[mrrat1]

really like the "road warrior" look. Stance is right on too.........you got a good one there Mike

[mike nixon]

Thanks, I'm itching to get her out and do some miles. I LOVE the current stance.

[hurryinhoosier62]

Great thread, Mike!! Just makes me want to get another Anaconda Gold '72........

[mike nixon]

Thanks, In process of putting her back together after she got hungry and ate most of the exhaust valves. This engine sat for 15 yrs unstarted. I oiled it and started using it in various cars over the years. It's GOT to have well over 100k on it now. Hardened seats installed, 8 new valves. I hand lapped them all, installed seals on the intakes left the exhausts bare and am reassembling it. Wanted it done today but that didn't happen, had to hunt down some pool parts instead of getting it buttoned up. Will make it run tomorrow for sure. I decarboned it while it was down. Relocated the Dist to the correct positioning of Number One Cyl also.

Clutch burnt up on the A/C Last summer so that's on the list also. It never lost the charge so it should be a simple fix.


I need to repair the lead seams at the roof to 1/4 joint and then I'll spray the top in color. Kinda wishing it didn't have those louvers on the sail panels. PITA to remove them, can't paint around them and make it look good IMO.

[mike nixon]

SO I Got the valves hand lapped and the heads back on it, and fired up. Engine is still as clean as the day it's assembled, circa 1984 ish, in the crankcase. The pistons had about an 1/8" of carbon on the tops of them so I got after them with a roloc disc and an angle grinder and cleaned them up. This must've dropped the compression a significant amount as I can't make it detonate now. It had me worried for a few miles initially as she was blowing antifreeze out the tail pipes at a pretty alarming rate. All of what was in the heads must've runn straight down the manifolds into the mufflers. I forgot they'd do this when you didn't drain the system below the level of the heads. She literally smoked bad enough that you couldn't see the rear bumper for two miles. I also pulled the distributor and relocated it to the proper position instead of the Chevy guy's idea of timing that wasn't even close to what should've been there. The idle was still rough so I pulled the carb down and blew it out with choke cleaner and air reassembled it and reset it and it's now back to running smoothly. I've also been playing with the timing as this thing has a low lift cam in it that's pretty senstive to base timing, it runs the best within a 4 degree window and I don't remember what the number was., I need to write that down when I get it dailed in! I had actually thought about going with a true HO cam grind but decided not to do that yet.