Project "Mater" build thread

[liv4fun]

Originally Posted by 72cheyennesuper20

Travis, Anything thing this weekend? What does your brother want to do to his truck? It already looks nice.

It looks nice when you stand back, but it needs a lot of work. I am going to replace the rockers (Their good, but who ever put them on did a bad job), replace the piece behind the rockers. They are rusted through now. Replace the floor panels. There are a couple areas I can put my finger through. Replace the kick panels, lower front piece of the passenger fender, wheel wells, and bed. That just leaves some minor body work to be done and paint. The stuff I have already and waiting are: Floor Pans, Rockers, Piece behind the rocker (When Travis buys me replacements. lol), kick plates, front lower fender, carpet kit, bed, sill plates, heater box. I just put in a very nice Tach guage cluster.

I don't plan on it being a show truck, but I do want a nice truck that has not had short cuts taken on it.
BTW... When I say I plan on welding all those pieces in, I really mean Travis. Hee Hee I will get them ready to weld in though.

[Blue'72]

Whew.. Now that end of quarter "stuff" is finished at work, I could finally get back to my truck. The weather was wet and cold earlier this week and the garage clutter was making it difficult to move about, but I figured I would work on putting the tranny in. Then I realized that I really wanted to put in some cutouts for the exhaust to pass through the crossmember, so I took on that task. The truck will never be low enough that this will be needed, but I think it's a cool mod and will tuck the exhaust up there nicely. Actually, MisterE72 if you read this, it's your fault. I really liked what he did so I copied him.

Not as far as I hoped to be, but at least it's progress.

Hey Steve!

Hey Brad, I'm not gunna get this back on the road before your new truck is finished am I? j/k

Liv4fun's tach gauge cluster is going to disappear one of these nights and I won't know anything about it...

I had cut these pcs from a pipe I got from my bro liv4fun's work to use as my cutouts. The last pic is basically what the valve covers are going to look like. I'm going to polish the bare aluminum and I bought some allen bolts to cut the heads off of and put back in where the plastic ones were.


ATTACH]349727[/ATTACH]

Attachment 349723



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[Brad]

Travis, I think you just might get that done before mine is. You've made alot of progress and I'm really jealous. It appears you've used flat black on everything and if you're interested in a factory finish, use Rustoleum #7777- it's virtually identical!

[liv4fun]

What did you end up doing with your flex plate?

[liv4fun]

PS..... Hey Brad....

[Blue'72]

Brad, I need to call you and find out what's up! Good things come to those who wait huh? I'm sure yours is going to look great! Now you tell me about #7777.. I might find it and freshen everything up before I put 'er back together.

Troy, I laid the flexplate on the kitchen counter and it was completely flat. I bolted it back on and it still wobbled, so I took it back and was told that it will until I bolt the torque converter up. As long as it laid flat on the counter and the outside ring is 100% true, I'm not going to worry about it.

[liv4fun]

Originally Posted by Blue'72

Troy, I laid the flexplate on the kitchen counter and it was completely flat. I bolted it back on and it still wobbled, so I took it back and was told that it will until I bolt the torque converter up. As long as it laid flat on the counter and the outside ring is 100% true, I'm not going to worry about it.

I guess that is why it is called a "Flex" Plate....

[Brad]

[72cheyennesuper20]

liv4fun, That sure is a pretty tach.

Travis, That crossmember looks real good. I see the old Blue72 in the corner of your pics. Is the SNB a 1972 also? Or are you going to have to change your username?

[FRENCHBLUE72]

Looks like your doing a great job on getting that thing put back together keep up the good work..

[Blue'72]

Thanks FRENCHBLUE72!

Steve, I don't know what I'm going to do about my user name. Maybe I'll change it to Blue'72cabandfrontand'69frameandback... Would that be too long?

[72cheyennesuper20]

Travis, Did you find anything at the swap meet for project "mater"? All I bought is a 20oz "venti" coffee.

[Blue'72]

Originally Posted by 72cheyennesuper20

Travis, Did you find anything at the swap meet for project "mater"? All I bought is a 20oz "venti" coffee.

Steve, sounds like you really made out! I ended up with a brand new pair of Magnaflow polished stainless mufflers for $100 and a nice hood for $20.

On a side note, Troy broke the bank on new parts for his, so watch for his build thread in the upcoming months..

[Blue'72]

Finally some updates to my project. I haven't had as much time on the weekends as I'd hoped and there's not enough time after work to be really productive, but here's where I'm at right now. I took a day off work today and worked on the motor. Very tedious work I tell ya!

I'm waiting on some nice weather to get the fenders primered and I still need to finish sanding the doors. I bought a new (rusty) hood at the swap meet, but after giving it several acid baths, I found out it will take some bodywork to straighten out. I don't know what I'm gunna do at this point about the hood. Maybe I'll sell a body part and go for a cowl hood, I don't know..

I'm finding out that I don't have much for pictures, but heres what I got accomplished today. I spent a lot of time on that valve cover to polish the aluminum parts. Still have the other one to go yet. I cut the heads off allen bolts and glued them in place of the plastic ones that were mostly missing.





Attachment 354785

[liv4fun]

Very nice... I think you need a chrome water neck though... Your B-Day is coming up you old fart...

[JJanzen]

Blue'72,
Just curious about your blue paint that you purchased. My 72 is the same color blue but is call 510 Medium Blue (2188 from PPG). Ifyou don't mind me asking, what brand paint did you purchase and what was the color code? I haven't bought mine yet but need to. Thanks in advance for your help!

Joel

[Blue'72]

Hey Joel, I got the OMNI brand AE paint. Its inexpensive, but I've used it before with good results. The color code for this is MAE2366A. It also says OEM: 523 GM1972 Dk Blue. That 523 code is the paint number on my SPID sheet on the inside of the glove box.

I hope this helps!

I'm looking forward to seeing pics of your truck!

edit: Just saw a post with your truck and I remember seeing it already. That is NICE!!! That's all I can say. It's hard to tell from the pics, but is that color actually lighter than my truck? Did they have two shades of blue that close together?

[72cheyennesuper20]

Travis, Looking good. Digging the white headers, I really like the way the valves covers turned out, I normaly am not a fan of the Edelerbrock Elite valve covers, (I put them on my truck also) But yours turned out awesome. I think I might have to paint mine Chevy orange now.

[Blue'72]

Thanks Steve! A friend of mine gave me those and they were in dire need of polishing. I agree, I'm not a big fan of them either, but I'm glad I came up with something that dressed them up. I may go with a chrome air cleaner unless I can make the Edelbrock match real good. I don't know how long the headers are going to stay nice. That's a zinc paint, but I tried some on the bottom of one and then torched the heck out of it and it never flaked or burned off. I'm sure it will though over time, but I'm hoping it's at least some what uniform. I'd like to eventually get them ceramic coated!

[Brad]

Travis, DO NOT be anywhere near those headers when you fire them up and burn off the excess. Zinc fumes are HIGHLY toxic. Be very careful when you drive this the first few weeks while the excess burns off. BAAAAAAAAD stuff!!!!

Zinc is an intestinal irritant, and the first sign of zinc poisoning is usually intestinal distress. This includes vomiting, stomach cramps, diarrhea, and nausea. Further symptoms of zinc poisoning are low blood pressure, urine retention, jaundice, seizures, joint pain, fever, coughing, and a metallic taste in the mouth. If these symptoms appear and exposure to zinc is suspected, the person affected should be given lots of milk or water and taken to a hospital. A poison control center can give a referral to a hospital, along with other suggestions for making the patient comfortable.

Zinc is considered a heavy metal, which means that it is dense and that relatively low concentrations of the element in the body may lead to heavy metal poisoning. The symptoms of zinc poisoning are similar to other types of heavy metal poisoning. Because of this, exposure to any type of heavy metal should be disclosed to medical staff.

If left untreated, or if a high level of exposure continues, zinc poisoning can be deadly. Exposure to unhealthy levels of zinc should be limited for all ages. Parents should keep zinc supplements out of the reach of children, as well as keeping their children away from contaminated soil and water. Other adults should be aware of their workplace environments, and should follow medical recommendations on zinc supplements. If living in a contaminated area, filtered water should be used and soil disturbance should be avoided.

[Blue'72]

Oh dang.. Brad, I did not know any of this! Wow!! I'll be taking the headers off and removing that stuff with some laquer thinner then. Of course being extra careful now!

Thanks for looking out for me Brad!!!

[72cheyennesuper20]

Travis, Any progress? Haven't heard anything since the Zinc post. I hope all turned out well on the Zinc removal.

[Brad]

His progress has been slow lately. I'll let him describe. I was there on Sunday dropping off some toys for his truck and saw his progress. It looks really good. However, after seeing that valve cover in person the picture just doesn't do it justice. It looks reeeeeeeally nice and I'm not a fan of those valve covers at all. It looks like he could quickly slap it all together very soon and put it in paint, but the devil's in the details and Travis wants to do things right.

[Blue'72]

I guess I'd better update my progress. Thanks for the compliments Brad! And the toys! Nothing picture worthy quite yet.. My biggest downfall is trying to continue on a very tight budget. That's not working very well. I passed on a good hood for $50 and bought one for $20 that had a lot of surface rust. By the time I removed the rust with acid, the top side was really thin. I cut three braces off my other two hoods and welded them on the bottom of this one so it looked factory, and then sprayed expanding foam underneath the braces to take up the gap. I then cut the excess that oozed out and gave the bottom of the hood a thick coat of Hammerite. Once I turned the hood back over I noticed that it was pretty wavy in spots. I don't want to skim coat the top of the hood with Bondo, so I think I'm just going to give up on it... I'm not sure what body part I'm going to sell, (kidney, or one of my oblongs) but I would really like to go with a new cowl hood. Well, the fenders haven't been much easier, but I finally got the right primer and spent the time to do them right. My doors have a little sanding with the long board and then primed before I can get them ready for paint, and then finishing up the bodywork on the cab will be in order. I'm getting there, it's just slower than I would like. Meanwhile a couple other projects have come up around the house that I've been juggling my time with.

I did get my tranny lines bent and am close to installing the core support and radiator. I'd like to get the motor running and any bugs worked out before I start putting it all back together. I removed that zinc paint from one of the headers which wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Thanks to Brad and Livrat, I finally have the fuel tank I need too!

So, I'm still moving forward at least. I'll get some updated pics on here soon.

[Blue'72]

This was the extra bracing I did on that hood. Too bad I won't be using it..

Time to get these doors fixed up.





Here's what the back end looks like now. I was going to swap the 6 bolt 3:73for a 5 bolt 3:73, but it didn't look as good as I had hoped.