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That's what I like about car forums, everyone is always willing to help out. Hard to argue with free. Surely it's worth at least the cost of the 18 gallons of gas I didn't get to use.
Speaking of gas, if I wanted to cut hole in my trunk and use one of the hatches in the link below, would it be okay to lower the tank, drill a pilot hole and use shears of some sort to cut it?
I could drop it completely and use an angle grinder, but doing so would requiring getting all the gas out somehow. Not sure which would be easier. Another thought is just to say screw it and dig up a B body tank somewhere and cut a relief in the trunk so I can mount it as high as possible. http://www.astrosafari.com/viewtopic.php?f=76&t=31098
Just sort of leaving some more info about my fuel system plans here, more for consolidation to help myself later than anything else, but it might be useful for anyone working on their fuel system.
A thread about a trap door https://ls1tech.com/forums/fueling-i...lots-pics.html
What Racetronix said to get to replace the garbage inside my spectra tank -
What I'm debating now is whether to just get the tanks inc stuff and the racetronix wiring for $600ish or simply keep my spectre tank and get the racetronix pump and all that for $200ish. The fittings on the tanks inc tank look different too, so probably have to add in a few bucks and some time to get that figured out.
I'm still stuck 400 miles away from the car, but I thought I'd still try to make at least a little bit of progress regardless. Picked these up on ebay a couple weeks ago, I'm not sure how much trimming they'll take to fit but I decided to go ahead and give redoing the letters a shot.
All I had sitting around were some fat-tipped paint pens so this is just proof of concept, but you get the idea. I've seen some people put all new letters over the Corvette part or pay some dude on ebay $400 to repaint them, but a more careful version of what I did here process will suffice for my purposes.
Since the words already partially match and the covers are already black and white I don't feel like reinventing the wheel here. What I mean by that is
C O R V E T T E and
C H E V E L L E are pretty close. Or close enough. Anyway, after a a few minutes and several attempts at freehanding straight lines I ended up with this.
The execution is flawed but the concept seems sound. I've also been watching ebay for new trim pieces and lenses, turns out that stuff costs more than the engine parts. $68 for corner lenes? $60 for two rectangular red quarter markers? I'm starting to remember why I gave up on originality.
I found a few days to come home and get some things done, a lot to do and not much time to do it, but I guess that's pretty typical.
Turns out the covers I made in the last post don't really come close to fitting, it looks like it will take a lot of cutting so I'm going to put that on the back burner for now. I picked up a ton of parts over the last few months so here is what I'm going to try to knock out this weekend-
Install driver and passenger remote sport mirrors (driver's from a Chevelle, passenger from a Caprice, which I'll have to modify.
Vinyl wrap the hood and trunk, replace tail light lenses.
Take out and sell Spectre tank, install Aeromotive tank.
Hook up Kurt Urban steam vents (this depends on whether or not the LS3 water pump and spacers come in before I leave).
Rewire power to fuel pump.
Put on new steering wheel, getting rid of factory bus wheel.
Install hood pins.
Put stainless trim on grille (if I can figure out how).
Here's what I've done so far.
I had forgotten how terrible the paint and etc on the car were, so I figured I'd clean it up as a I go. I started by pulling and repainting the grille, which was surprisingly easy. Just four screws and pull it out.
Cleaned and painted up. For the white part I just sprayed white paint into it's cap and then poured it into the emblem, which worked rather well.
New wheel. I have yet to see an aftermarket wheel that I'm blown away by, but this one isn't bad. It's a Momo Millennium, and whether or not it looks out of place it's 1000 times more comfortable and a fair bit smaller than the stock wheel.
The Ringbros hood pins are pretty pricey, but they are worlds above cheaper ones in terms of quality. I picked them up new from someone over on pro-touring.
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Now some LS- swap type stuff.
Tank came in earlier today and while I didn't get it in yet I did get it out and look at it. Pretty solid looking piece, nice powder coat.
What it looks like inside
The fittings on the outlet and return are -8 AN or AN-08 or however it's written, the vent I'm not sure about, -6 maybe. I'm not keeping all these straight fittings, they are just what I happened to grab when I stopped at Summit on my way from southern GA this morning.
Earlier today I was reading over on Chevelles.com about the variety of ways people have vented their efi tanks, with some linking or plugging the various outlets, drilling holes in the gas cap and things like that, but it looks like Aeromotive includes a way to do it as part of their kit.
The tank neck (which will go with the Spectre tank I'm selling)
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Tomorrow I'll get the car up on ramps and hopefully get this in.
Trying my hand at laying out knifeless tape to cut the stripes. This stuff takes forever, I can't imagine how long it takes to actually do a good job when painting.
Turns out vinyl wrap is more time consuming than I expected and taking the latch halfway apart then closing the trunk is a dumb thing to do.
Protip- a screwdriver stuck to a gutter blaster will open the trunk from the inside.
Redid the stripes with a better knifeless tape then fought the vinyl for an hour to get what turned out to be fairly decent result. The white of the vinyl really makes the faded old paint on the car look like ****, but that'll get addressed eventually.
Got the hood pins installed. Drilling through carbon is much easier than metal, plus you can make adjustments easily afterwards with sandpaper. Good stuff.
This wrap isn't super easy to work with but by using a heat gun here and there you can get it to cover just about any shape. I'm sure pros can do better but this is a start.
The remote mirror went on without a hitch but it wouldn't be a trip home without some shitty weather interrupting the work. I had planned to add a hatch to the trunk floor but now that I've had a good look at it I'm not sure; it's pretty solid so I'd hate to chop it up.
Tomorrow if the weather permits I'm going to try to get the motor pulled and start doing some measurements for a T56.
Also, I don't know if any of you guys mountain bike but this headlight makes a great portable work light.[/url] http://www.gearbest.com/bicycling-gear/pp_180805.html
Did the hood and some rando stuff, sold my stock hood and trunk then packed the car and all my garbage up again. When June rolls around the new tank is going in and the motor is getting pulled again to swap oil pans.
For now though the car is mothballed again and I'm shopping for a t56 and random little trinkets. If anyone in the Nashville area can weld seat brackets in feel free to give me a shout.
Thanks, it's getting there. While I waited for the guy to come buy the old hood and trunk lid I thought I'd see what black bumpers would look like. It's starting to grow on me.
Possibly buying a T56 tomorrow, I just need to figure out the best way to ship it in terms of cost. Lots of options and lots of different prices.
Thanks, it really looks like a totally different car, and with the huge flat areas done the rest should be fairly easy to wrap. I just checked back in on your build and I'm jealous, those turbos look awesome and it sounds great. Very nicely done.
On my end the hunt for a T56 to put in this paperweight continues, but between craigslist, ebay scammers and people thinking their 60k mile "rebuilt" trans and burnt up "stage 6" clutch are worth $2,500 it's a pain in the azz. Somehow every trans is a fresh rebuild and every clutch is stage 4-14, crazy how that works. While I do like the idea of getting ancillary things like a master or slave or whatever as part of the deal I don't like the idea of not knowing where these high-wear items have been.
This being the case...
LUK apparently makes the clutches for GM, and from what I've read here this is an LS7 clutch -
It's hard to argue with the price and free shipping so I ordered one earlier today just to have on hand.
Hurst Driveline Conversions is having a deal where they basically knock 10% off what I'm buying $300 off $3k, $400 off $4k, etc etc). No tax, free shipping and 30 months of warrany doesn't hurt either. The particular box of goods pictured below would be $2932 to my door so it's kind of hard to justify buying a used one.
Once mid-June rolls around I'll order this stuff, but in the mean time I'm just going to watch the classifieds for the requisite Tick master/ bleeder and an MGW shifter.
I wasn't expecting to get to come home for another two weeks; turns out I need to start paying better attention to my schedule. It was pretty much Christmas in May in terms of boxes to open, tons of parts had come in and so had some more mundane things like a fire extinguisher, tools and etc.
This is about half of it
Also found a Chevelle trailer hitch on ebay, it was ending right when I decided I needed one so that worked out well. Until then I never even knew they made them, apparently it was a dealer-installed type of thing. I'm just going to use it for my bike rack and I'm fairly certain it will be okay.
A little cleaning is in order but otherwise it's pretty stout.
I'm far too lazy to mess with it this trip home but eventually I'm going to put on my 302-2 oil pan and the LS3 water pump I picked up the other day. The LS3 pump will address my terrible radiator routing issues but by itself it won't line up with my truck accessories. Some guy around Atlanta makes these spacers (and a variety of other things) and I'll be using them to get things lined up. $10 more than any of his competitor's similar products but I like the look of them and the steam fitting is already tapped and installed. Once I put this on I'll hook that Kurt Urban thing I bought earlier.
Before I mess with putting a T56 in I figure I should get the body where it needs to be, so I picked up some rubber body mounts from Inline Tube (I couldn't find anywhere else selling a convertible set with all the metal parts) and the right bolts and etc from AMK (who I had never heard of until recently). They look good, and having all the right parts means not worrying about trying to reuse or replace the rusted pieces in the car now.
Lots of other random small things going on like replacing lenses and trim, painting, yadda yadda, but this is the important stuff and the most thread-relevant - the car finally runs. After buying an asston of fittings and lines the Aeromotive tank went in more or less without issue, the fuel pump is on its own harness and relay and I went ahead and bought that Holley yellow alternator turn on wire since it got me over $100 for free shipping at Summit. Tomorrow I'm going to try to get the interior polished off and windows adjusted, then Monday I'm going to a welder to see about getting seat brackets made (after a stop to get the car reregistered). A busy next few days but finally something resembling actual progress. Got it running just in time to sort of clean up and move it inside before the rain.
You sir are a man with good taste. The wiring is still an absolute mess but until the engine and transmission and everything else is completely solidified I don't want to over-commit to any particular wiring situation. I can always cut things short but as we all know you can't cut something longer.
Yeah hardtops aren't bad, I had a 69 in high school, but for cruising around on a nice night a convertible is hard to beat.
An issue I've been having is that the car never wants to start. The battery is new and completely charged and yet when I turn the key the voltage goes through the floor before (sometimes) finally starting. This is not a new thing, I had just forgotten about it. Will look more into it and start a dedicated thread in a different forum section tomorrow, but any ideas? Voltage is the top right dial. Once started everything is fine.
starter comes to mind. I'd also check the comdition of the cables & ends.
You can take the starter to a local Advance Auto or Autozone and they will check the draw for free.
I'm with Jimbo, usually if it's pulling voltage below 10 Volts while cranking its the starter. But theres definitely a chance it could be a corroded cable or cable end that's causing a poor connection and pulling extra volts to get past it.
07-06-2015, 05:22 PM
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