And now for something completely different.....

[falconvan]

I got a few hours in today; these side braces were pop riveted on so I drilled them out to 1/4", put 1/4-20 bolts in and welded the nuts on the back. I'll use stainless bolts when I put it together for real. Also got the block and heads painted, and finished cleaning up the welds on the piece I made for the center console. There's a ton of room in this thing but I still have the headlight and wiper switch to mount. Maybe I'll put a cigar lighter in to take up some space. I dont want it to look too empty. Ordered all the rebuild parts for the engine so I should be putting it together this week, too.

 

[falconvan]

Well, here she is. Still needs a few things bolted on but it's pretty much together. Now back to work on the body; I hope to be ready to shoot some primer in the next month. Also found a guy on the HAMB who had a factory assembly manual for this thing. This is one cool dude; mailed me the book for nothing so I could have it copied. He said just mail it back when I'm done.

 

[Sam_Fear]

That is a pretty cool of the guy. What color did you shoot the motor? I kinda like it.

 

[falconvan]

It's Pontiac Mettalic Blue. Just a shade lighter than Oldsmobile Metallic Blue but I couldn't find any so I used this. Thanks; I like it, too.

 

[falconvan]

Man, it was tough to work out in the shop today. Just gettin over a bout of the stomach flu and I feel like I had the crap beat out of me. I made it about 3 hrs and had to call it quits. Hopefully I'll get more done tomorrow. I need a shifter as the old one was mounted on the dash and was junk. I had this old hurst ratchet shifter and this old truck shifter so I did a little slice and weld on the handle and came up with a ratchet shifter that will look like an old stocker. The floor was covered in rubber cement from the old factory mats so I spent a few hours with the little angle grinder and some 50 grit discs and got a pretty good size section cleaned up.

 

[falconvan]

This floor was a total PITA; rubber cement and undercoating all over it from front to back. I dont know why; the metal underneath was in great shape. My oldest son called me Sunday and said, "Dad, i need to earn a few bux; do you have any work I can do?" [cl[cl[cl He finished cleaning up the floor last night after two days and about 10 hours. He called just at the right time; I'll try and get some pics posted this week; the camera is acting up.

 

[39chev]

Hey good work love the shifter. Cant beat the cheap labor either just if he would keep callin at the right time.

 

[falconvan]

Thanks, man. Not much chance of him doing it on a regular basis, I'm afraid. My younger son helps a lot but the older one lives with his mom and I dont see him much. He's 19 so maybe that will change as he gets older and his head starts working normal. Right now he's ****ed off at the world and everyone in it, including me. If everyone just did things exactly the way he thinks they should be done, everything would be OK. I figure all you can do is love them no matter what and let him take his lumps like we all have to. But he did finish cleaning up the floor and did a nice job, so it was good to spend a couple days with him. I'm happy, not a single place that needs patching. I think I'm going to paint the whole floor with POR-15 and then lay down a mat made with bulk rubber sheet from Rubbercal. If it turns out like I think it will, it'll be slick. I'm taking the wheels over to have the old tires pulled and then down to the sandblaster along with the bumpers. I feel like it's moving along pretty good. The wife and I are heading to Florida for Cardinal spring training next week so I'm going to try and hit it hard between now and then.

 

[whytesmoke]

Nice work falconvan going to be bad to the bone.

 

[falconvan]

Thanks! I hope it comes out like the picture in my head. Now if I can just get the picture to stop changing i'll get somewhere!

 

[falconvan]

It doesn't look like I got much done today; mostly little stuff but it all eats up time. Dropped my wheels at the sandblaster and my intake at the machine shop to get a stripped hole TIG welded and retapped this morning. The front clip had a lot of side to side movement so I made four brackets; two inside the fenderwells and two that will bolt to the frame. I know the welds look like crap but it's just tacked to hold it in place for now. I drilled holes in the core sopprt and used some speednuts to hold it to the side pieces. I'm getting a bunch of stainless allen head screws for the outside. Took the clip back apart, time to finish up a little puttywork so I can primer the main body before long. Lots of nooks and crannies to get paint out of so I spent a few hours on that. That's all for today, folks. Stay tuned for our next episode.

 

[falconvan]

I dont know what's gotten into my oldest son lately. He's been coming around wanting to help me on this. It's nice; our relationship has been kind of strained the last few years and he's stayed away a lot. Here's a couple pics of him pitching in; the "pants on the ground" song comes to mind. There's just a few body spots here and there to go over again. We cleaned the shop to get some room and had a load of scrap hauled off this morning. Patrick took a vacuum and went over the whole truck. Also I got my wheels back so I shot a coat of primer on them before they start to rust. My wife and I are heading to Florida tomorrow. Time to put hot rods aside for a week and think baseball. I hope to be ready to shoot some primer when I get back next week. Also I'm starting a new job on the 15th so wish me luck. Ya'll be cool, talk to you next week.

 

[clamor]

... Time to put hot rods aside for a week and think baseball...

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Anything but baseball!


JK, have fun with the wife! We'll miss the updates.

 

[falconvan]

Man, baseball is the next best thing to hotrods! Got back from Florida last night and had today off before I go back to work. I got my wheels painted and finally got the body and some smaller pieces primered. Movin right along; now for some long hours wet sanding!

 

[bob w]

Looking good Falconman. That's a big project and you keep at it without burning out. Do you use lacquer primer? What type of paint do you use?

 

[falconvan]

I've been using Eastwood's eurothane paints on the last few cars I did. They've come out looking great, very reasonably priced, and have held up well. This is a high build epoxy primer; it sprays on thick so it was a little tough to work with. But it does do a nice job covering little dings and wet sands out really nice.

 

[falconvan]

I took the wheels over after work and had some new Goodyear rubber put on. She's back on all four feet! Also painted the dash panel and the engine compartment side of the core support and the side panels. I should be primering the other side of these tomorrow.

 

[falconvan]

I primered my front clip pieces, my rear quarter pieces, and the roof today. Actually I'm in between roof coats now. Has anybody done any big truck painting that can give me some guidance on this? The roof is huge and the only thing I know to do is stand on an 8' ladder and lean over. I can reach about halfway and my shoulder is killing me by the time I got one coat on this.I can wetsand out the stripes in the primer but I'm trying to figure out how in the heck I'm going to make this roof look decent. There's just no way I can see to get a nice continuous pass. I'm just going with single stage white so I'm not trying to do a show quality job but I dont want it to look terrible, either. any advice from some real painters????

 

[falconvan]

Man, it's been a long week. I started a new job and didn't have a day shorter than 11 hours yet. I can see my idea about having the ISCREAM finished this spring are looking way too optomistic, but I'll stay at it the best I can until it's done. I spent a few hours this week and today wet sanding with 400. I'm about halfway around it not counting the roof so it's got a ways to go. I'll hit it again with 600 when I'm done, although with white paint I dont think I have to be as picky as when we painted my son's Firebird black. I'm sure it'll be a good 3 or 4 weeks before I'm done and ready to think about painting the body. Then I still have to go back and do the hood and doors. It is what it is; I got to make a living first. Here's the dash; that was about the only thing worth taking pictures of today.

 

[falconvan]

I got a few hours in yesterday so I decided it was time to try my new paint gun. I wanted to get some color on the interior so I can start putting some things back together inside soon. I just did the areas that will show after the interior panels are put back in. I've got the whole thing wet sanded for the first round; one more time around and we'll call it good. Then I'm going to go for painting the roof first. In two weeks my wife will be gone for the weekend plus I've got that Monday off so I'm hoping to get to the point where I can shoot the roof by then.