Ready to move

Chris called yesterday, and said Ron wanted me to come by the shop today to see the car and answer some questions on the fender. This week he started fitting the fender on the car. He still needs to trim the front edge an inch or so to where he has the bonding strip.

Rear view of the fender. The new fender will bond to the stock bonding strip.Test fitting a bumper, looks like it's a relatively small pie that will need to be added, but pretty certain the bumpers will be customized to match the fenders.

Side view of the fender. After Ron gets the other fender prepped and fitted, he's got to build up the bonding strips with duraglass to space them out sufficiently to meet the fender flare and provide a watertight trunk. Not sure if I'll be able to talk him in to the rotisserie for that operation so he won't have to fight gravity.

At home today I cleaned the engine block and got a coat of paint on the block. There's still some paint required on the top of the heads and the valve covers, and the back of the block. Once the paint was dry, I bolted the tranny back up to the engine, and dropped the engine and tranny back in the chassis. Now the chassis is about ready for the move to the new house in the next couple weeks.

Front Suspension

 Last weekend I got all four wheels back on the car again. The free action bearings are in the upper and lower control arms along with new ball joints. I installed new poly sway bar bushings.

Left front suspension. Same deal - free action bearings, new ball joints, new sway bar bushings.

RIght Rear Fender Removal

Ron is now back on Mutt, working on the right rear fender.

 He's using a midyear bonding strip at the top of the fender to bond on the new flared fender.

Behind the door jamb Ron is using  sections of the old fender to create a bonding strip.

 The stock bonding strip is across the middle of the wheel opening. The center section will be cut out so it doesn't interfere with the wider tires and wheels.

Free Action

Seems like I've spent weeks grinding all the forging parting lines off the front control arms and rear links. I finally declared done, and mailed the bits off to Paul Newman for his Free Action Bearing kit to be installed in all the components. Rather than rubber or poly bushings, everything is now spherical bearings.

Here's the rear kit, plus the custom valved Bilstein shock and the lowering bolt for the rear spring - next to the shorter original bolt.

Front suspension has grease fittings on all the bearings. 

Here's the rear suspension all back together.

I've been busier than the body shop over the past couple months. In addition to disassembling the front and rear suspensions, and grinding off all the forging lines, I got the interior kit and transfered the stainless trim from the old door panels to the new ones. Eagleton's has a new owner, and seems like they're going to start moving forward again.

Started finally

Mutt moved over to the active part of the shop and has had a couple days put into reversing the damage of the media blaster. Lower portion of this fender has been replaced as well. Next week while I'm in Africa they will start on replacing the rear fenders.

Sent from my iPhone

Last Horrah

I think today is the last shop time I get until I return from Africa late next month. I pulled the dog bones and links on the rear suspension, and started removing the front suspension. I had hoped to get it all off so I could ship it to Paul Newman to get it fitted for spherical bearings. Unfortunately, the front suspension is taking about 3 times as long to tear down. I was one bolt from removing the left front lower control arm, when I found that I installed the bolt before installing the suspension cradle in the frame - the bolt doesn't come out, nor does the control arm. I started sanding the parting lines off all the forged components. I don't think I'll go as far as polishing everything, but I do want to remove all the rough edges.

I stopped by Eagleton this week, and it looked like they might be getting ready to start on it. :-)

A little sun for the chassis

Saturday I pulled the chassis off the lift, now that I have four tires again, and rolled it out in the sunshine. I then rolled it under the lift to use the lift to pull the engine and tranny out of it so I can detail the engine. Following the drivetrain removal, the chassis was rolled back on the lift so I can put it on jackstands, pull the suspension, send the pivoting parts to Paul Newman for spherical bearing conversion, and clean the chassis.

I've now got the engine on a stand. OSH had a no sales tax weekend so I picked up a couple cans of engine enamel and a can of caliper paint. The engine needs some serious oxidation removal. The whole engine will be coated in GM gloss black to hopefully combat this oxidation problem once and for all.



Hopefully this cleaner will help with that task. It worked reasonably well on the timing cover and valve covers.

The tranny is on a dolly. I took a ride on the bike up to OSH tonight to replace the 15mm deep socket that cracked when I tried breaking loose the last bolt on the torque convertor when I split the engine and tranny apart. I think this is the first real tool casualty of the project.

Got Rubber

Had the new back tires mounted up today. Expected the tires to be bigger - looks like no difference in the total tread block to be applied to the road, just bigger grooves between the blocks. Tires are 40mm wider in theory, but looks like they just pick up 3/4" over the old 235/50-17 tires they replaced.

The new backspacing on the rim is 1/2" more than the old rim, but with the slimmer tire bulge, they only extend 1/8" more back. I measured old and new tread depth to see how matched the two sets of front tires will be to the one set of rear tires. I've got 6/32 left on the old tires, and 10/32 on the new tires. There's half a chance I might wear out the two sets of front tires alongside the one set of rear tires.

Comparing the old (lower photo) and new (upper photo), you can see the deeper dish of the new back rims, and the greater groove size in the 275/40-17 tires.

Pomona Swap Meet

Took an early drive to Pomona today for the big swap meet. The key motivator was to visit the Al Knock trailer and figure out interior colors. I've been debating some sort of tan leather interior on this revision of Mutt. I took a look at the stock 1961 Fawn Beige, but it was a bit green/gold and not the tan I was looking for. We ended up settling on the 1970 Light Saddle color. Al Knock will do it in standard 1961 style with the custom color, including the molded dash pad. Door panels, kick panels and seats will be leather rather than vinyl, and I decided on the retro-mod kick panels with the 5" speaker hole. I also got some extra material for the wheel and the shifter console. Best part, with the show special, it came in under budget.

Heads on

Ordered up head gaskets and bolts from Summit Thursday, along with a Be-Cool LS1 style 61 Corvette radiator for Mutt, and had the stuff Friday, gotta love the overnight ground service from Reno. Seperately I ordered the new Michelin PS2 tires from Tire Rack. I'll get the tires mounted Monday - I had them drop shipped to Big O by my office.

I modified the passenger head to accomodate the stock temp sender, drilling out the head and tapping to 1/2" pipe for the sensor.

I cleaned up the block and all the bolt holes, reinstalled the heads, and bolted them down. I used a sharpie angle torque wrench. Next step was reinstalling the rest of the valve train. Pretty easy job with no body around the engine.

Tonight I cleaned up the valve covers. I also pulled the truck filler tube, putting the fill cap directly on the valve cover. Given the corrosion on the aluminum, and the close proximity to the beach, the plan is to paint the engine and accessories to avoid more oxidation of the aluminum.

Patriotic work for Memorial Day

Being Memorial day, and celebrating my stepson's safe return from a year in Iraq, I installed a set of Patriot dual coil springs on the heads. The lever type compressor was impossible, so I borrowed a compressor from Frank. His compressor works great for recessed springs like on these LS6 heads. It took about an hour per head to remove the springs and seats, install new seats and seals, and install the new springs.

Got Cam

With the heads off the motor, it's pretty easy to swap the cam. Step one, buy another puller, because the long arm one you bought last week to pull the tranny gear and water pump pulley won't pull the balancer. After that, it's maybe 45 minutes to pull the balancer, the timing cover, the four lifter trays and lifters that don't come out with the trays, and the cam.

Here's the new cam on the left, and the old cam on the right. Old cam has a bigger base circle, but only about 0.480 lift with the stock 1.7 rockers. New cam has a higher 0.560 lift, and obviously muc more duration as evidenced by more of a square lobe profile than the triangular profile.

The cam all buttoned up. Cleaning the front of the block I found a mud wasp nest on the left side under the water pump just above the 5.3L casting on the cylinder barrel.

Good, Fast or Cheap - Pick One

Getting ready for the long weekend, I went out to Torrence before work and picked up my wheels from Phil at PS Engineering. The wheels have another 1/2" of backspacing vs. the 8" wheels, putting another inch outboard.

On the way back, picked up the heads from Engine Supply in Santa Ana, and still made it into the office before 9:30. The heads had 0.030 shaved from them to boost compression.

Before I install the heads, I need to swap the springs for the new Patriot dual coil springs with their titanium retainers.

Went by Eagleton after work yesterday to see if I'd be surprised and see them actually starting on the body. I wasn't surprised, it was still sitting in storage, but they did say that they can't work on it until it's on a dolly - the rotisserie had too much play for them. With the frame under the car, it is a simple matter of building some bolt on casters to convert the frame to a dolly.

A trip to Harbor Freight for some 4" casters, and Home Depot for a 2x6 and a couple of 2x3s, and $38 and a few hours of assembly, and the vette is now on a dolly rather than rotisserie. Luckily, Jim was in for a few hours Saturday working on his personal car, so I was able to come in, bolt on the caster assembly that I whipped together at home, and pull off the rotisserie.

Several weeks ago the lower fender panel showed up.

This will allow them to fit the fender closer at the door jamb to fix the alignment on the door.

Back at it

The past month has been pretty slow - body shop hasn't done anything, and I haven't done much. I trimmed a frame brace to clear the header - the pass header didn't quite tuck in enough.

Last week ordered a few parts - ordered a tailshaft housing with mechanical speedo provisions - a little bit more than a cable-x box, but won't need replacing every 10,000 miles. The conversion uses an adapter back to an early style caprice tailhousing. The tailhousing is modified to carry both the VSS pickup and mechanical speedo gear.

I also ordered up a Camaro water pump with a front outlet rather than a top outlet that the truck pump has - simple swap of the pulley, and I no longer have interference on the throttle body. I'll tap where the truck outlet normally is to have a supply line for the steam line off the heads.

I had to trim the throttle body water fitting off to clear the water pump. In sunny california, no need for coolant to warm up the throttle body.

My back wheels are ready - went to pick them up Friday, but Phil got an early start on the weekend. Had him pull a bit more backspacing. On the 8" rims, I only had 6" of backspacing - standard Camaro 8" wheels are 6 1/2" backspacing.

I also pulled off the heads today to send them into the machine shop for a .030 shave to bump compression. When I pulled the heads, I found some light surface rust on the tops of a couple of bores. Likely the side effect of living so close to the beach. With the heads off, gave all the cylinders a good coat of oil.

Vacation Bench Racing

The custom grind camshaft I got for the car is close to the Comp Cams XR273HR cam, just some difference in the Lobe Seperation Angle and the advance of the cam. I ran the XR273HR through CamQuest, modeling the L33 with it's LS6 heads, headers, free flowing exhaust, a .030 mill of the heads to bump compression to 10.6:1, and the XR273HR combo should be good for 429HP and 380 ft/lbs of torque. Surprisingly, the two step smaller XR265HR models to 460HP and 401 ft/lbs of torque in the same combo, with a slightly stronger lower end. We'll have to see how it works out. Either combo should put the car in the deep 12s, if not knocking on 11 second timeslips at over 110 mph.

I took a couple pictures after cleaning up the harness. For a small, waterproof fuse block, I use the 6 position weatherpack connector with a clear cover. It provides three fuse positions, and a nice flat area for a label of the fuses using a Brother 1/2" tape label.












Here is the modified harness. I took out a few pounds of wire, reterminating nearly all the connections on the PCM. The Carolina Auto Masters tuned PCM is on the left side of the picture.

Tuning at Carolina Auto Masters

Drove out to Durham, NC yesterday to visit Jeff at Carolina Auto Masters. Selected Mutt's cam from the boneyard of small cams customers upgraded from, and got a good little cam to give Mutt a bit more go along with the free flowing exhaust and headers, and a small shave to the heads.

While there, Jeff reprogrammed the PCM to remove unnecessary emissions, match it to the cam, set the right tire size and rear end gear ratio, and tune the transmission. About the only negotiation was on the WOT 3-4 shift speed where I asked Jeff to back it to 130 MPH. Past experience open road racing showed the car cruising between 130 and 145, and I thought 130 would have the car downshifting too much if I open road race again. The difference in shift speed is around 600 RPM, taking it from just over 6000 rpm to just under 5500 rpm.

Carolina Vacation

Took my knitting along on vacation. Actually the engine harness and PCM. Repinned the engine harness to take out many feet of excess wire.

Just in Time Shipping

Ordered up headers from Street and Performance two weeks ago, and they arrived Friday, right before I headed off to the east coast on vacation. This was timely, allowing me to figure out O2 sensor wire length for the harness rework.

My restored gauges also showed up. I had my amp gauge and oil pressure gauge restored and modified. The ampmeter was converted to a voltmeter, and the oil pressure gauge changed from 60 psi to 80 psi.

The tach is a aftermarket VDO tach. It was refaced with a corvette replica face and a 6500 redline (motor redline actually 6600, but close enough).

Speedometer was cleaned up, and a new odometer installed. No more rusty black face. Along with these gauges, had the fuel/water gauge restored, and the clock restored and had a quartz movement replace the original fire-prone unit.

Belt Routing

After weeks of work on brackets, last weekend I finally figured out I wasn't routing the belt the most efficient way. This became obvious as I was designing the tensioner bracket. I'll need rev 2 of the bracket - I need to pull the base away from the steering linkage a bit, but I'm pretty close. Tensioner also needs to be moved closer to the block a bit to center the pulley. A final belt needs to be purchased - I cut down a used belt and safety wired it together to give me something to work and use as a template.

Idle progress

This past week a coworker turned a shaft for the idler at the 10 oclock position to the power steering pump. Still work to do - probably located the idler a bit too low, so need a slightly smaller pulley. Have a block of aluminum that can be turned for that pulley. I'm debating another idler below the alternator, but I think a shorter belt is the correct solution. The new plate in the lower right is to accomodate a tensioner for the accessory drive.








Here's the shaft for that idler pulley. I'm making a plate that will attach to the power steering bracket to capture the shaft so it isn't a big lever.

Also this weekend I worked on the motor mount plates. No pictures yet.

One Bracket down

Was out of town last weekend, so no work that weekend, and this weekend was abbreviated with out of town guests and a visit to my CPA to get my taxes going. I did get a few hours in to work on the alternator bracket, and it is now nearly done. I made the two spacers, located the two holes on the top bracket for the spacers, and did some finish shaping on the front and rear plates. Sounds simple, but took the better part of four hours. Next up is getting a coworker to turn down some round stock for a couple idler brackets, and figure out the tensioner bracket.

The TSA probably freaked out last weekend. I pulled a box out of storage, put my ATO fuse block, some miscellaneous wiring, some Aluminum stock and a few other things in the box, and checked it on my flight home. When it came off the conveyor, it had fresh tie wraps securing it, and a TSA inspection form letter inside. With the fuse block now home, I've started modifying the main harness for the modern block, and will be increasing the circuits available with the harness.

Accessory Drive

Last week I received the CTS accessory brackets from Team Chevrolet, and got some aluminum plate and block at Sackin Metal Recycling in Huntington Beach. The CTS bracket will work for the power steering pump. Because of truck accessories, the brackets need to be spaced out from the block an inch. I've got a solid block behind the power steering bracket to bring it in line. I'll trim and lighten the bracket after I figure out where the idler will sit to bring the belt below the throttle body. It started as a 4 lb block, and is probably around 3 lbs now. The alternator will work on the passenger head. I'm using some 5/16 plate to make the mounting bracket. The lower alternator bracket bolts into one hole on the water pump, and will be triangulated with two other holes. The rear bracket catches two of the holes, and the front will catch all three. I still need to drill the front hole for the common bolt for front and rear, and make a 2" spacer to join the plates, and need to make a 7/8" spacer and locate the final hole on the front plate.


Here's the CTS alternator bracket. Unfortunately the steering shaft runs right through the middle of the alternator. I'll use it to mount an idler and tensioner.