The New Project: Part Deux!

[njsteve]

The NOS coil pack arrived yesterday. There is a slight difference in finish from the original which has a somewhat visible fiberglass grain texture and the slightly glossier NOS piece which is still dated from late 1971. So maybe the gloss gets worn away after the electrical heat from usage.

[markinnaples]

Nice finds, and awesome luck on that '72 distributor.

[StealthBird]

A couple years ago, a guy bought a remanufactured distributor from CarQuest for about $65, for his 70 GTO. He checked the numbers, and it was for a 1970 RAIV. He put it on E-Bay, and it sold for over $1,100.

Strange what you find at some of these auto parts stores. [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/wink.gif[/img]

[njsteve]

I got the 1112127 unitized distributor back from getting the advance curve set. I installed it today and the car started right up. It actually sounds like its running smoother than with the HEI. The HEI had an old set of wires so it's probably the new wires helping things out.





Unfortunately it is snowing outside at the moment so a test drive will have to wait a day or two...

[njsteve]

I've been playing at the Votech class and doing more cutting and welding. It's quite amazing what you can get done in three hours when you have a dropdead time to move it out of the shop and head home when the class is over. I spent one class cutting and trimming the bad section of the upper drop-off that mated up with the outer wheelhouse on the driver's side. The seam between the two panels was soft so I elected to cut the seam out so I had an easier area to weld from (inside the trunk), instead of trying to recreate the mated area underneath the car which is blocked by the frame rail.

Here's the before shot:



And after trimming:



I used the upper portion of the drop off and an extra leftover section of flange and welded them together to pre-form the mated seam between the trunkfloor and the drop off:





And here is how the replacement piece fits:

[njsteve]

The following week, I welded the replacement section in place and then grinded...a lot!



I also prepared the second replacement piece out of the aftermarket wheelhouse that I bought to serve as a donor supplier of repair sections. I also had to recreate a small section of the inner wheel house edge that the overlapping &quot;flap&quot; mates to. (All that crusty black stuff is old undercoating and will be scraped out of there soon).



And here it is after some minor body work and filler:



as compared to the opposite untouched side:

[K code Mustang]

Looks really nice Steve. Instead of you asking me for help with your car, I might be asking you for help with mine!

[njsteve]

Sure, if we can manage it in three hours, at the local high school, at night!

[img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/grin.gif[/img]

I am trying my best to get all the underbody stuff done myself, so when it comes time to paint, it is just topside stuff, only.

[njsteve]

Is there anyone out there (near me in NJ) who has the equipment to paint the correct spatter paint in my trunk? I dont want to do the spray can method and would much rather get the correct finish done, whether by paying for it or borrowing/renting the equipment.

[njsteve]

I finished up the bodywork and prep on the driver's side trunk drop-off. In order to reproduce the original heavy body shutz sound deadener I used a couple cans of spray-on bedliner instead of undercoating. It worked very well as long as you spray it from at least a foot away to allow it to hit the panel in a dryer state. You don't want to spray it on wet. It will look too smooth at a minimum and will all &quot;landslide&quot; off the panel if it is too wet.

Here is the original drop-off from my 1972 Trans Am that was built a week before the Formula at Norwood:



And the finished result:



It's a helluva lot better looking than the way it came: