Rick That color looks very familiar. Is it Sapphire Blue? I just got mine back tonite! :grin: Here's a picture just so you know that three year projects do actually come to an end!!! Harvey (PS No that isn't a scratch on the fender. I guess it's a reflection of some kind. I actually went in the garage to double check as I was worried!)
Looks great Harvey! (except for the scratch on your fender) p :laugh: I don't know if mine was Shaphire Blue, but it sure looks close. Your definately ahead of me..... but you're not out of the woods yet either. But at least you're to the fun part.... bolting things back together! :TU: With mine so far, it seems that everything I have done is a step backwards. ou:
<b>Or less brains!</b> :laugh: The quarters now have the first coat of Duraglass over the seam. He chose to use Duraglass because it's stronger than Bondo. Once this is sanded, he thinks that he might be able to get away with one last thin film of bondo over the seam. Then the rear portion of the car will be ready for the first coat of primer! Next up on my "to do" list from him is to patch a little rust through on the lower portion of the front fender. (right where they always rust out) There's a decent size hole there, and I think the fender isn't quite shaped corrctly down there so I thought I better mount the door and fender and take a close look at the seam between them before I get started. The pass fender is my project for today. If all goes well, I might do the same on the drivers side tonight. Hey it's starting to look like a car again! But not for long, the fender is coming right back off as soon as i go back out to the shop this morning. :laugh:
it looks like you have a nice facility to work on it. is that your shop? i bought my 65 skylark convertible this summer out in ca. i knew someone that had a friend out there that i paid 100.00 to look over the car for me. the best $ i spent. this one was a clean car though. i did fly out to st. louis this past june to look at another 65 that was supposivly mint except for the paint. i went out there with a bunch of tools, extra parts and 2 money orders planning to buy it. i got to his house and it was dissapointing to say the least. i ended up staying at a hotel that night at the airport after a 1 hour commuter train ride and flew back home empty handed. good luck with yours, looks like it will be great when it is done.
Rick I know the feeling. The body is off the frame again on mine. I decided to assemble all the running gear in a clear frame then just roll in back under the body. (At least, that's the plan!) Harvey
Yup, we moved here almost 2 years ago. The shop was an empty steel shell. (cold dry storage) I've insulated it, wired it, built workbenches and shelves, and put a furnace in so it stays toasty in the winter. I can just squeeze 4 cars plus my Yukon with the car trailer attached to it all in at once, but I prefer to keep no more than 3 or 4 cars in there at a time. :laugh: I've attached a better pic. Don't mind the BBC on the run stand in the foreground. I know that's sacrilage around these parts. p I should have paid someone to inspect my ragtop before I bought it. That's a good idea. I never would have bought it, at least not for what I paid for it. :af: But now that I have it, and I'm this far into it, I'm kinda glad it was such a P.O.S. Now I know that everything will be done right, or at least right enough for me, and it will be exactly what I want when it's done. :TU: Harvey, I'm envious! Having the body off the frame will make hooking up the drivetrain soooo much easier. Keep us posted! :TU: PS... I responded to your PM last night. Thanks! :beer Update on the car.... I want my body guy to take a look at what I need to do to the fenders, so I didn't touch those yesterday like I planned to. So I got the floors and trunk finished instead. All primed and painted satin black. I won't get anything done tonight besides re-arranging the shop. A friend of mine wants to work on his motorhome this week and I'm letting him do it in my shop. If we move things around right tonight, there should be plenty of room for both of us to work all week without running into each other too many times.
Congrats on the new shop Rick, looks much better than your old place. I think I finally bought a better running classic than that '67 Skylark you sold me, still miss that car. I got a 64 Riviera that I drove back from Colorado where it lived most of its life. I have friends up there in Tiffin and I'll have to drive it up sometime and check out your cars and your new shop sometime. You have far more guts than me for taking on this kind of a project, I'm debating between sanding the nasties out of the original paint and spot primering the car before blocking it over mostly original paint and stripping her down and starting from the ground up.
Thanks Will. Stop by anytime! Sweet looking Riv you got there! Dare I even ask what your plans are? Knowing you, somehow I'm picturing a GN drivetrain, twin turbos, OD tranny .. etc.... :laugh: Regardless of your plans Will.... I'd have to vote for just giving it a paint job and enjoying it. I don't think I'll ever start a project like this ragtop again. It's a TON of work. Well, my ragtop doesn't "look" like much has been done since my last update... but I've been pecking away at it.... The car is now jammed in primer, along with the dash area. The entire interior is ready to get sprayed black, doors and all. I replaced the trunk lid springs so it'll stay open now (that was fun!) ou: After today, hopefully the fenders and hood will be jammed in primer so I can install them. My body guy has the passenger quarter almost done. He should finish it today and get a good start on the drivers' quarter. With any luck, the car will be in full primer by the end of next weekend and we can start block sanding. Biggest update for this week........ I found a back seat!!!! If you haven't ever looked for a 66-67 ragtop a-body rear seat before, you wouldn't understand my excitement! The seat came from a 67 Olds ragtop and is absolutely beautiful. It's a shame to take the cover off to replace it with Buick skin. Even the frame behind seat looks brand new. Bare metal, NO rust. It's amazing.
I thought this was a neat picture from earlier this week. I took it from the top of my buddies motorhome. He's had it here for a week or so fixing tons of little things getting it ready for this summer. Looks like he'll be here another week or so too. Makes for tight quarters with that beast in my shop, but it's not tooooo bad. I'll get to borrow it this summer.... maybe that's what I'll use to drag my ragtop to Salem BPG this year! :Brow:
You know me too well Rick, you are close the Turbo6 is almost ready for the dyno, only about $2500 more parts to buy ou: I'm planning on taking the car on Powertour 2006 part way with the original 425 and ST400. Unfortunately I don't have time for paint before then so I'm going to probably just sand out the bad stuff and then hit it in white primer. Also need to install the 65 Riv rear bumper and taillights, weld in the patch panels for the 64 taillight holes, update the brakes, add a stereo, and delay wipers. I think thats more than enough to fill 2.5 months of evenings. Good luck with the project and I'll get up there sometime once I get her legal with the Ohio fuzz.
Sounds like your Rivi is going to be sweet Will. It looks like it's been lowered a little? I like it! :TU: Todays Update... I don't have any new pictures of the car itself because it doesn't really look any different since the last pictures. My budy guy has been busy messing with the quarters all week and plans to have the car ready for primer this weekend. However......... Since there wasn't much for me to do to help him with body work this week, I finally got the 455 fully assembled..... and fired it up on the run stand last night! When I hit the key to start it, it didn't even turn over half a revolution before it fired up. We've been very lucky with the last few engines on this stand. They always start right up like they've been running for years. (No oil or water leaks either!!) :laugh: Anyways, I broke the cam in for about 25 minutes, varying from 2000-2500 RPM and shut it down to let her cool off. After it was cool I fired it up again and brought the idle down to about 900. It has a "friendly" little street lope to it and holds about 30PSI of oil pressure when idling hot. I'm pretty happy with that since the bottom end is "junkyard" (thanks again to Jason at BOP Connection!!) There was still some CAM2 in the fuel cell from the last time I ran my BBC..... It's not very often I get to smell the sweet smell of CAM2 in the winter! :laugh: The only problem I need to address is that the timing is a little erratic. I pulled the distributor and there's alot of end play in the shaft. I'm ordering a shim kit for the gear tonight. I'll change the oil, shim the distributor, and fire it up one more time. If everything goes good, I'll probably have the engine in the car before the end of next week. :Brow:
Well.... this weekend went as planned. As of Sunday morning the car was in it's first full coat of primer! .....actually, I should say, first 3 coats.
After he left, I gave the primer about 4 hours to dry and then started working on the interior. I got all the black painted last night. I used gloss black enamel with a "flattener" added to it. It was a tricky mixture with 4 parts to mix.... paint, reducer, catylist, and flattener. As it started drying last night, I felt that I probably should have used more flattener. It's a little glossier than I wanted. But oh well... it's done!! :laugh: I took a vacation day today so I could keep working on it. Plans for today : 1- Remove the fenders and doors again so he can "jam" the car in color this coming week 2- Drop the 455/TH400 in the car 3- Start block sanding If I get all 3 things done, I'll start installing the dash and dash wiring... I'm getting excited now! :Brow:
67 rag top This has been really cool watching keep the pictures comming looks like your in for a fun summer. :TU:
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoy the picture show. I use this thread for motivation. Anytime I feel like I'm not getting anywhere, all I have to do is look through this thread and see that I'm actually making progress whether it feels like it or not. :laugh: Well... today didn't go quite as planned. I never made it to item #3 on my list. But I did get the fenders off and the engine/tranny installed, as well as the headers. What set me back was the headers.... I got them in a package deal of parts when I bought my 70 GS a few years ago. All this time, I never knew what they came out of, but I'm guessing they were out of a 70-72 A-body. I had to do a little "tweaking" to make them work. I figured I'd have to do something.... but I didn't think it would take ALL day. ou: But I have to admit.... they fit better then the chrome Poston headers I put in my first 67/455 swap about 15 years ago. At least they cleared the steering column! It's a good feeling seeing the run stand empty, and the 67 engine bay full tonight. Now the heavy work is done and the fun stuff can begin! :beer
nice job! keep the pics coming. i am very jealous of your shop, all i have is a regular 2 car garage which is better than what i had 3 years ago (nothing). someday i will build a good size shop, someday.
Thanks Paul, I'll certainly be keeping the pictures flowing. :TU: Tonight we took a step backwards.... ou: The plan was to "jam" the car in color tonight, but when the body guy showed up he was very displeased with the quarter panels after seeing them in primer. We didn't even bother wetsanding them. He ground all the primer off both quarters and redid the filler with an additional skim coat! My "homework" when he left around 10:30 was to re-prime the quarters. It's now 12:30 and I'm ready for bed.... :sleep: But I must say...... they do look 100% better this time after primer! I'm very glad that he decided to do that. It only cost us a day, and they are going to look much better. I guess we'll see what he thinks of them tomorrow. :beer
And on the 7th day... he said "let there be color"! Well.... white IS a color isn't it? :laugh: We got all the jambs painted tonight. I went back and forth for weeks about what color to paint it, and finally decided on a white. It's actually kind of an off-white, but still "white". I'm very happy with the color now that I see it on parts of the car. We did learn that my shop is waaayyyyy too dirty to paint a car in though. There's quite a bit of dust in the paint. Thankfully it's only jambs, and it's white so it won't show too bad. We're going to have to do something different when it comes time to paint the entire car. But I'm not going to let that kill my "buzz" for tonight. It's got some color on it, and I'm gettin' excited! :beer
