to appear in various areas of the core support, mainly on the bottom sides looking up. Actually that's Chevy's name for it. I think Pontiac called this green Lime Light. And that sure looks like Lime Light to me. Beneath the Lime Light is bare steel. Oddly though not only is this not the original color to this car, but this part of the car should never have received any body color on it to begin with. So I find this pretty intriguing. It is a very early build 69 from the Baltimore plant. I'll have to investigate this more.

[77 TRASHCAN]

Weren't Chevelle's and GTO's built at same plant...still doesn't explain it...

Stock disc brakes are way better than most give them credit. Caliper kits are cheap. GM used stainless Pistons which are the best. Many folks get reman calipers (which are inexpensive...). I like to retain the originals. Replacing the dust boot and seal is an easy deal. Reman units get sand blasted, and knocked around a lot, not for me...

[Formulajones]

Yep you're right, the Baltimore plant built chevelles too. Which was one explanation that came up when his car was built with F70-14's instead of the common G70 seen on GTO's. Chevelles, even the SS models got F70's.

Anyway, he did upgrade to a hydroboost setup about a year ago. The brakes have needed very little pedal pressure since and stops easily. I couldn't imagine bigger brakes on this thing. But if he ever decided to go down that road he would likely look at the light weight stuff since his main goal is getting the car to go fast, and he's complained about how heavy the car is for a long time, lol. I've been helping with some sneaky ways to get the weight down a bit for him while we work on it. Modifying the rear bumper to fit tighter was one, not only an appearance improvement, but cutting and shortening brackets etc ...though subtle, it adds up.
I do know he's upgrading the rearend to a 9 inch setup and he was looking at disc brake conversions for that when he places the order.

[Formulajones]

Changed my stripping process on the core support just to see how much green I can find. This thing has a lot more Lime Light green hiding under the original black than I imagined. Very odd.

[GTO JONES]

Thanks to my son we have the front detailed and ready to put the motor back in tomorrow.