Grind, Glass, Grind

The past couple weeks have been a cycle of grinding, glassing, repeat with a number of areas on the underside of the floorpan. This is the passenger's inner fender well. I've also reglassed a repair on the tunnel, closed several holes on the tunnel, and cleaned up where the serpentine belt and AC delete bracket rubbed on the driver's inner fender panel. Goal is to finish all this in the next nine days and get the body off to the media blaster, then the body shop.

Today while the glass was drying I swapped the deep truck pan for the batwing Corvette pan. The old exhaust got in the way of the wings, so I took the sawzall to them. I'll get new pipes bent when I get the headers. I've got to figure out if the engine needs to move forward or if I need to shorten the driveshaft.

During the week, I hauled the engine harness in the house and started pulling it apart and removing unnecessary wiring. Next step is to lay it on the engine and start working on reconfiguring it to better fit in the Corvette.

Motor In Chassis

Monday I took a couple hours and plucked the old greasy LT1 out of the chassis and put the Gen III motor in it's place. Here's the chassis after the motor was pulled. I was surprised at how much gravel collected in the motor mount cups.

Here's a side shot of the motor. The motor will move forward another 1/4" when I properly fabricate the motor mounts, but it's close enough at the moment. I've got the tailshaft sitting on the X on the frame - it needs a new mount.

Front shot of the motor. I need to remount the alternator and see how it fits and what room I have.

Small Victories

Every little victory helps. Today I only spent a little time in the garage, prepping to pull the old engine and tranny. I think I'm down to draining fluids and disconnecting the power steering lines. I've unbolted the motor mount, tranny mount, exhaust manifolds and driveshaft. Wiring and cooling were pulled with the body a couple weeks ago. I pulled the driveshaft, and found it does fit the new tranny. I'll stop with that victory today.

Double duty

Connected up my air compressor and started on the underside fiberglass repairs. This is the spare tire well, where a hot 2" tailpipe caught contents of the spare tire well on fire during an open road race after an extended stint at wide open throttle. To the right is the modification to the trunk floor to accomodate the current 2 1/2" tailpipes





I pulled one of the motor mount brackets off the LT1. With careful slotting, it will pick up two of the mounting bosses on the new block. As is, it sits forward about 1/4 inch. I'll need a 4 x 9" plate to pick up two more bosses on the block and two more bolt holes on the motor mount bracket.




This is the closest I'll be to driving the car before summer. Between Friday night and today, pulled the wiring harness off the motor, pulled the truck intake, the exhaust manifolds, A/C compressor, motor mounts and starter. Also laid the LS1 intake in place of the truck intake.

Got Motor

Made a trip up to the Oak Harbor Freight depot in Montebello today to pick up the motor and tranny. I didn't take any pictures, but they tied it down to a double pallet with heavy bailing wire and wrapped the motor with several layers of industrial plastic wrap.

I asked for the gas pedal, so they had the controller, harness and pedal on top of the motor, along with the complete engine harness, the engine fuse block, the power steering cooler (never installed one - no excuse now), fuel lines, tranny cooler lines, the works.

Heads are the LS6/LS2 799 castings without the sodium filled valves.

Freight

Motor and tranny arrived in Los Angeles yesterday. I was expecting it to be delivered to a freight depot in Buena Vista, but it ended up 20 miles up the road at an Oak Harbor facility in Montebello. Working to pick it up Thursday, then I can swap the LT1 for the Gen three powerplant, and see how the body goes around it.

Slow Going

Had friends at the house for five days over new years. Over the five days managed to sneak out to the garage for four or five hours total between New Year's Day and Sunday the 3rd. In that time finished bolting the body to the rotisserie, rebolted it with the proper shims so the doors fit, removed the door latches and used a tie strap to hold them closed, and rolled the rotisserie out and swept the garage.

With the car elevated properly, it was a two man effort to roll the car on it's side, with a couple extra hands to drop the lock pins in the pivot arms.

Susan's pointing at the 49 years of dirt and road grime she doesn't want to clean off the underside of the body. I can't blame her.















I carefully checked to make sure the body wouldn't scrape on the top of the garage door opening, using a C clamp to lock the door up beyond the opening. Unfortunatly, I didn't think the bikes were hanging too low - so I had to grab the ladder and pull a couple front tires to get them out of the way.









Here's Rick and I with the body tucked back in the garage. There should be sufficient space for me to start working the cleaning, repairs and modifications on the pan.