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Good news- it warmed up quite a bit outside just as my between-term break was starting so I was finally able to get these pieces on without freezing. On Monday I was able to take it to the transmission shop and get it on a lift to try to find where that knocking was coming from (sounds like torque converter or maybe pump, will tighten TC bolts just in case it's them) and then on to a nearby shop for an alignment. It was a clear and sunny 72 at one point so driving around all day was a welcome change from sitting indoors.
I don't recall if I had mentioned it here or over on chevelles.com but my rear end had seemingly shifted a bit, causing my right rear tire to rub as when I turned. The rear control arms were the logical first thing to check, but when I did in Nashville everything looked fine. Now that I could drive the car up on ramps I checked again and one of them was way off, it had extended by an inch or so. Fixed that and now everything is okay.
If you've ever driven a convertible in the rain at night in a car without a rear defog and side mirrors that have a habit of drooping you'll know that seeing being behind you can be a pain in the ***. Might have mentioned this before as well, but to help out with the visibility shortcomings I put in a back up camera and super cheap dvd head unit. Backing into my garage is way easier now; no more hitting the keg I've been using as a bump stop.
Other than whatever is wrong with the transmission, at this point I think all the real "work" is finished. There is a ton of housekeeping stuff to do, like hiding wires, moving some things around and getting carpet and a paint job, but mechanically there isn't much more to do (I hope).
Your seat swap looks great!!!!This has motivated me to do this on my 71 Cutlass Convertible just have to find the E46 seats for a good price. Quick question, did you cut the rear seat down any to clear the power top? Do you have any issues like fabric being caught when you raise the top up and down? Also do you have a picture from the rear of the car so I can get an idea of how it will look from the back with the top down? Your overall build looks great I am going to look at your build several times while completing my own.
Fred
Originally Posted by chuckd71
Been a long time since any time away from work, but I finally got two weeks of break so I've been making it count. I finished up the AAW rewire, got the seats, windows and gauges in and wired, fixed the holes in the back sail panels where the previous owner put speakers, redyed the carpet and have almost finished getting the interior in. Oh, also got the motor in and wired up. Doesn't sound like much, but each of these things have about a million little aspects that just eat time. Trying to to get it all to work together has been an absolute blast, but it's a good feeling when things actually work like they should.
This was the end result after a day of getting the engine and trans lined up and fighting header bolts. Still not running, but a long way from where it started Saturday.
A shot of the interior, which is super comfortable and way better looking (opinion of course). DSC02979
Making 50 changes at once it gets hard to keep up with things, but so far almost everything has worked as planned. The power windows and illuminated switches worked right off the bat, and so did the exterior lights, seats and ignition. Had some troubleshooting to do with the dash and interior lights, but as always it was an issue with bad grounds.
All told I've probably made more progress in the last few days than I have in the last year or two. Assuming I can get the brakes bled (and the engine starts of course) I'm hoping to be able to drive this to the exhaust shop by the end of the week.
Thanks. I didn't cut the seat down in height any but I did take some of the metal frame and foam out of the outer corners. DSC02982 DSC02976
I have the top up now so can't get pics of the seat backs, but they aren't finished anyway. Going to cover it with a piece of black marine vinyl.
I used 4 welding ground magnets from Harbor Freight to hold the bottoms of the seats in place, the magnets are really strong, have screw posts on their tops and are about all that is needed. Had to make a couple brackets to hold them to the seat bottoms but other than that it was pretty straight forward.
On the car side, where there are the hooks to hang the original seats, I put a broom handle that I cut grooves into and painted black. I then hang the hooks on the seat backs on the broom handle. I also use a bungie cord to hold the seat back in place. This was meant to be temporary, but so far it works fine.
The lower rear section brackets fit into the backs of the bottom foam sections (which I have also fixed in place with magnets).
The benefit of this setup is that the seat fits in place almost perfectly and allows me to pivot the seat up to raise/ lower the top. It also keeps the top fabric from being crushed by the seat. Since I have to go back there and pull out or tuck in the top frame cover anyway this isn't a big deal.
Cutting the seat height down is not something I'm prepared to do, and this works well enough that I don't see why I'd have to. Headrests need to be behind the head to be useful anyway, so there is that aspect of it as well.
They sit a bit lower than this when in place but you get the idea. DSC02970
I am glad that I came across this thread. I have the exact same set-up in the front of my GTO and now it has me thinking. Come next spring when the car comes out again, I will have to do a really close inspection on those control arms. You're very lucky that it happened while going slow, otherwise things could have been much..much worse.
I'm sure more people have success with them than have failures, so I wouldn't take my personal experience to mean the brand sucks across the board. That said someone over on chevelles.com is selling some arms like mine for $375 or so, I think they are new. Just throwing that out there.
Could've been a huge disaster for sure, thank god for school zones.
Some forums have a "what's it worth" type of section but this one doesn't so I'm not sure where to post this. I was thinking about trying to trade my motor for an LS1/T56 combo but wasn't sure how to best approach this. I would think my motor, intake to oil pan, that already has vvt and etc deleted plus the cam and ARP stuff would be worth more than a stock ls1/t56 setup, but I'm not really sure. Or would I be better off just selling what I have and then buying what I want? I'd like a six speed but would prefer not to dump much more money into this thing if I don't have to.
Not too much, just a couple cuts and then a bit of welding. The cutting I could do myself but I don't know how to weld. Two shops around here that do this sort of thing quoted $700-1200 for the labor which would include hanging pedals and the hydraulics and etc. None of this is hard stuff, I'm just not in a position to do it at the moment.
Well I was actually pretty content with this more or less, I just don't know what's up with the trans. I was thinking I could sell my motor, downgrade to an ls1 and have enough left to cover a t56. Given that I can't work on the car in GA and I'm not sure if I should risk driving it all the way to Nashville the logistics of this is what is proving problematic. Maybe I should just try to find a legit trans shop that knows the 200 and get them to fix it. At least then the car would be dependable, plus I'd get more for the trans when I sell it. If anybody knows a solid shop around Atlanta feel free to let me know about it. It's hard to find a guy that is both knowledgeable and trustworthy these days.
Great car I have enjoyed reading through your build it seems like how my project has went. Trying to tackle so much at once I have managed to change my mind on some aspects after I finally got everything together. I really like the seats, I saw someone on team chevelle use same seat set up. Did the front seats attach to the factory chevelle brackets or did you add something?
When I took my first seats out there weren't any brackets, just buckets on their legs bolted to the floor. My 69 was the same way so I'm not sure where the brackets people talk about would go or why I'd need them. But no, no brackets for the new ones either, I did have to use some rubber bushings (I used some from some shocks I had sitting around) under the back to make them level and create space for the motors and etc beneath the cushion.
Regarding the sound, I had been told that maybe it's the flex plate bolts, and I just now realized that what I tightened the other day with no change were the torque converter bolts. What I really need to check out are the real flex plate bolts, the ones on the back of the motor. I'd kind of forgotten about them what with them being so out of sight and all. This is exactly what my car does -
Now that the car is done and running okay it doesn't really seem like a project anymore. That's great and all, but it just sort of feels like "what's the point?", if you know what I mean. If there is nothing to work on then it's just a car. Between that felling and the car's upcoming two-year stint in garage purgatory, I think I've decided to sell my motor. The car will be sitting unused, so it could have a 4 cylinder in it and it wouldn't matter (not that I'd ever put anything less than 8 in it of course).
This being the case I'm thinking I might pick up a 5.3 or ls1 for now, and then sort of collect turbo parts as they pop up over the next couple years. Then, when I have a job/ free time again, I'll learn to weld and make a really ugly turbo setup. 5.3s are super cheap, so I won't even have to feel bad about blowing one (or two) of them up in the process. I'm not sure how the carbon/fiberglass hood will feel about the heat from a turbo or the exhaust logs, so I guess I'll have to sell that too. If anyone a cheap motor and/ or motor t56 combo they are looking to unload feel free to drop me a line.
Good news / bad news today. Shops were asking in the $300-500 range to drop the trans and look for the noise, but rather than jump into paying someone to play detective I gave it a go myself. A guy over on TC suggested unbolting the torque converter and seeing what happens; sounded like a good idea so I figured why not. I unbolted it, pushed it back then I started the motor, and like magic the noise was gone.
At that point, I at least knew for sure the noise wasn't in the motor. I checked the plate for cracks, loose flexplate-to-crank bolts and did what I could to look and listen for anything unusual. The flexplate did wabble a bit front to back as it spun, so it might be a bit warped (perhaps from when I was putting the crank pulley back on?) but it's not cracked anywhere and there are no half-in bolts ready to go flying.
That pretty much exhausted my diagnostic capabilities given my tools on hand, so I buttoned everything up and cranked it again, and surprisingly the noise didn't come back. I took it around town a bit and got on it a little, and so far at least, everything is quiet. My ghetto homemade throttle cable limits me to about 5k rpm so I couldn't really wind it up, but I doubt that really matters. That was the good news.
The bad news is that I now have no financial or mechanical reason to pursue the T-56 swap anymore. I had been thinking that any money spent on my current trans could be better spent on a different one, but now that everything seems okay I'll have to find a new way to convince myself I need 6 speed.
Anyway, just an update in case anyone else ever has a similar issue. I went from feeling uncertain about even driving a car that sounded like it was about to explode to looking forward to the next nice day (plus I saved $300).
That's pretty much what I've decided to do. Once my 302-2 pan comes in I'll take the car to Nashville and swap a new flywheel on while I'm doing the pan. For now the ticking noise comes and goes, but not that I know what it is I'm no longer worried about a catastrophic trans failure or anything. Having a breakdown on 285 would be the closest thing to hell that I can imagine.
The weather was nice for a while so I had a few days to actually use it; it's running a bit rich and smells like gas so there is some work to do yet, but once I get a pc laptop I should be able to address that.
Other than that the only issue was the loss of a rear brake caliper bolt while running errands a couple days ago, but fortunately slight pressure on the brake was enough to prevent caliper-to-wheel contact while I limped home. Ordered some new bolts from McMaster Carr and will try to replace all of them this afternoon.
Next project will be trying to make some fiberglass kick panels for the front and a center console for the rear. Should be interesting.
Been a while since anything happened and this will probably be the last post for a year or two (unless I can find some time to get to Nashville and sell the motor/trans).
The car had been running okay, no real issues, so despite the Holley pan never coming I decided it was time to get it home. I'll be moving around for the next 24 months or so and have no way to bring it with me.
Anyway, I headed out from Atlanta the other day around 10 am. Nice, clear day with a cool breeze. Great top down cruising weather. As I approached Chattanooga I was thinking that if I made it home this would be the first time I'd have a non-breakdown story to post here and everything looked good on the gauges. Just North of Chattanooga my voltmeter started dipping and swiginging, eventually dropping from 14V to around 12V. I pulled over and was relieved to find that the bolt on the back of the alternator had come a bit loose - tightened it up and problem solved.
It started to absolutely pour at this point, so I pulled over to put the top up and get gas at the Stuckey's a bit outside of town. After eating some pecan pie and waiting for the rain to clear I tried to leave, but nothing happened. No fuel pressure. Turns out the fuse in the EFI harness had blown, and once I swapped it out it started without issue. I made it about two miles before I again lost fuel pressure. Another fuse. I went through every fuse I had, each time it would blow as soon as I turned the key. At this point it's 2pm and basically dark outside and I'm in the middle of nowhere.
Fortunately I was able to get in touch with a local flatbed guy who could take me the rest of the way to Nashville. As one might expect the rain held out until the minute the truck came, at which point it again poured buckets, drenching us both to the core. Good times.
After another hour and a half or so I finally made it home and put it in the garage. The next day wasn't much better but it wasn't car-related so I'll skip it.
Talking to the Holley tech about it, he said the fuel pump was going bad and drawing too much current. Who knows. Other than that everything seemed okay. A/C works, good oil pressure, temps stayed good, all that stuff. I guess the moral of the story is make sure your fuel pump is easily replaceable.
Anyway, no more updates or changes for a while. Tentative plan is to sell motor/ efi/ and trans at some point and start fresh later. Nothing wrong with what I have, but a turbo on a 5.3 sounds sort of cool...
11-26-2014, 11:35 AM
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DSC02977 by chuckd85032, on Flickr
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