after a few week hiatus doing a few house projects it’s time to get back at it on white lighting

week or so ago picked up a new filter I’ve been watching hang in the clearance rack at my local orielly’s

I was told by one of the employees the long things are there the cheaper it gets ended up picking it up for $33





cranked up the ol 19in tossed on tour of destruction at the freedom factory and got after it.


first to go was the a/c stuff hate to see it go but the system leaked. It’s a race car lighter the better right!?!



got the kid out there to give me a hand got the hood off and set in the back. Let me tell you I’ll take tossing the hood in the bed over on the roof any day!



carb,dizzy, started pulling electrical off


My ending point tonight


Converter and trans bolts,power steering, heater hoses, ground strap, motor mount bolts to pull off and I can give it a tug to see what I forgot

I have been blown away in this whole process being from a salt state I am used to rust and things fighting me, snapping bolts, rounded nuts, ect you know the deal.

This has been anything but that I have yet to have to lube, cut, heat, bang on one size smaller socket anything!

I WAS ABLE TO UNBOLT THE EXHAUST FROM THE MANIFOLD!!! I grabbed my impact and did the ol “well hope the snap off nicely” hit the trigger and off comes the nut, I thought it was a fluke. Didn’t even unscrew the stud from the manifold. I have worked on less mile newer vehicles that came off worse

 

I feel that. Being an avid market place buyer and seller, I have felt with that all, low ballers, the question people, the beggars it amazes me sometimes. I won’t sell a car on there again after the amount of tire kickers and plain old stupid thing I got when I had my beater obs up for sale

happy to share the story! This might be the kick in the rear to actually get working on my monte.

Verry much so! Not much for words these days it seems. I just don’t want to end up with one of these little guys

thank you! Passion project you could say. The time spent with my son is the drive! 14 and I’m wondering where the years went!

 

Motor is out! Waiting on some parts to get here before I can toss the 350in will be a great time to do some engine bay clean up and found a couple wires that need attention

feel like a dang bomb went off in the garage but hey forward progress!

 

Clean and paint and clean and paint and clean and paint is what’s happening,

getting accessories swapped over, brought my alt up to be tested I had a sneaky suspicion it was over charging at the end of last year, yup junk,

Man it is amazing what a clean up and a coat of paint will do.

 

Nice job, that's looking really clean!

 

thanks if I’m in there might as well take the time to clean it up !

couple more parts came in, water pump, t-stat, flex plate bolts, water pump bolts, Polly trans and motor mount inserts, Sfi rated flex plate…

but I f’ed up not once but twice on the flex plate somehow I managed to order one for a newer motor… externally balanced and one piece rear main, this motor is neither of those so that’s going back I was really hoping to get the motor in this weekend but that’s not going to happen.

got the water pump painted, accessories installed, alt is just there so I could get brackets lined up. I am going to get a new one comming on my next order.

Going to order a different alt bracket as it doesn’t line up with the intake bolt location. I know I can run it that way but not a fan of how it look.

modified the power steering brackes since the a/c is gone it doesn’t need to be nearly as long so that cleaned up the look a little bit on the driver side of the motor

 

This entire thread and build looks excellent.

 

thank you!

not a lot has gone on in the last few weeks. We have had a lot going on in life that has been keeping me from working on it. Few house projects got done atleast

So I’ve been collecting parts, new rad, rad cap upper and lower hoses, different alt mount, gauges so I can keep an eye on the vitals, correct flex plate, carb studs, front tires, picked up a set of tall aluminum Chevrolet valve covers off market place, need to be cleaned up and painted but they were cheap! and I fell like I’m missing some stuff but those all came in,

im verry behind my personal goal of having it running and driving by this weekend and I don’t see that happening unfortunately but life will do that to a guy.

but tonight I got the front tires mounted and “balanced”(balance beads)

I couldn’t imagine trying to do a wider tire on the wheel it was bad enough trying to get a 185 on a 4 inch wheel but using tire spoons and doing it at home is a lot different than using a machine

also checked valve spring pressure to make sure I’m not going to kill the cam when breaking it in


after mounting I realized I wish I would have went up a size or two to get a little more sidewall. These are 185/60r15 on a 15x4 kind of wishing I would have went with a 185/65 or 70

these are a 23.7in tire and a 65 would be 24.5 and 70 would have been a 25.2

but ya live ya learn they were cheap and I’ll run them till they are gone or I’ll toss em on the back and burn em off at the end of the season

 

Took off work at 11 today since I am going in tomarrow so decided to get some stuff done

got new alt bracket,flex plate, couple fittings and other stuff put on, and got the motor back into the car.

did the ol bread trick since this came from my buddies blaster that was a manual

flowtech afterburner headers fit great I put them in from the top, only thing I found for an issue is the collector hits the column shift linkage so I gotta figure that out. Looks like she getting a floor shifter

 

onto the little time consuming

ended up having to run to harbor freight mid install to grab some wrenches so I could get the header bolts tight by a couple of the tubes and the rear would have been in possible in the passenger side without them.


a very small amount of clearancing was needed in the passenger side where it was hitting the control arm



picked up a jegs double hump cross member, fit decent other than I had to along gate the Holes a touch to make it bolt in 100% kinda wish I would have spent the extra $ and got the summit/g-force one but this will work



driver side header was another story I fought this thing for hours, colum shift linkage didn’t clear by a lot, had to give it some clearance at the frame where the front brake line comes off the proportioning valve, a aggravating amount of in and out, bang in here, bend that, pull on this, under the car, back to the topside, have the kid shift it while I watch. finially got it.

quick fix would have been to get a floor shifter and eliminate this completely but while we still can it’s nice to roll 3deep so our whole family can go places, do things in it


new rad installed, new coolant hoses, fan, fan shroud, new alt, power steering lines, just picking away at all the things,



Going to be looking for a cowl hood since stock one will not fit with the new intake,