Body is mounted on the rotisserie...waiting on a schedule from the blaster. I'll be doing some disassembling on the chassis before he gets here. He is thinking sometime next week...although I might be able to coerce him to do another weekend run.
I had the blaster out yesterday so we could get this done before a nasty winter storm rolls through today and tomorrow. There was am undercoating on the body that was like a hard plastic. Similar to truck bed liner. We were worried that it wouldn't come off with the blaster...but had high hopes. It actually blew off pretty quickly. I had him clean up the rolling chassis while he was here, as well as the underside of the trunk lid. I now have the chassis in the shop ready to disassemble. The body is in the house garage where it will stay until I finish the chassis. There is one ugly spot on the body floor that needs attention, and a couple really small spots where seams overlap. Other than that, it's really clean.
Black epoxy made its way into the frame today. I have it completely disassembled, finally. Tomorrow, I’ll have the steering box and shaft detailed. Hopefully I’ll get the top coat on the frame, too. Lots of new lines and bushings coming daily...
Today, I tackled all of the control arm bushing removal. All 16 of them. Fun times! I finished the steering box as well. I'll get it mounted tomorrow, along with a few trinkets that have been painted already. I'm waiting on all of the new control arm bushings to install, so I haven't painted any of those yet. I blasted through (literally) my last sandblasting tip today, so hopefully my order from a few days ago gets here soon. I topcoated the frame with Eastwood Chassis Black today. It is really close in gloss level as just putting two coats of black epoxy on. This adds just a touch more gloss, though. I like it so far.
Thanks, Ryan! Things will be moving very quickly in the next month and a half. I took off work until mid February to work on it.
It's nice here today (above 20 degrees) so I will be able to get those trunk supports off and out to you...
Thanks, George! I don't have much to show for today. I threw on a couple parts that were ready to bolt on. Knocked out the ball joints on the control arms...spent the rest of the day building shutters for the new shop. I'm waiting on some new tips for my blaster...so all of these suspension parts are sitting here waiting for a touchup blast before I paint them. I'm hoping for 1-2 weeks to have this as a rolling chassis again. That all depends on how fast I can get some of the parts. Todd is getting stuff to me as fast as he can. I already have all the fasteners...mostly just waiting on bushings now.
Blaster is back in service...everything except front lower control arms and springs are clean. I did notice that all of the little brackets that hold the front brake lines are NOT black painted. They look to be silver cad. The photo is not evidence of said plating...I just snapped that for reference when reassembling. The front brake hose and line brackets are a different animal than disc brakes.
Now that is a body support! There's some serious talent on this website, and you get to witness it time and time again through these great threads.
Brian, those stands are one of my creations from when I did my 58 Limited 10 years ago. I threw these together a few weeks ago to temporarily hold this body up while I rolled the chassis out from under it. I'll use them again to reassemble the body to the frame once the time comes. They don't have a lot of fore-aft stability, but will hold a million lbs I don't have any pics of today's fun...but I got a bunch completed. I'm pretty much at a standstill until I get bushings now. Shocks painted grey, front and rear backing plates, springs, trans crossmember, rear sway bar, rear end, rear frame support brackets, and a bunch of other trinkets all painted. I took the front and rear drums to get a fresh turn, and picking them up tomorrow. I can then get those all blasted and ready to go.
Drums are done...blasted and painted. Some of the brake hardware that I’m actually keeping is ready to be installed too. Waiting on remaining hardware kits to install brakes on the rear end. I did manage to stick the crossmember on today...
Since I have disassembled this chassis, I have found some interesting stuff. When the restoration was initially started, the chassis had been completed...and the body was set back on, then abandoned. When I started taking things apart, it appeared that only the bare minimum was disassembled when the chassis was painted back then. I believe everything was just cleaned up as much as possible, then doused with black paint all over. Fuel lines and some of the brake lines appeared new, it were rusted pretty badly. All of the bushings and ball joints were original and needed replacement. This is what I found when I pulled the front right wheel off....
Hey Smarty. Happy New Year! This GS is not in the registry. Can you please see if the owner would like to register the car? Thanks.
Nice work Adam. I'm really looking forward to seeing it when finished. I saw a '71 or '72 Pontiac Grand Prix in the same color combination, and gorgeous wasn't an adequate enough term to describe it. If I could only travel back to say, 1969 or 1970!
