Project "My Happy Mess"

[Dieselwrencher]

Hey, where did you get your radiator from? I'm looking for one for my 76 and want to get a good one. I'm leary of buying one from ebay if you know what I mean. Thanks Ryan.

[litew8]

Ebay

[litew8]

This particular radiator is hard to find, I found. Summit has one for more $$.
If you're not looking for this exact one, there are tons of retailers for aluminum radiators Ryan, right?

[litew8]

I'll even add for the viewers that I got the radiator from kennysrodandkustom on ebay (99.9% PF).
Summit sells it for $100 more. You could price match it with Summit, but I wanted to give my money to kennysrodandkustom.
Couldn't have asked for better service from Kenny's. Both radiator and retailer are U.S.A..

[Dieselwrencher]

Thanks for the heads up and I'll check them out. There is so much knock off stuff on ebay any more I'm really leery of giving money out to half of them if you know what I mean.

[litew8]

You're welcome. Any other questions (from anyone) for anything other product PM and I'll try and answer.

[litew8]

Friday Update - Got a little accomplished.

Parts painted with Zero Rust -






New repro battery tray. Scuffed and painted with a semi-gloss black paint.




Still need to attach this retainer to the oil pan to hold the transmission
lines up, off/away from the engine cross-member.




Soon enough, I'll lay black Hushmat sound deadened on the cab floor.
This is the same brand/material used on today's automobiles. Should be nice.

[El Campo]

Serpentine setup off of a late 80s-early 90s SBC? Less than 200 bucks from junk yard with EVERYTHING included and never have a squeaking belt again. Plus that alternator will be 105 amps I think. Just my 2 cents...
Posted via Mobile Device

[litew8]

No serpentine setup and not spending $200 = $200 in my pocket, and 100 amp alternator. Just my $200
P.S. I've never had a squeaky belt, ever.

[El Campo]

You must be a better mechanic than I am then, brother! Haha I have them before at higher RPM no matter what I did I could not get it to stop at high RPM. Good luck though, by all means if that works for you then rock on!

[litew8]

, it's all tension my friend. The bottom side of the alt. belt shouldn't be tight, or at least it should have very "slight" movement when pressed up on from the underside (from 5 o'clock if driver's side).
The extent of my automotive mechanical aptitude is old-school SouthSide (high school) autoshop, metalshop, woodshop and street smarts. Everything else I learned in kindergarten.

[VA72C10]

looking good.

[litew8]

Got the heater box (metal) sanded and painted with Zero Rust Saturday.



================================

Extra - 1979 Mustang Pace Car
(pics for The Pit Boss)

For the viewers: Believe it or not, this use to be one of the fastest/toughest street cars in town back in the day! This might be The Fixer's personal project next (it use to be The Pit Boss's car). The extent of rust damage was a little more than expected.

[litew8]

Revisiting this picture, just so everyone knows - we're aware that these welds are sloppy It's due to running low on gas for the mig welder.

[oldman3]

Litew8, I think you use about as much Zero Rust paint as I did encapsulator paint....Jim

[litew8]

Good morning Jim. I have about 4 cans of ZR left. I have a box of sandblasted parts yet to be paint. ZR is for bare metal so I figure it goes good. If it truly does bond to metal and starve the surface from oxygen - I guess it's well worth it. I like the satin (flat) black look, and it comes in an spray can.


Description / Zero Rust

Zero Rust is a direct-to-metal, phenolic modified alkyd rust and corrosion control coating which puts down an impermeable barrier at the steel level. Zero Rust has two superior traits:

(1) It provides maximum adhesion to steel – this is called chemical affinity.

(2) Its dielectric ability is extraordinary – steel is isolated from the electrolysis process which converts steel to rust. In laymen's terms, this means that if you can starve the oxygen from the substrate, oxidation (rust) cannot occur.

Zero Rust

Can you tell I don't like rust

[litew8]

Sunday Update -

Didn't do a whole lot today, but I try and accomplish little things
per day even if they're minor. It all ads up eventually.

Decided to paint the heater box and get it out of the way. Scuffed it all,
cleaned off and painted. I went to the local hardware store and picked
up some paint on impulse. Decided a textured paint was needed, so I found
something that I thought would look decent. I thought about spraying black
paint over it slightly to darken it up, but maybe I'll just leave it.

Here are the results.

Before -






After -

This is the product I used.










Then on to hooking up the instrument cluster. I know I mentioned
I was going to connect this the other day, but hey - I'm lazy

First thing I notice after getting comfortable laying on my back
Can you spot what's wrong with this picture? The oil pressure line
is on the wrong side of the defrost vent hose. It isn't going to connect!

I ask myself, why me? And how did THAT happen?!?!
So, to correct it, I have to re-bend the line to the other side of
the vent hose. Wow, that was fun




The outlined light is the original light/wire. I removed the one that
came pre-installed and replaced with the original. This is for illuminating
the shift indicator on the steering column. cool -




Look! @ my work bench Pretty cool huh?




Can anyone guess what these are?
The Pit Boss's engineering from the late 80's early 90's!

[chevy2racr]

its for speakers... i think.

[oldman3]

Like the paint on the heater box....Jim

[litew8]

Originally Posted by VA72C10

looking good.

Thanks VA

Originally Posted by chevy2racr

its for speakers... i think.

good eye chevy2racr - 6x9 mounting plate.

Originally Posted by oldman3

Like the paint on the heater box....Jim

Thanks Jim. The Fixer likes it too.

I think we're fitting fenders, etc... today. Or wait? Shouldn't I be wanting to fire the engine? Not sure why we are side stepping the engine now. All we have left for the engine firing is to bolt the torque converter to the transmission, run some electrical wires, replace small sections of rubber gas line, and hook up the electric fan. Thinking about going to the junkyard for a pigtail connector for the fan. I guess I was jumping the gun earlier in wanting to fire it, but not by much.

Thanks for looking all, maybe some pics later this afternoon.

[El Campo]

Heater box looks REALLY good! Was wondering what to use on it and it looks like you found the perfect thing! Going to write that one down on my list of things to do

[litew8]

Thanks! I was hoping it turn out with bigger looking specs of white, but it still looks nice. Put it up against the firewall today just to take a look I noticed that it sprays bigger particles when the can is full to half full, and spraying at different angles produces a more rough texture. When the can gets near empty, not so much texture.

[litew8]

Monday Update -

Took the shroud off to paint.
Scuffed with (red) scotch bright pad, air hosed off and wiped clean with lacquer thinner after.
(I do for nearly everything I've painted)




Here's the connector The Fixer used to affix the fan to the shroud.




Screwed into the shroud. Plastic spacer and rubber washer.



Backside -



And painted. Not too happy with the paint coverage.
Universal Rust-oleum Flat Black with stupid spray away nozzle.
Do yourself a favor and NEVER buy this type of spray can!
It was spitting blobs paint constantly. I might even redo the shroud because of it.






Fitted fenders, cowl and hood. The aftermarket fender fits "ok".
I do not like the top/front end. Where the hood runs along side, the fender
curves to the outside rather than straight or slightly to the inside like the OEM
fender does on the driver's side. It doesn't look great, and I hope it doesn't
mess with the grille alignment. If there's a way to get it to straighten up,
I'd like to try (if at all possible within reason). No picture of that here though.
I'll try and get a shot of it later. It's a Goodmark fender I think.





Should I keep the pinstripe work on the underside nah



Got them "close", but still need little adjustments.

[litew8]

Tuesday Update -

We started the day fitting the fenders, hood, rad support and grille surround.

It went something like this -

My worst assumption was right on mark. The aftermarket passenger side
fender (it's a Woodall fender, I was wrong to say Goodmark earlier) didn't align worth a crap.
The part I was concerned with turned out to be a big POS. The whole front of the fender
pulled outward which created huge gap that wouldn't allow us to seat the grille surround,
no matter what. There was no modifying this.




So... off it went and off we go to the body shop.

I was just going to get reimbursed and get the **** out of there, but... it
turned out they had a 1/2 way decent (OEM) passenger side fender. Those
that know, know OEM passenger side fenders (in IA at least) are somewhat hard to
come by since they are notorious for rusting out at the bottom due to battery acid
and/or water damage. This one wasn't too bad, so The Fixer and I nabbed it.

That damn body shop () is lucky I didn't call the The Pit Boss.

Here are some shots of OEM fenders and their perfect (to us) alignment!
I've got OEM grille surround, OEM fenders, OEM doors, OEM hood and OEM tailgate! Sweeet!
(read Made in 1970's USA!)








Does anybody know how long it takes to clean/sand and shine an aluminum grille surround!

[VA72C10]

did you remove the anodizing or just sand? If just sanding I imagine it took hours...

Fender looks good. Hard to beat original sheetmetal.