Moto's '71 Sportsroof finally gets attention

Couldn't stand it any longer.

Young son has been pestering, in a nice way, to get this project rolling. At 13, mild anxiety has been setting in that he might not be able to roll this hooptie into the student lot at school when he acquires his license. He's itchin' for it now.

Right now.

And so am I.

So, we peeled the cover off of it, pressure washed everything within 20 feet of the car, and are having at it. It's a VA car, and rust isn't really too bad. The cowl went to heck sitting outside, didn't leak when I got it but the hats are toast now. The outside quarter bottoms have been "fixed" before, but are no longer viable. The rest of the sheetmetal is good to go.



Plans are to get the underhood, driveline, and interior 100%, but leave the paint and body for another day. Or year. Or decade. Gotta get this thing compressing some air/fuel mixture and smokin' some rubber first and foremost. It is really gonna look like crap rolling down the road, I can just picture it. And that's the way I want it for now, thank you.

The engine bay has been cup wheeled and etch primed already. Still need to remove the (finger tight) front suspension and do that area. Floor is next; getting the OE tar scraped off, cup wheeled, wiped down and semi gloss black all of it underneath.

Motivation will be initially provided by a Krylon rebuild on a 60-some thousand mile old short block 5.8 Windsor out of a Superduty (its REALLY nice inside!). The GT40 aluminum heads and B303 cam from my 5.0 stash along with a Weiand Stealth will go on top of the stock bottom end. Not an optimum performance or fuel mileage engine, but all the goodies are there, paid for long ago, and begging to get used.

I have an AOD in inventory, but it may stay there so I can use the 2800 stall converter'd C4 beside it.

Rear gears are most likely going to be 3.50's and a TracLock, or the OE 3.25/open currently in the housing. Going to send the OE housing to a local roundy-round dirt track car builder along with a really cool Winters aluminum centered 9" asphalt housing to be set up to bolt in place of the steel housing.

Great start and good plan. Keep the momentum going!

Sounds like a good plan to me!

Looking forward to see the progress..

Way to get going on it! were looking forward to helping answer your various questions! I bought my mustang in 10th grade and spent a little more than a year on it with my dad getting it to where it is.::thumb::

Its a HUGE hit at school. Totally worth every dollar and every second I've put into it.

He don't look particularly happy when you snapped the picture...

He don't look particularly happy when you snapped the picture...

Click to expand...

Maybe he knew what was going to be invoved in the resto Randy.

Jokes aside, all the very best with the project Moto and keep us posted on progress.

Greg.

Oh my looks like a project, been there done that. Don't get in a rush and it will happen eventually.

Nah, forgoing the body work should make it an EZ-er job... I hope.

No real heavy work to do, even with building the engine. Most of it is "insert tab A into slot B" stuff, bolt togethers. I have most all components either labeled, or in boxes. I'll buy new front coils, since I want a higher rate and the drop. Same with the rear springs, the right side sags a bit but are usable as is.

The prepackaged bolt kits appear to be the short road home for a job like this one. At least I'll keep the fingerprints where they belong, instead of in the wire wheel on the bench grinder from cleaning up all the old stuff LOL!

Speaking of engine, I have been really, reeeeeally on the fence over the choice since bringing the car home in '98. I already have a mild 460/C6 combo that is ready to drop in. Something makes me want to go the Windsor route to start, probably since I want to see how it runs compared to my stock 5.0 car. If it's a nice kick, I can swap the 460 in and put the GT40 heads/cam in the 5.0. Its original 351C-4V is the furthest away from completion. It is currently buck naked disassembled, needing a full boat "kitchen sink" machine shop treatment.

So, with that in mind, I figure if the SHTF and I grenade 2 engines, I'll still have the C (and another spare stock 5.0) to fall back on...

He don't look particularly happy when you snapped the picture...

Click to expand...

He gets that from his Mother ::laugh::

Clean and prime and clean and prime and clean and...



.

Aaaah yes, the fenders. Oh boy.

These puppies were removed and put into dry basement storage (in an unoccupied house) when I moved a few years ago. However, it was discovered this past Wednesday 8/13 that the basement had become a disaster zone. To make a long story short, it appears that the furnace had quit sometime in the deep freeze of probably February or March (yes, several months ago) and nobody was aware of it. Many of the water pipes froze and split, and city water had been spraying all over the basement since then.

Mold is everywhere.

The gray Fiero seats that the fender is leaning on are probably throw aways now too. They're the cool ones with speakers in the headrests. Lost the original white leather buckets out of the green 5.0, too.

Just nasty.

Yeah, sounds unbelievable to me too. It is a sad sight.

It ran long enough to stain the fenders, pimple the (cruddy enamel) paint, and delaminate the layers. Pressure washer stripped about half of the coating off.

Metal seems to be unaffected for the most part. I thank the Car Gods, 'cause these fenders are really straight and clean.

Hey Pete,

Now that IS a really bad case of humidity blistering!

Greg.

Glad to see some progress Pete

Me too, Wendell!

Took Monday off of work for some much enjoyed Musclecar Therapy all by myself.

I haven't been this skanky in a loooong time, it was beautiful weather wise, and much fun.



Engine bay is almost ready for topcoat.

Cup wheeled and cleaned the funk out of the inside of the Windsor. It had been stored without an intake by the PO, but the heads were on. It has zero ring ridge, and only bugs and loose klinkers in the lifter valley. It will get rinsed out with a garden hose, check a bearing or 2 and apply the ultra high velocity Krylon rebuild elixir. Cam and heads are next.

My Al Jolson face:

Hey Pete! Get Down and Get Dirty!

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

Greg.

Oh man, this is taking FOREVER :dodgy:

I'm letting my OCD get in the way, LOL. I tend to get too picky and detailed sometimes.

I've been messing around underneath, wheeling and cleaning everything that you can't really see. That's the forever part. Not as much fun as doing the top side. I did find 2 thin areas flanking the shock towers up high, one on each side, that just required a rotary file to clean out and fill with some epoxy. The dime size rust was from a plated area, and just the inner metal on the engine side was blistered and just started coming through.

The engine crossmember may need some restoration tweakage from Bo and Luke Duke jumping creeks in Hazzard County with it back in the day. It's twisted rearward a bit, like maybe an inch or so, but not flattened up into the pan area (I don't think). As is, the lower control arm mounting points look pretty good and unaffected. May take some measurements just for giggles to be sure before I go through the trouble of painting it.

I did, however, discover what I surmise happened to the original 4 speed... :idea:

In the trans tunnel, there's a good 2" triangular shaped hole with the metal bent up into the passenger footwell like a big can opener attacked it. On the drivers side, there's a large dent where the bottom of the trans tunnel meets the firewall, like where the gas pedal is...

Methinks there was a clutch explosion at one time .

I took pics but haven't downloaded them yet.

For now I've opted out of stripping all of the original factory tar sound deadener from the floorpan aft of the firewall. All I'm succeeding in doing is making a mess, and it is in such good shape that it may warrant just being painted over in matte or semi gloss black like the underhood will be.

I'm still really, really glad that this car is so rust "free". Sure, there's an isolated issue or 3, but man...

Laying underneath of it with my fluroescent drop light is as entertaining to me as stargazing... this stuff simply just doesn't exist here in Pittsburgh...

Hi Pete,

Looks like your doing some back breaking serious work there. I'm sure it's not easy at all. Did you give any thought of getting hold of a rotisserie jig for this project, to make all that hard work much easier?

In any event, keep up the great work.

Greg.

Thanks Greg.

Rotisserie, well, yes and no.

If I had the room indoors, yes I probably would have sourced one. As of now, I only have about a month of workable weather outdoors in the driveway before the nasty stuff arrives here. Plans are to move it into the garage seen behind the car, but even if the garage were empty it's only a 12'x24'. The goal is to have the engine/trans in, put in garage, remove both doors and work on the interior through the winter. The other garage beside it is the same size, and needs to house all of the parts, bicycles, workbench, etc.

I figure even with the prime mover installed, if I get the gumption up I can still use a heat gun and scraper to get to metal... but I really think that it will look OK painted over the factory deadener.

From here, I need to keep moving towards making it closer to "one" piece, instead of being blown apart in 3 separate garages.

I'm still feelin' pretty pumped about working on it with the tools at hand. I've ignored it for way, waaaay too long, letting everything else in life misguide me .

Quick side story:

A buddy at work picked up a barn find '69 Firebird roller this summer. I had been used strictly for drag racing and let to the chickens, mice and spiders... He figures it last was appreciated sometime in the '80's. Mods like etched quarter glass, rear flares, huge hole in the hood and gutted interior date the car. He tossed in a spare lumpy cammed 400 Pontiac, buffed the daylights out of the red enamel, ignoring the rust blisters and making it streetably safe in the process. He's driven it to work several times with its big fat Mickey Thompson rubber, 4.56 rear gear and Flowmaster dumped exhaust.

He's going to leave it as-is.

And so would I. It's so cool.

Man, does that car give me drive to get mine on the road...

Pete,

Thanks for your feedback. Yeah, not having the correct room to do what you might want is a pain. Still, with your great attitude and motivation, i'm sure you'll forge on pretty well over the next few weeks. Do keep us posted.

Interesting story on the firebird as well.

Greg.

Steering column - Out!



She's Back In (satin) Black!



Here's the trans tunnel pic. Triangle hole on passenger side, big bash in on drivers side. I think the dude was fairly close to doing a Big Daddy Don Garlits impersonation...