2023: What are you doing today?

[kb426]

^^^^^
Looks very good, obviously.

[WZ JUNK]

This week is Sick Week Florida and it is live on you tube. The result is not much is getting done, but that is not really different from any other time.

I am doing some experiments for son in law with vacuum drying of wood.  He makes knives and we have some special wood to dry for the handles.

I am down to the final fabricating on the Holley Sniper fuel injection installation.  I am working on the high pressure fuel lines.

[Crosley.In.AZ]

Tuesday evening a huge storm rolled thru here. Weather guessers had talked about rain for 2 days...  We received large amount of rain , wind , small size hail.  The hail turned the roads here white, it looked like snow for a while. Thunder, lightning hit near by...  Way more storm than the weather x-spirts were talking.

       

[idrivejunk]

Dodged the one piece glass conversion bullet, mostly, on the 56 Chevy truck. Incomplete parts and instructions are to blame and it will be all on the installer. But I did get a mock window to go up and down in one door before aborting that task. Dash filler install is next after a bit more mockup fuss.

Shout out to user Pugsy who directed me at a video which saved today for me!       

Yesterday I assessed damage on a 69 Chevelle frame that met some concrete unkindly and had to pronounce it dead. Durn thing ripped the nut off one spindle, big chunk of cast wheel busted off, etc. What a thump it must have been. Sweet black car but needs a frame.

[enjenjo]

Useable Chevelle frames are thin on the ground. The racers used them all up over the last 50 years.

[idrivejunk]

Indeed. Despite it interchanging with a remarkable number of variants. I can only imagine the conversation will quickly turn to aftermarket and complexity will snowball. Stressy decisions the whole way from there out. 

Had to tune up my in-shop hardware foraging skills this afternoon. Grille screws for the 56. Hoop-to-bar screws were elusive and gopher went twice to a hardware store for me but no. So I ended up with maybe 2 of 8 with matching heads and they are like certain license plate screws. Hope the heads won't interfere. Must drill new valance for grille bolts.  For the grille to truck bolts I'm trimming some to be short enough.

Guy in the next stall on the Stude has been cutting apart a previously fabbed 1x3 or 4" thick wall bed understructure (?) with cutoff wheels and sawzall and I was reminded of the Model A. A guy really needs a chop saw for that stuff, it is murder to cut. He takes the small skinny wheel approach. I took the 4" wheel and score a lot approach. Either way, piles of steel and hours of sparky roostertails. When theres a half gallon steel pile at the end of your broom, you know you just did something. I may get a piece of the metal action this week yet.

[idrivejunk]

Throwing this out there trying to maybe come up with an out for the Chevelle ... by noon tomorrow the idea may fizzle but-

Say you have 69 Malibu with front of frame plowed beyond use. And say I have a 72 Grand Prix sinking into yard but cherry frame still, unbent. All I ever wanted was the 400 and doors fenders for if mine gets hurt. Plus seats n console etc. No title, meh.

Say we overlay frame charts and see subtle dimensional differences, mainly length in the toe board zone and in the shape of the dogleg there. Crossmember visually similar, spring pockets may differ, ahead of engine its fairly similarish.

Say there also happens to be a stick of heavy wall 2x4 tubing in the corner just standing guard. Enough to center-and-front-half it by fabrication and multiple people able to do it are on hand.

Then the interweb aftermarket says ten grand, slide this new frame up under there. Hmm, are any of the aforementioned options worthy of presentation?

Your thoughts?

Fab would be easy and maybe cheapest but obvious. GP unit could be cut up and resized to Malibu specs to look more natural plus the boxed side rails could be bonus upgrade.

I dunno. Bill? Frank? Any takers?Fab front half (has LS already), patch up with GP donor, or hush and let involved parties worry about all that?    

[idrivejunk]

Well hot diggity, a frame may be available locally says boss. Excellent. I reckon the availability of new frames is helping the availability of old ones.  

[Crosley.In.AZ]

We bought some more cabinets for the kitchen here at the Destination trailer unit, our winter home.  We tried a couple of those open shelf setup. After 15 months, we decided to remove those shelves and add more cabinets in the tiny kitchen. Increase storage for more kitchen "stuff"

Now besides the windows and trimming those out.  I have cabinets to install.  Probably about 2 weeks? Like the movie "The Money Pit" ?     

This will increase the re-sale value of the place?

[enjenjo]

And say I have a 72 Grand Prix sinking into yard but cherry frame still, unbent.

The major difference on the frame will be the wheelbase. The Chevelle will be 112" wheelbase, and the GP is 116". A GP is a two door body on a four door frame. You can shorten it fairly easily. I had a buddy that built a GTO convertible on a Chevelle convertible frame and cowl. He clipped the body though the doors, but it still had the Chevelle dash. HE told the guy he sold it to that it was a Canadian Pontiac.

[idrivejunk]

Its not quite as simple as that. I overlaid frame charts. Did you know the 69 GP is a one year one car frame? It is boxed. Chevelles aren't.

[idrivejunk]

Here is the truck.

[idrivejunk]

enjenjo it was a Monte vs Chevelle I compared. Four door A bodies might be boxed down the sides, I don't know. Hollander is where I get the 69GP statement from. And yeah... I know... slight differences.

The A vs G body 69-72 length difference is in the front torque box or dogleg area, and in distance from there to engine crossmember. Both are longer on the Gs. I figured if a guy was to do a G front section on an A, he would have to trim off a smidge and use the A doglegs because they are differently shaped under the toe board. The amount of kickup is different and the spread between rails is as well. Neither by much. In addition, the amount of drop in the crossmember may differ. The crossmember and forward from there have a matching footprint however. That much of it looked promising but I could not determine if the horns were same. I imagine steering box location and mounting are swappy happy but who knows?

And of course my method of comparison is questionable. But it was obvious that the section between side rails and engine member is where the difference is. Me, I'm hoping the other stock frame deal comes through. It would take a half dozen pics to show just the frame damage. The stationary object made little contact with the body, its Bo Duke type damage fer shur.  

[kb426]

I watched an unused 427 SOHC engine sell for $140,000 on Bring a Trailer today. It had the original tag from Holman & Moody, the owner's manual and a H&M garage sale catalog from 1978 that I had never seen before with it. It had never been started and stored indoors since new. An engine collector purchased it. I'd like to see what else is in his collection.

[WZ JUNK]

I got a new computer. Much faster.  I like it.  We also found thousands of photos that I thought were lost forever.

Yesterday I straightened and polish a piece of aluminum trim for a customer.  I am not sure what it is for but it was something you can get and he was in a panic.  Aluminum is easy to move around but it stretches more than stainless.  I needed to shrink a couple of places but I was afraid to try it because the piece is so rare.  I will experiment sometime on a piece of scrap trim.

I am making the last fuel line this morning for the Holley fuel injection.  So all the fabricating and installation is complete.  I will go through the checklist and flush the system now.