flymikemc

Thanks for the thread Dac. I am just starting my resto and I might do a similar thread for mine. I expect it will likely be over a number of years though. Keep up the good work.

DacMan

Huh, I've never seen one with a paint scheme like that opel before. Here's another link that I found about two years ago, I think the paint scheme would look really sweet on a camaro too.
http://67mustangblog.com/wp-content/...t500-cover.jpg

DacMan

No problem fly, you really should do one. It has been totally worth it for me, if nothing less that to just whatch your own progress. Maybe you'll get lucky and have people help you out like I have.

DacMan

Well fellas my 6 inch craftsman sander polisher finally died today. It was my uncles at ibm in the seventies, and I have sanded down numerous garden tractors with it. Today I decided to strip my passenger side fender, and right when I finished it died. Even more depressing than my sander dying is that there are literally 10 coats of either paint primer sealer or bondo on the car... it took me 5 sanding discs to strip it. I ended up starting with 36 grit and getting it down to a very distinguishable yellow that was about the third coat of somthing from the metal, then I took 80 grit to get it to steel, that took forever. And then to clean up my metal scratches I went over the fender with 120 grit. If anyone has a method of sanding that isn't pneumatic and isn't an orbital sander or the armstrong way, let me know.

88iroc52387

iTrader: (2)

Soda blasting...... throw up some tarps in the garage blast to your hearts content and wash it down the drain when your done..... just be mindful of warping panels. Keep moving and you shouldn't have a problem. If you get into some cancerous metal tho your going to have to switch to something a bit more aggresive (stardust or aluminum oxide works) or do it the armstrong way... I've also heard good things about walnut shells but i personally haven't had the change of using them yet.... Goodluck!

DacMan

Thanks for the tip, I have done some sodablasting before, however I only have a 15 gallon air compressor. I guess I might try to fix my sander tomarrow, but doubt it'll work. Thanks for the tip again, I appreciate the idea.

DacMan

88iroc52387

iTrader: (2)

I haven't tackled a whole car yet (soon as spring hits) but i did the hood, fenders, and rocker panels on my old s10 with no problem and my compressors only 25 gallon vert, craftsman pro.... Its not ideal but you could probably get away using a 15gal for some of it. Let us know what you end up doing your threads great so far

DacMan

Thanks man I appreciate it. I've thought about getting that 25 vert pro, I have a oil-less craftsman. I will deffinatly do some of the tough areas, like the little lip where the turning light goes on the front fenders. I'm even thinking about renting a huge air compressor for a day and soda blasting it all then.

DacMan

I can't post any pics because either my computer, internet conection, or site dowloading capabilities suck big fat lemons, ughhhhhhhhhh, this is so frustrating, and I don't know how to fix it. This is the most pissed off looking icon I could find but it doesn't do me anger justice

marekdennhardt

If you want to send me those pictures I could try putting them up on this page for you

Awesome-X

I swear its this site. Every time I try to post something or look at a new thread it freaks out and I have to refresh it. I really like this site but man thats annoying as hell. So at least you aren't alone Dac!

DacMan

Yeah, I've been really close to punching my screen... lol I know how stupid that sounds but it's just really frustrating. I can't tell you guys how many pics I havn't posted on this thread because they wouldn't load. I might try sending them to you when I get home mark.

marekdennhardt

Here are DacMan's pictures that weren't uploading.

They are of a very sweet looking, freshly painted engine bay and engine.
And his passenger side fender which has been sanded down to the metal.


P.S!!! The reason why those pictures aren't uploading is because they are too big of a file for the limitations of this forum. thirdgen limits your pictures to a max of 1MB

So, all I did was bring them up on paint and resaved them and it brought the sizes down to below 1 MB from being about 2 MB.

At around 700KB the pictures still did not work so I brought them down around 200 KB and they worked right away.

DacMan

Thanks Man I really appreciate it. I'll have to do that next time. I got a new computer and it has windows 7 so I guess the paint doc. opens them up at a larger size.

, DacMan

DacMan

Alright fellers, here's what I got done tonight. Last night I tacked in a new peice of sheet metal because there was a spot on my fender that had rusted through. #4's what I got done last night. 5 is what I did tonight, I blended it in as well as possible, and it's now ready for a thin skin of bondo. And 6 is the back side where I followed up with a coat of primer, and later some duplicolor black.

marekdennhardt

Nice job man. Nice and smooth. I donno if this is wrong but when I welded my body patches on I just laid them on top of the area, instead of making it flush.

Is that correct? I can't think of a way to secure the metal in place so I could tack it in because I cant get behind the problem area to clamp it down. Do you know a way? Or was the way I did it how everyone else does it?

DacMan

You can do it the way you did but that way requires bondo and your pannel will never be truly correct. The best way is the way I did, which was to cut out the rust in a square or easy shape to replicate and then cut out a similair patch, I fit the peice so it would fit flush, and then when I welded it in I made sure that it was ever so slightly lower the the pannel it was going in. I tacked it in by holding it from behind with a welding glove. After I tacked it I welded it in, and then ground the welds down with 36 grit. Another way to patch pannels is to just cut out a peice of metal a little bigger than the hole in the fender or whatever you cut. Then weld it from behind and front. Seam seal the back, bondo the front and your done. Either way is an option. But although mine takes a little longer I like it best because it requires less bondo.

DacMan

Guys you may find this funny and quite random, but I was just thinking about selling my car when I get done with it... There's a kid at school that thinks he might be interested in it, but the thing is I started to think about selling her and giving the key's to this kid and I don't think I can do it... I would be really angry if somone was rolling around in MY CAR!!! lol. I think I may keep the thing now. Gonna have to do a 350 swap soon though, cause the guy at the machine shop said my valve guides weren't great or horrible, so who knows how long it'll run before it starts smoking blue. lol.

BlackMamba

iTrader: (6)

Wow Dac great job on your engine bay and on your engine. I am also thinking of painting my engine chevy orange instead of black when I will go my swap. Hopefully I will also post some picture on progress of my engine on TGO so others can see.

DacMan

Cool man, thanks for the compliments. I hope you do, let me know how it goes.

Awesome-X

Thats right Dac...you waited too long to get rid of her, now you're stuck with her!!

DacMan

I know, it's a curse of mine, I just get really pissed when I think of people having my stuff. And this is no exception! lol.

DacMan

I got my exhaust manifold installed and on as well as a few other things done today so here we go

Here's a pic of the water pump, I realize the main pully is pretty ugly, that will get painted with a brush before I call it all done.

Also I installed the brake booster, I realize once againt he wiring looks shitty but don't worry that will be fixed.

DacMan

Some idiot, not me, dented this fuel line. I will have to replace it, hope it's not too expensive. I wonder if that's why the engine felt sluggish on the way home.
I bought new spark plugs today, two of them had the straight dust cover on one end, I don't know which cylinders these are for so anyones advice would be appreciated. Also I have removed my distributor as well as plugs wires without marking them I know, but now I need help getting everything back right. I have cylinder one at tdc and, I think I can get it so that the distributor's rotor is facing one of the cap's spark plug wire posts. And then run that wire to the 1 cylinder spark plug, then rostate the engine until the rotor moves to another post and hook the post it moves to up to the cylinder in next in the firing order, I belive that would be eight. And then continue the procedure until all are cylinders are hooked up.
I also found that aftermarket dirstributor cap that cam with the car, it's an accel super coil. I read about them and supposably the arent' that great, they just improve mpg a little and make the car a tad more throttle responsive. Mines in peices so I don't know if it's worth mesing with, if anyone knows anything about these and thinks I should or should not hook it up let me know. Here's a pic and there'll be another in the next post.

DacMan

Here's one more pic of the coil:

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

Yeah, those Super Coils are junk. I've only been running mine since Aug 1999, and it has yet to misfire on me.

Junk.

DacMan

ok five7kid , it appears you are quite happy with yours. So my question is, is it worth ordering the parts the fix the thing. In other words will a stock engine see much hp or mpg improvments with stock spark plugs, if I run it.

DacMan

Today was a big day fellas, about a month ago I went to my trusty local napa store to buy an epoxy to fix my a/c box. I ask one of the guys behind the counter if they knew what I should use to patch it back together, anyway's long story short the guy who I was talking too had a third gen camaro he was parting out and he told me he had a good air box I could buy. Ofcourse I said yes and a month later here I am. I showed up today expecting him to show me where it was and tell me to grab what I wanted and then go inside, and charge me after I got all the parts off, cause it was so cold . But instead he stayed out there with me and my brother and helped me get parts off. Not only that but he was a really nice guy. He began to tell me about thirdgen.org and that's how I found out he's a member. His user name is luke j. Once again what a nice guy. He gave me all the stuff in the first pic for an outragously good price. He even helped me figure out my rotor issue. So anyway if you end up reading this Luke, thanks again. So lets get down to the parts. The camaro had an edlebrock exhaust on it so I took it off. And will be putting it on soon. I also got a new a/c box, mirror, pillar interior pannel, rear hatch accuators, and sun visor. I measured the exhaust and it's a 3 inch exhaust system with 3 1/2 inch chrome tips. These tips are so big it's almost embarrassing . So I decided to polish them cause it seemed like it had been a while. So I pulled out some sand paper and got to work. I started with 320 to get the ruff stuff and moved quickly into 600 then 1500. 2nd pic's what I started out with and third is my supplies.

DacMan

The first pic is pretty self explanatory, I got it all done and it looks pretty good. There are some spots that can't be fixed, but that's not a bid deal at all.
The second pic is the old exhaust I tore out after I got done polishing, the new exhaust should be in some time next week.
Third pis is just the two of em' all done.

luke j

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for the praise. I cannot believe how well those exhaust tips came out. They look great. What is up with the old exhaust???? I have never seen anything like that. It almost looks like a corvette exhaust except for the "connector" pipe between the mufflers. Let me know if you need anything else. I just realized that that instrument cluster will not work in your car. It is out of a '92 that used vss for speedo, your car has a cable drive speedo.

DacMan

uhhhh, please don't tell me I just hacked the **** out of a corvette exhaust lol. What if I replace the old speedo cable, I only ask because I have to replace it anyway. Yeah those exhaust tips turned out really nice. Nothing like a little mothers to shine stuff up.

MD83Z

Those mufflers and twisted pipes are original for your car.... Not sure what year your car is...but the exhaust and hood are 1983 or so. Prob. a fiberglass hood.

DacMan

MD83Z you are dead on it's an 83'.
Thanks for the info, DacMan

MD83Z

That exhaust and the "soda straw" air cleaner snorkel (57 I think calls it) really keep a 305 smothered. I see you don't have the air cleaner lid, but I assume you still have a computer carb and computer distributor, just sayin be careful leaving out temp. senders and oxygen sensors cause they feed back info to control the engine.( guess the temp one is on the intake water outlet).

DacMan

Yeah I don't think I have taken any sensors out yet, and I don't intend to. I don't know what I'm gonna do about an air cleaner, the one that came with the car is tiny lol.

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

The Super Coil is worth it, as is the ignition module in the distributor. I haven't had any problems with mine.

The stock 305 exhaust manifolds are also restrictive. The best thing to do with stock factory exhaust is replace it all.

You can turn your single snorkel into a dual snorkel. There's a tech article on it. https://www.thirdgen.org/dualsnorkel

marekdennhardt

Those exhaust tips turned out really well

DacMan

Thanks Mark and Five7kid. Those pics are a little decieving, then still need a lot of work. I don't mind though, although I am considering cutting the exhaust back so you can't see it. Luke was telling me he didn't like seeing exhaust tips on cars, and the more I thought about it the more I agreed. I don't know if I'll keep em or not, but they sure as hell better not look like tuner crap when they get on there or their gone! lol.

DacMan

btw anyone know if I can replace my speedo cable to fit my new 110 mph gauges?

DacMan

Alright boys, as you see in pic 16 I have the stero blasting and the CB cranked up, we have some snow on the ground so I'm listening to the plow guys talkin back and forth. Learning some new combinations of words too . Anyway here's what I thought I'd do cause it's way too cold to be in the garage. I got two vents from Luke's parted out camaro but his is an 87' I believe, and what happened was they wrapped the dash around on the left side, so the vent on the left side is too long, so I'm going to fix that. When I got my dash the left and right vent directors were there they just didn't have any of the director tabs or director connector shafts. So pic 14 is what I started with Pic 15 is what needs to be modified to fit the old vent director casings.

DacMan

Alright so I had to modify the large one, I did so with the side side cuts in my mini pliers set. Once modified in pic 17 you can see it's perfect. I ended up having to use the pliers in my mini pliers set in pic 18 because it was such a **** **** **** mother ***** son of a ****!!!!!. Took me forever to get them together, but anyway they are together in pic 20 and function perfectly. I assembled the vent to see if it would work and it did, so now I've got to tear em down and paint em. You might be saying to yourself why did he throw in a pic of those mini pliers, beyond the fact that I am very proud of them, I posted them just to show you guys them, and tell yall if you don't have em you should. Their great for carb rebuilds, I mean fantastic for carb rebuilds, as well as little things like this, and even though I've not done much tranny work, I'm sure they would be helpful with transmssion work. Sears sells em... anyway that's just food for thought.

BlackMamba

iTrader: (6)

I am thinking of running also the accel super coil with the accel 7 pin moledule hopefully help. out my 350 when I get it

DacMan

Not to stack on to my speedo cable question which I would love an answer for but I have another question, how low can I move my coolant resivoir. Can it be half way down the radiator???? Also how low can I more my winshield wiper resivoir, I might just get rid of it though, cause it doesn't work anyway.

Answers asap, would be fantastic, Thanks DacMan

luke j

iTrader: (1)

The speedo from my '92 parts car does not use a cable, it is electronic and uses a vss sensor mounted on the trans, which you do not have on an '83. The '83 uses a cable running on a gear on the output shaft of the trans. It would be VERY difficult and expensive to convert from cable to elec drive. you would be better of trying to find a cable drive cluster.

I do not think it will matter on the tanks how low you mount them. the radiator cap controls how much coolant comes in and out of the radiator. When it builds up too much pressure, its pressure spring retracts and lets coolant out of the radiator. Then when it cools down with the engine off, the vacuum created by the cooling down of the antifreeze pull the coolant back into the radiator, keeping it full at all times, hopefully. That is why the pound rating on the cap is so important. The spring also loses tension over time and gets weaker. I know of a parts store near you that keeps them in stock for around $4-$6.

BTW the license plate info for the f-body event is not important, just put some in the spot, just change it when you get your plates. you can go back and edit your registration at any time. I hope you will be able to make it out, it is a blast.

DacMan

Sweet, I'll deffinatley register then. I didn't know you could go back and change it. Thanks for the info on the speedo cable, and it sounds like I'll have to visit this said auto parts store and get a radiator cap.. lol.

DacMan

Alright fellas, the dac is in a huge jam. I have to have my camaro running and streetable in two weeks starting monday, so I am going to need as much help from everyone as possible, paint is going to have to wait until spring... huhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... Ohhhh well. Anyway I need you guys to help me with my accessorie drive brackets, I don't know which ones go were or were they bolt to. So any pics or help would be fantastic. There's a pic of all the brackets . Also I got my charcol canister painted with some krylon matte paint today and it looks pretty sharp. Also here's a pic of the block, so you can see any bolt holes you might want to point out as to which bolts go where, I realize this will be quite tedious, but I can't tell you guys how much I will appreciate your help, I truly couldn't do it without you fellas.

Thanks, DacMan

DacMan

Ok so here's what I've figured out, I'm going to post a pic of each bracket and a number in the picture to represent the bracket, if you can tell me where each one goes that would be great. So I'll start posting the pics.

DacMan

Some More

DacMan

And Lastly

DacMan

Fellers' I'm kinda stuck dead in the water on getting this thing running until I get a little help. .

Thanks, Dac