Well I made some progress on the vette while I was on vacation these past couple of weeks. I managed to get the guts back into the trans with all new bushings and seals along with a full manual valve body. I found out that I didn't have a 4:11 rear but when I did the rotation test it ended up being a 3:55, so I took my spare 3:70 to the shop and had them put new posi clutches, bearings and seals in it and they said it was one of the best cores they have seen in a while so that made me feel good. For 24 years my old man thought he had 4:11s because the tach was reading rpms half of the mph. That was beacause the speedo gears were for a 3:70. I also sandblasted the halfshafts clean and gave them to the shop to install new solid spicer joints. I tried and tried to get the old joints out but had no success. The crossmember is also clean now. Went through 1 1/2 bags of playsand just for those 3 things and now the sand is like powder. The gas tank was removed, cleaned and then painted. I mounted the new holley fuel pump at the tailend of the frame and connected SS braided hose back to the main line and on the pass fender skirt I got a fuel pressure regulator conected. I also got as much as the frame clean as possible then painted it. I got the interior gutted out and finally removed the heater core, AC core and venting out. That was hard to do being that I didnt take the dash apart. I removed 130 pounds from the front clip including the bumper and radiator support. I made my own brace that holds the rad. brace, re-used the frame extention that goes out to the corners of the nose and trimmed out alot from the front bumper brace that now only has to hold up the grills and running lights. I plan on getting a fiberglass 80 style front nose to clean up the look and make my own air scoop to the radiator. Each popup light weighs 20 lbs so I'm getting a set of recessed ones. Here are a few pics that I got so far.

 

Looks like you are making some great progress, looking very nice

 

Nice going

 

Wow...you have your hands full and are neck deep in it. Lookin good so far...keep up the good work.
Eddie

 

Looking great
I like the all silver tranny.

Keep the pics coming.

KO

 

 

looks awesome


Remember Hagerty's Tech Tip #9:
If you want to stay cleaner when working on cars, work with your arms extended as far out as possible. This helps keep the dirt and grease off your clothes.

 

Lookin' good!

 

 

Looks great!

Is that half shaft painted, or is that the way it looked after blasting??

 

Thats what the shaft looked like after blasting. This is the first time I ever did it and was also amazed of what it will actually get clean. I started looking around the garage for other things to blast!!

Yeah, I definetly got my hands full, and I didn't think I was gonna take it this far. I started out just doing an engine swap and my mind just started cooking every time I looked into the engine bay. I ended up doing the fromt suspension bushings and cleaning the control arms too. Last week I decided to get all new calipers after looking at the rears when they were off. The pistons look very bad and the whole thing is rusted, so instead of rebuilding them I'll just replace them. The engine is estimated as having close to 500HP so I want to make sure that I can stop too. I'm going with the Strip/Street setup so I am planning everything around that concept.

 

lookn good, what color are u painting the 1/2 shafts?

 

Looks like a great job there. Are you planing to paint the trans and diff case? It never ends does it. DB

 

nice job so far

 

What a blast, huh!!! I love using the blaster at work. Try it on chrome one time. Looks like a blue flame coming off of the parts.

 

The halfshafts are going to be silver on the tube and the joint sections are going to be black so it looks like a big knuckle. I still have to paint the yokes on the rear yet.

When it stops raining here I'll get out to the garage and remove the trans mount and blast that as well, and as long as home depot doesn't run out of 3" wire wheels I'll continue on the frame. lol !!! I bought like 30 of them so far just using them on the vette!!!

I just got the message from the shop on my answering machine about the spicer joints in on the shafts. Here is the link to site that has all my vette pics. I have directory browsing enabled so you can roam around but here is the direct link: http://wopr.myftp.biz/pics/8%20Corvette/

 

silver and black

 

 

Looks like things are going great. Stay at it.

 

"and as long as home depot doesn't run out of 3" wire wheels I'll continue on the frame. lol !!! I bought like 30 of them so far just using them on the vette!!!

i've done the frame w/wirewheels and w/a diegrinder w/paint stripping pads, the diegrinder is much easier and does a much better job. u do excellent work