1972 Vega Panel Express

[CDNL-78]

Pic #1 I had this little tray built for the bottom of the rad, placed in some rubber and used some Gorilla glue and a couple rivets so the bottom of the rad had some cushion under it. The used a couple of flat tex screws and mounted it.
Pic #2 Got the rad in place and side mounts in place that I built. Rad seems pretty solid how I have mounted it.
Pic #3 Pic just shows how much room I have in between the fan and rad.

My concerns now are the upper rad will have to be modified a bit and put a curve neck in place. Went hunting in town and have a couple hoses to try and see how things fit. If all else fails, the rad will come back out and get modified. I might have the same issue with the lower hose. Might get out to the garage today and size things up.

Hope the pictures all make some sort of sense to ya all.

[CDNL-78]

When the car was in limbo a few years back, the gauges were stolen off the cowl. When the bandits did this, they bent everything up. So what I did was had a small aluminum plate made and painted it flat black. I cut a few small pieces of rubber and placed them on the bottom side of the bracket and mounted it on the cowl to hide the mess. I still have one more gauge to mount, but need to work on getting power to the back of it as the wire pulled out. But it's spot is ready when I get it fixed up.

I think it looks pretty good where it was mounted, and easy to see.

Got the oil dipstick in placed now, the oil sending units all hooked up on the bottom side. Temperature sending units hooked up.

Got to get after getting the dash back in the car and the steering done. I have all the components for the steering in hand, just gotta get after it. Then get some engine wiring harness back in place.

I have been playing with the tranny cross member, I think its good to go now, I ordered another tranny mount this AM, so it will be here tomorrow. Then I can button up this part of the car tomorrow some time. I will grab some grade 8 nuts and bolts today for the finally cross member touch's.


Enjoy!!

[BJCHEV396]

Looken good Darcy!Keep the pics coming.

[CDNL-78]

I'm back with some more picture of the Vega build. Due to some time off at work and the help of a good buddy we have made a fair amount of progress.

#1 I had to modify the K-frame and finally got it fit into place now. Them pesky headers where in the way as usual!!
#2 Fuel pumps all hooked up and wired up now.
#3 I'm going to run the battery out of the back of the car, so I bought a battery box and some battery cables and got everything run to where the spare tire once sat. So drilled a hole and put a grommet in place and ran the cable and sheath and then silicone it into place.
#4 The fuel line and battery cable running to the front of the car.
#5 Same as last picture.
#6 I had to get the radiator slightly modified at a local rad shop, and now have it in and hooked up. The hose's were a bit of a challenge as I went to a local automotive store and started picking and choosing hoses then brought them home until I found something that was suitable and cut it down to fit into place. I think I bought a total of 7 hoses before I found the right ones to fit the bill.
#7 Top rad hose, same as above.
#8 Battery cable coming through to the spare tires old home.
#9 With the help of my buddy, we got the dash all hooked up and back into place. Then we got the carpet into place and cut it as needed. Got the sill plates back in, and got the shifter and mini-console back in. This things starting to actually look like a car inside again!! The seat belt..... The last owner just cut the old seat belt bolts out and left us nothing to work with. So we ended up drilling them out and then a re-tap of the existing holes and got the seat belts installed finally. This wasn't a fun job....
#10 More interior..
#11 The mini-console, it worked out that we ran the shifter cable up threw the old e-brake hole and it worked out perfect. What are the chances of that happening....
#11 Tranny cooler, we ended up adding some tabs to the existing support you see and mounted it. The grill actually fit back into place when we were done.

[CDNL-78]

So we have gained leaps and bound on the vega in the last couple weeks, I have now taken the car to a local gent to get the pitman arm and the rest of the steering dealt with. Well he's got the car he will button up the exhaust, install the electric cut out, and the old mufflers off my L78 Nova. We will also get some back suspension worked completed before it is driven on the roads. I'm thinking the car should be running by the end of the week with any luck!!

This thing should rock when done, dam, I can't wait to here this thing run again with the headers wide open and at full throttle.....

More to come soon, stay tuned......

[whitetop]

Darcy..noticed the car is a GT or it at least has GT emblems and clear front park lens.. The dash you bought is a standard Vega Non GT dash..the wiring is different because they used different gauges..just wanted to give you a heads up.

You can buy blue fabric dye and dye the seats where they were faded out on drivers side headrest.

[CDNL-78]

Whitetop,

The car is not a GT, just badge as one. The badging is also in the wrong spot. So the dash is correct for the car. I also have the proper amber front signal light lense in the car now. Thanks for the heads up though.

The wife has indicated the interior will not be changed, but it can be freshened up. I will see what I can come up with for a proper dye match for the front buckets.

Thanks again for your input.

[CDNL-78]

Well, as Joel use to do when building BB Vegas, we have bent down the pitman arm and got our clearance from the bottom of the oil pan and the car now steers. The car was fired yesterday and sounds great. What we did was when the Nova had the exhaust taken off, we modified it to fit in the vega, electric cut outs and all. So it has 2 1/2" in place. Sound pretty good. Drove the car home last night to discover it had a bad tranny leak from the kick down cable, but have since fixed that today. Went for another test drive this afternoon, and other then a minor leak from the tranny pan where the shifter cable is, and a small one by the remote oil filter, it pretty darn good. Hope to get it to the alignment shop tomorrow so it steers a bit better. I will get some pictures and a video up in the next few days of our progress. Just the smallest tweak of the throttle in 1st or 2nd gear and its going side ways...... what a rush.

[img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/[/img]

[Xplantdad]

Cool stuff Darcy! [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/beers.gif[/img]

[BJCHEV396]

X2!