I fixed the idle issue. Rookie mistake, I never re-tightened the air horn screws after getting a good heat cycle in. The next time I went to drive the car the idle was super low. Now I'm struggling with a leak from my fuel sender. I had fuel level issues, bought one not realizing it had no return, modified it to add a return line, it then leaked once I topped off the tank. I assumed it was the bulkhead fitting I added so I put the original back in (after draining 12 gallons of gas out). Topped the tank off again, now it is leaking even worse. I think I bent something trying to get that modified sender in. Hopefully going to fix it tonight when I get home so I can be on my way in the late morning/early afternoon.
Haven't updated this in a while. I've been busy, but not as productive as I'd like to be. My Corvette is mostly together now. The interior is back in, it runs and drives great. My brother helped me get it back together for a road trip to Florida. We literally wrenched for 25 hours straight to get it done. I have a few trim pieces and some carpet to fix, but it is so nice having the car all together again. The project that took up most of my time prior has been my brothers 1970 Dodge Charger. He had it shipped to my house to have a few things fixed and he hoped to go to a bunch of car events during the summer. In reality. It needed everything. It was an automatic car that someone crudely swapped a 4 speed into. Rough cuts in the floor, cut through the torsion bar cross member, a-body pedal assembly, every wire harness in the car was garbage and cobbled together. We swapped in a Tremec TKX 5-speed, replaced all the wiring, new fuel system, qa1 suspension and k member, dakota digital RTX dash, new carpet. It still has a little ways to go, but it runs and drives fairly nice now. A cool car, by no means mint, but something that can be driven whenever and enjoyed. View attachment 634034
As for my 67 GS400. That car has remained untouched since the GS Nationals. I drove it a whole bunch, but just didn't take on any new projects with it. It will likely be my first project this spring. I am going to bite the bullet and swap the 3.55 gears and Yukon posi I have into the factory rear. I might hate the extra rpm, but this is really a car to enjoy on the backroads anyways, so if I have to take some extra time and avoid highways, so be it. I also plan on swapping in the ST300 converter I got from TrunkMonkey and making a few tweaks to the Qjet I rebuilt last year. So, since I have all these projects, of course I decided to buy another one. I bought a 77 Lesabre Sport Coupe from Briz. My brother and I both went in 50/50 on it since our intention is to make it into a drag and drive car. It currently has a 455 and th400 in it, but the eventual goal is to do a turbo Buick 350 and 4l80e. It was pretty eventful getting it back to Indy from Atlanta. The oil pressure regulator backed out and I lost all oil pressure. Luckily I got it pulled over quickly before any damage was done. Patrick (pbr400) was a huge help. He lent me one of his oil pressure regulator assemblies and space in his driveway while I got it sorted out. It was an interesting drive home. 75mph at 3500rpm for 600 miles, but the car stayed cool and it was a fairly smooth ride. I can't wait to start getting into things with this car and hope to get it to low 13s on motor and possibly spray it into the 12s while I start a 350 turbo build on the side.
Cool stuff! I'm glad to see i am not alone in the multi project scenerio. I like the Vette, great driver
Here is the most precious and important sentence of your entire post: ".....but something that can be driven whenever and enjoyed." ...As long as you keep that attitude about all the cars, you'll never be disappointed. The reality is, if they were mint, they also eventually will stop being mint, so it's a balance of desires vs reality.
I appreciate all the kind words! This is all stuff that has happened over the course of the last year. I'll have spurts where I will get a ton done in a short amount of time and then go a few months without even looking at a car. Being on night shift has made it tough. Hopefully I'll be back on days soon and can be a bit more consistent with things. I also have a ton of house projects to do and a pole barn to finish. Last week I had my daily, a 2018 Regal GS, apart to fix a rear defroster issue. Expected to find a wire that came off the grid but instead found a capacitor, used for preventing noise from the defroster being picked up by the am/fm antenna, pretty much melted. Part is on order for that and should be a simple fix. My Corvette keeps eating serpentine belts. Looks like the A/C compressor isn't aligned properly. The bracket is either bent or cracked, and they are quite pricey to replace. So I'll have to dig into that and figure it out. I'm hoping a minor tweak or a washer behind it will sort things out. The LeSabre had some whining from the trans and acted like it was low on fluid. I dropped the pan and found some material in there but I am thinking it is probably fine. A new filter and fresh fluid and it is back to shifting normally with no whine. I also swapped in a new TA oil pressure regulator, so now I no longer have 100psi+ at cold start, which was concerning but I took the chance so I could get back home. I am going to try and drill the TA Regulator for safety wire so it doesn't happen again. Even the stock one I borrowed from Patrick was loose when I checked it and I know I snugged it up pretty tight. I removed the amber fog lights and swapped in a set of black 78-79 Sport coupe headlight bezels. The fogs were pretty cool, but I really want a clean blacked out front end look and wasn't sure the fogs would look right with that. I also pulled the bumperettes off. I'm on the hunt now for a 79 grill and parking light bezels, I like that look better. But I might just paint the stock grill, similar to how the 86 GN Grille was done.
Good to see you back at it Jacob! The Racesabre is a cool ride. I'm glad you picked it up from Briz. Does it still have the reverse manual TH400 in it with the trans-brake?
Thanks! It does still have that trans, a great unit for a more dedicated strip car, but I plan on doing a lot of long trips with this. One of my first changes will likely be a 4L80e, but I've also considered just putting a standard Th400 and tighter converter in for now.
Thanks Fred! When I sold my GS400 in 2019, I thought I was done with projects for a bit. Who would have guessed a few years later that I'd buy it back, and then end up with 4 more projects on top of that haha It seems like I've been busy, but all this is just a bunch of work done in short bursts and long breaks between haha I would have loved to score a Turbo Coupe, but those are also fairly rare and I'd feel bad modifying it too much. This car is the perfect blend of cool to own, yet not desirable enough that I'd be afraid to dig into it I've been fortunate to maintain that attitude for the last 15 or so years that I have been in this hobby. I've never really had a super nice, expensive car, but I have had a ton of fun and interesting cars to drive around and make memories in. I'd still like to have a super nice car some day, but for now the rougher stuff has more appeal to me.
It absolutely amazes me how horrible the workmanship is on many "altered" cars. Back in my wrench spinning days, a customer brought in his son's new-to-him Chevelle. Practically nothing worked, and the few things that did, did not work properly. I got the job of writing the estimate. This was in the early 80's. A few weeks before we had handed out our first ever $1,000 work order. When I got to about $3,000 I went to the service manager and told him that the car was a total POS and would best be scrapped. The service manager called the customer and told the customer what I had said. The customer came in and "cherry picked" about $1,000 off my list. I told the service manager that I didn't want anything to do with the car - I was there to service cars, not marry one. Some other poor guy got the job and was on it for about a week. Then the "comebacks" started. The service manager and I were not best pals, but I bought him lunch when he told me that I was right not to get involved in it.
It is wild the corners that someone will either cut themselves or be willing to live with to save a few bucks. When my brother and I were discovering all these hacks that were done to the car, we initially assumed this must have been someone trying to quickly flip the car and figured a 4 speed would bring a bit more money. I think the reality was, it was likely someone who just really wanted a stick shift car and lacked the skills or patience to do it properly. I consider myself fortunate, I've spent the entirety of my time in the car hobby either having this forum or youtube as a resource. We put a bunch of time into the Charger just trying to write the wrongs of the previous swap. We have a new floorpan for it, so that will be done eventually, along with a new torsion bar crossmember. For now it is patched so the car can be driven. When I swapped my Corvette, I probably spent over a year researching every little part I needed to make it look like it came that way from the factory. From the patch panel for the trans tunnel to the clutch safety switch. I wanted it all to work as it should with no shortcuts.
