Meissen's Compiled LT1 Project

[meissen]

February 15 2009


Work's been done! I'll let pictures speak for themselves and give explanation at the bottom...
















Here's the jack we bought at Murrays at 24 and Hayes. It only cost $130 including tax but it's only 4" high so it goes under the car to the jack position with no problem (right now) and it raises up 23" so we were able to jack the car all the way up and get the rims under the tires without having to use any blocks of wood (if y'all remember one of the first progress posts in here)




Otherwise, everything went really smooth. Current progress plan:

Monday-Friday - Get the shocks, springs, and motor mounts all put onto the v8 kframe. Drop the v6 kframe and get the steering components put onto the v8 kframe. Mount the LT1 onto the kframe. Roll the kframe and the LT1 under Red Alert to just store it while we're not working on it. Get v6 kframe out of the garage. This will then allow my mom to go back into the garage - which is a political move.

Sat & Sun (21st and 22nd) - Paint v8 lower control arms, spindle, etc. Start painting the under carraige.

Mon-Fri (23rd to 27th) - Continue sporadically painting the undercarraige as time allows

Sat & Sun (28th and 1st) - Out of town, won't be working on the project

Mon-Fri (2nd to 6th) - Continue sporadically painting the undercarriage as time allows

Sat & Sun (7th and 8th) - Finish painting the undercarraige, start working on the engine bay

Mon-Fri (9th to 13th) - Continue working on engine bay as time allows, have to close up the holes, sand the rust down, paint with por 15, and repaint the engine bay with red paint.

Sat & Sun (14th and 15th) - Finish up the engine bay

Mon-Fri (16th to 20th) - Misc finishing up

Sat & Sun (21st and 22nd) - Start connecting up the LT1

Mon-Fri (23rd to 27th) - Finish connecting up the LT1

Saturday - March 28th - Fire up the LT1 for the first time, have Steve do a preliminary
Sunday - March 29th - Bring Red Alert to Steve for tuning

[meissen]

February 18 2009


To the Pit Crew! My dad started painting the k-frame today after he took a wire brush to it and got all the grime off. Tomorrow he said he's going to start working on assembling the k-frame - dad bought some new shock mounts for me from Murrays and they'll be in tomorrow (I'm paying for them, he just got them for me since he's home during the day).

I also got a used accessory bracket that was already sand blasted. Took some pics of it but it won't look like that when it's installed.

[meissen]

February 20 2009

progress today getting kframe done, shocks mounted.

[meissen]

February 20 2009



And here's the results of what my dad was taking pictures of me doing.

fuelrails 001.jpg

fuelrails 002.jpg

fuelrails 003.jpg

fuelrails 004.jpg

fuelrails 005.jpg

fuelrails 006.jpg

[meissen]

February 21 2009

I'm suprised that b didn't post anything he took pictures. Today we worked on the old and new k frame. We removed the old k frame from red alert. then removed the rack and tie rods and are mounting them on the new k frame. Mounted numurous items on the engine, starting to look cluttered from the other pic's, like alterator, A/C, hoses etc. Well thats it, I sure he'll post pic's tonight or tomorrow morning.

Aaaaaaaaaaand here's the pictures:

[meissen]

February 22 2009


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.

[meissen]

February 23 2009

Brian will need to get more things on his [Project Plan] greened. I finished kframe, got rack mounted and tie rods connected, and brake lines. tomorrow I might try and lower the engine on to the k rame by myself.