Meissen's LT1 Build-up Thread

[Phantom409]

do tell what you find

.................................


I have a small fuel smell now
But then again she is a bit rich

[meissen]

One post that I saw on CamaroZ28 said that they used a fine mesh, someone else said they used cheese cloth. Both meant to keep debris from getting into the lines once the canister is deleted. From what I understand, there's absolutely no negative effects aside from the possibility of a faint fuel smell.

[meissen]

Today we made a decent amount of progress, although the pictures might not show justice to what was really all done. Yesterday my dad and I both agreed that the v6 kframe's a-arms and spindles had better bushings and the upper a-arm was amazingly stiffer than the LT1's a-arms - and the v6's upper a-arms seemed to "spring back" into shape after you move it... where as the LT1's just flopped over without trying. We agreed that the v6 drove and handled great and since the v6 a-arms and spindles are identical to the v8's we decided to strip them from the v6 kframe, strip the v8 a-arms and spindles from the v8 kframe, and then install the v6's onto the v8's kframe. Also, the lower a-arm on the driver's side was only 2 years old - literally less than 2 square inches of rust on the entire a-arm. The bushings were replaced at the same time (from the first accident that I had) so we figured it'd be smarter to go with the bushings and suspension that we know was tried and true than the v8's front a-arms that we had no clue how old or bad the bushings were.

When I got up and moving, my parents were out to church and brunch so I started working on my own. I removed the a-arm and spindle assemblies from the v-6 kframe. Since they were relatively new, the bolts came out REALLY easily. I immediately started painting them using the Rust Stop that my dad bought from Ace (Even though I have two pints of POR15.. ).

My dad got home and we removed the shock/spring assembly from the v8 suspension, then just had to unbolt the lower a-arms. UGH... the bolts on the lower a-arms were so effin rusted into place. In the pics, you can see the crowbar/hammer and sledge that we were having to use to bang the bolts out. Kyle's pic is amazingly clear because the one pic with me and the sledge hammer was snapped while I was swinging the sledge pretty damn hard onto the end of the bolt.

Once we got the lower a-arms unbolted from the v8 kframe, it was time to install the v6 a-arm/spindle assembly. DAMN do the rotors and calipers weigh a lot. There is definitely a difference between the a-arm/spindle without calipers and rotors than the two that had them. Install was pretty straight forward, and then we installed the shocks and springs. Last, but not least, we installed the sway bar.

Amazingly, that's all that we really accomplished when I started at about 11am and we finished around 5:30-6pm.

[MP81]

[Kwazrollinz28]

And Steve, I just used high-temp engine enamel and sprayed many coats and then many coats of clear enamel over it.

You said something about you Brushed the Block with paint? or am i wrong.
thanks though.

[meissen]

Oh, yeah. I brushed the first coat on. The 2nd coat the brushing looked horrible so I just blocked the paint the best that I could where I didn't want it to go and then sprayed the paint on.

[BP_Z28]

nice. .. who was the photographer

[meissen]

Kyle (MP81) was the photographer. Pete (slp ss), and Will (willasc) came over too.

[SoulTerror]

Sweet! Wish I was doing a project like that.

[DETROITMUSCLE]

nice progress Brian, coming from someone who just recently did this I know what a ***** those bolts are to get out, I actually beat mine as hard as possible and neither moved on me. We used a torch to heat them up pretty good then put a large socket on the bolts and turned them loose, then then came right out with a few taps The rust builds up in the ball joints and it just binds very bad.

[MP81]

Yeah, they were definitely a *****, or so it seemed as I was watching.

[meissen]

nice progress Brian, coming from someone who just recently did this I know what a ***** those bolts are to get out, I actually beat mine as hard as possible and neither moved on me. We used a torch to heat them up pretty good then put a large socket on the bolts and turned them loose, then then came right out with a few taps The rust builds up in the ball joints and it just binds very bad.

werd. I think Kyle or Pete mentioned taking a torch to them. We were pretty close to needing to do that. We really saturated them with PB Blaster to get it lubed but that only helped so much with how rusty those bolts get. When we installed the v6 a-arms onto the kmember we were smart this time and greased the bolts to stop rust from forming (or atleast slow it down).

[SoulTerror]

Maybe if you would of had a real sledge! Hell my dads hand held sledge probably has more weight then that, but his is the head off a full sledge with a small handle wielded on

[meissen]

Yeah well we used what we had.

[MP81]

Yep. And it worked eventually...and made projectiles too.