Project: 1967 GTO 400 Rebuild

[Lucky SOB]

You're right! I have the front frame rails tied down to the front lift arms to keep her from moving. Thanks tho!

[meissen]

Awesome progress thus far!

[Lucky SOB]

We spent Wednesday night sorting and inventorying parts to go to powder coat. I dropped them off to QC Coatings Thursday morning and should have them back in a couple weeks. Everything will be done in 70% gloss black except for the exhaust manifolds which will be a cast iron gray ceramic coat.



Today I took the wire wheel to the underside a final time. We then wiped it down with Prepsol in preparation for paint.



Then we painted with Rustoleum flat black. This picture is after the first coat. It will take one more coat. The firewall and front frame rails will be sprayed, not brushed like the underbody.



Hopefully tomorrow we can do the second coat. Then it's time to order lots of parts!

[DynoDave]

Nice progress. This cold snap has brought my progress to a halt. Glad you have a proper space for doing this work.

[Lucky SOB]

Project: 1967 GTO 400 Rebuild

Little update.

We weren't having luck locating the right block and heads for the car, so we decided to rebuild what we have for now. Fab'd up a crate and dropped it off to the engine shop on Tuesday.

Ordered tons of parts from NPD on Monday and they arrived on Wednesday. Lots of great stuff!

The engine is due back at the end of next week.

Powder coating will be done next week.

The rear axle is done being rebuilt and they're getting started on the transmission. We'll get both of them back next week.

Still need to drop the radiator off to be flushed and pressure tested.

But the components are definitely coming together! We just need some decent temperatures to finish the paint work! Maybe next weekend...

Anyways, here are some pictures.







The cherry picker would only reach so far into the bed of my truck. So we used the wood with the truck in reverse to load it the rest of the way in. Clever eh?

[Lucky SOB]

Stopped by the engine shop today as they just finished disassembly. The diagnosis isn't good...

The rod bearings are shot, the crank is rough and the cylinder walls are gouged. They still have to mic the pistons and bores to see if it can be punched out, but that might involve putting more into this engine than it's worth. If it was the correct engine, it would be an easier decision.

Onto the pics!

[DynoDave]

Ouch...that's a seriously used up bearing!

[Lucky SOB]

Finished up the "spray booth" and down-draft system today. Had a nice pusher fan in there and it worked great!

The underside of the car now has 1 brushed on coat of oil based rustoleum and 2 coats sprayed on.

The firewall and front frame rails will be sprayed tomorrow after we fashion a spray contraption for that.

[DynoDave]

Ingenuity is king!

[Lucky SOB]

Sprayed the firewall and front frame rails today. Lots more plastic and a harbor fake spray gun with filter/separator on the compressor line... Worked awesome!

We used Rustoleum (satin), thinned with 10% acetone.

Tested the pattern on the old gas tank.

[Lucky SOB]

Well all of the powdercoating is done! QC Coatings did a great job.



And the manifolds were done in gray ceramic coat.



Meanwhile the engine shop is finally getting going on the machining. It turns out the engine had already been bored .030" over. So now we're going to .060" over to clean it up. He said we would have it back by the end of the week...

[MP81]

QC Coatings does great work!

[DynoDave]

The coated parts look great.

So on the engine...is this fixing the old one, or did you find a replacement?

[Lucky SOB]

That's the old one. Couldn't find one with the correct numbers. It will do until we find one and feel like swapping them.

The nice thing is it still has the HO exhaust manifolds which are larger. So we had the exhaust system built correct for an HO car. So the only thing to swap out in the future is the long block.

[JoeliusZ28]

looking really good Fred!