Project: Over My Head

[yossarian19]

Over the last couple weeks it's been REALLY slow going. I got saddled with my cousin's Volkswagen to occupy a week's worth of lunch breaks (glad to do it, actually, but wow - tiring), I'm studying for two different ASE exams, I spend some time with my fiance, I hit the gym once in a while & I work full time.
Enough excuses, though. I did get some steering mods done.
Here's me, optimistic about how quickly I'll get the ball studs pushed out with my shiny new air hammer [IMG][/IMG]
Here, you can see that the air hammer didn't do the job and that the press actually sheared some steel knocking that ball stud out. Whoops![IMG][/IMG]
On the next one, I ground maybe 1/32" of metal off the bottom as flat as I could. Walked it over to the 20 ton press in about this condition: [IMG][/IMG] and it came right out cleanly.
Just for fun, this is the intake manifold off my dad's old '70 Pontiac LeMans: [IMG][/IMG]
It's a Pontiac 455 intake manifold that's been drilled for Cadillac 502 fuel injection. The car was a blue convertible with a Muncie 3 speed auto, his & hers shifter, posi traction, and a trailer hitch. It hauled 3,000 lbs of Bayliner + some ass while doing it. He pioneered the cadi EFI to Pontiac injection; shortly after the car appeared in a magazine some hot rod company started selling kits that looked a lot like what he'd done.
This here is his L98 motor with LT1 heads & induction, but no opti-spark. It's in a 72 Corvette that's every bit as franken-car as the LeMans was. [IMG][/IMG]
I think in some ways my car hobby started out as a way of connecting with my old man. Didn't hurt that I was broke. Now I've got a few bucks. It's my own thing, now something I love for myself. Still, as I get into building this truck - with tools from two grandfathers and my old man, the retrofit of an LS into a '57... well, I dunno. There's something magic feeling about it.