RedMan*

iTrader: (4)

Well here she is.
I have been trying to aquire this ol'girl for a while now and the seller finally gave in.
First order of business..... dump the 14" tire/rims.
Today my wife and I put on the Rocket Racing Velocity rims & BFGoodrich G-force tires.
Front: 17"x7" rims with 225/50/17 tires.
Rear: 17"x8" rims with 255/45/17 tires.







So, priority is to put thing on the road hopefully by the end of this month.
235 straight 6 with 2 speed "slip-n-slide" right now.
The interior is pretty bad...will need the seats totally rebuild/covers, carpet, & door panels.
Then..... time for an LS
Not sure which one, or which way to build it.
I will finally have a vehicle with enough room in the engine bay that I could do a twin turbo LS if I wanted to.
Hummmmm

ls1nova71

iTrader: (4)

Looks like a pretty clean car. Don't let anybody bust your ***** for building a 4 door, they make the best sleepers......

RedMan*

iTrader: (4)

@ ls1nova71,
personally I don't give a $hit what someone says about 4 door cars.
Thats their opinion and they can go **** up a rope.

Back to the regular scheduled program..... got the Bel Air running today.
Took a while, had to drain about 7 gallons of nasty fuel, install new fuel pump, timing belt, air filter, in line fuel filter.
Once she started to fire the float was stuck in the carb and started pucking out fuel everywhere from 2 different locations both on the fire wall side of the carb. A couple light taps with the plastic end of a screw driver around the carb free'd up the float.
Then when my wife and I fired it up she ran pretty bad for about 30 seconds until she leveled out to a nice idle.
I did hear a not so user friendly noise that sounded like something hitting the underside of the valve cover, so we only let it run for a couple of minutes.
Tomorrow I'll dig into that and hopefully it's a minor issue that can be quickly resolved.

L8R,
Stu

loweredd

iTrader: (2)

Wow. What a difference a set of wheels can make. Gotta love a big 4 door B-body. Looking good!!

bczee

iTrader: (12)

I think for a 4 door car.. your 62 is one of the better looking 4 door model.. don't worry what then haters say.. Go For It !

Yeah.. them wheel do go well with the car..

BC

tk-mpl

iTrader: (1)

What a nice start. I'm building a 61 4 door so post lots of pics...

RedMan*

iTrader: (4)

Fast foreward:
issue with engine was 2 stuck valves which broke a rocker arm, bent 2 push rods, & ruined a lifter.
First the ugly mess of when I purchase it:

Couple of pics of that joy:




Here is what it looks like all put back together after I cleaned it up and sent out the rocker arm shaft to have the new rocker arm bushed:


Here she is running like the 235 champ that she is:

When the engine was down I took the valve cover, side plate, & air cleaner to friends shop and media blasted them, metal etch primer, then painted them flat gray.
My goal was to get them the same color as the Rocket Racing Velocity rims.


I also removed this nasty home-made hitch and probably lost 100 lbs:

RedMan*

iTrader: (4)

Over the summer I picked up a bunch of stuff for the Bel Air.
Front L & R floor pans, trunk tub, front seat support that goes under the frame.


Upper & Lower tubular control arms. These are the ones off of ebay and are the same to my knowledge that CPP sells as the entry/bottom line arms.... but I saved a couple of hundred $$$ from not getting them from CPP (bad luck with them 3 times in the past... never again)
Anyways here is a "stock-photo" of the A-arms:


I also ordered a full front & rear power disc brake swap from The Right Stuff.
7" booster, drilled/slotted rotors, red powder coated calipers.
Stainless fuel & brake lines from them too.


New Stainless fuel tank kit with: tank, sending unit, straps, bolts, & rubber straps.

I also got bored and did some magic on the stock exhaust manifolds, spent about 4 hours working on them:
Before:


After:

RedMan*

iTrader: (4)

Started the brake/front suspension swap this week with some help from a buddy by the name of Steve (thanks Steve)




Stock spindles just taken off:


Spindles all cleaned up, spent about 2 hours smoothing everything out:


Here is where we left off tonight:

RedMan*

iTrader: (4)

Just noticed in the last pic from the front looking at the spring.... looks a little bent.
Have to look at that in the AM.

Parting shot:


The 65 Impala 4 door is my Daughters first car:

ls1nova71

iTrader: (4)

So do you have an LS engine for this car? From my experience those manifolds won't fit an X frame carunless you're going to be flipping them forward to do a turbo or something.

RedMan*

iTrader: (4)

Yes, this is the engine:




Texas Speed 5.3/2.5 heads:




Cam:


F-body pan:


I have seen a few builds where guys have used the factory truck manifolds.
Hopefully this is the case, if not then I'll have to update as needed.
I'm sure there are things I will have to deal with, like notching the cross member.
Luckily I'm not in a hurry to put the L-33 in there, probably won't get to it till next summer after I purchase most of the other swap stuff.

E.rodz

iTrader: (4)

the manifolds that will fit for sure are the factory 4 gen camaro manifolds you can just modify the one big flange on the collector end and they will fit . I tryed the truck ones on my 63 belair swap and they did not work for reasons I do not remember. you can check out my build thread on my 63 belair and if I can give you any helpful tips let me know where you need info and I will see what we can do. ps nothing wrong with 4 doors mine is a 4 door too.

LS1rob00

iTrader: (9)

Nice looking ride, looking forward to seeing the progress on the build!

Why bother with the stock manifolds though? If you want to get the most out of that cam LT's are the way to go. Although if you're trying to keep the car within a budget I'm sure swap headers are a tad more expensive than for a normal car.

Stormed_Norm

iTrader: (10)

I was wondering when you said your car looked " bent". It might be the spring isn't clocked into the knotch in the pocket for it. I did that when I changed up my front end. I didn't want to pull it all apart again, so I used 2 channel lock vise grips on the spring and tapped it around with a hammer.

six1rag

[/QUOTE]
Those arms are nice, I went with the same ones from eBay. I did a caprice spindle swap with mine thou, had to modify the lower control arm pocket. (Mine are on a 61 impala) nice build so far. Keep the pics coming

1961ba427

iTrader: (26)

I would like to hear more about your spindle swap if you don't mind.

six1rag

I'll repost pics in my build thread. "Relapse" is the title, I had trouble with photobucket.

RedMan*

iTrader: (4)

Todays progress:




Had to set one of my tire/rim combo's on to have a look/see:


The remote oil filter was origionally located behind the carb., I knew it would have to be moved but didn't realize it would fit right in front of the carb. so easy.
Also got the 7" power booster installed, plumbed, and hooked up to the break pedal.


The stainless break lines are ran up front now too.

Tomorrow hopefully we can do the rear disc swap and run the stainless brake lines from the front to the back.

E.rodz: I have read your thread many times, love your work and attention to detail.

six1rag: ya the pocket(red) where the spring sits is just a "c" hair smaller than the actual diamater of the new springs so they are sitting just a little off but there is no way to may it right without grinding off part of the coil.

Thanks guys.

RedMan*

iTrader: (4)

Finally put the front back on the ground today.
Then jacked up the tail and started on that.
Got all the old brake lines removed and replaced with the stainless lines.
Removed and replaced all the old parking brake cables.
New springs & shocks installed.
Axles removed along with all the old drum crap.
Heres the only pic from todays events:


New axle bearings will be pressed on in the next day or two once we can source them.

Almost done with this phase of the project.