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Sam has finally found some time to start working on his own car. Just bracing up the trunk hinges and filler panel before cutting out the old wheel tubs to make room for the ABC Performance mini-tubs. Step one toward running 335's.
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Very Cool Build! I really like the Drawing of the car with the monochromatic look!!!! How about blackout the window trim on the doors like the 1/4 glass?
Awesome to see the whole family involved!
Keep us updated!
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Progress is slow because we have too many projects and Sam is working full time now, but we always have something going on in the shop.
Once the tub was cut out he had to shove the Forgeline and 335 in just to see.
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While Sam worked on the new Holley EFI setup on mom's wagon, I put his frame on the chassis table to get ready to start the ABC Performance mini-tub kit. https://static1.pt-content.com/image...kr6kvmtw-1.jpg
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What ever happened to this car? Did you finish it? How about your mom’s wagon? Where did everybody go?
Inquiring minds want to know.
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Unfortunately over the last few years I haven’t been as active with the cars as I would have liked. After graduating high school I expected to have all the time in the world for the car hobby. Life had a different plan, between the military and well, military. Things seemed to really take off after I graduated and time was something I never seemed to have enough of. Last year I moved from my full time military job to the Indianapolis Fire Department, got married, and bought a house. While it was a crazy year, 2021 has brought along some new found time and some extra hands in the shop. Tackora and I are excited to share our new project to simply get us back to events. It’s another 67 Chevelle four door that we will run with stock paint and all. Don’t let that fool you, it will have an LS3 with a Holley TerminatorX, Ace Racing clutch, Bowler Performace TKX 5 speed, full Detroit Speed suspension, Baer brakes, Rick's tank, and a Dakota Digital VHX dash. The original car will still happen, think of this as a place holder. We have already made some progress, but there is much more to come.
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The floors had been patched previously, and they still had some rust. The decision was made to replace them entirely.
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Although the TKX offers much more room, while we were building a tunnel we decided to make sure we had plenty of room for a T56 if we ever choose to go that route.
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Looking good Sam!
Congratulations on the marriage.
I’m in for updates!
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Thanks for updating the build thread! I'm obviously following along...
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Progress continues. My wife Tackora and I have now had the Chevelle on a couple autocrosses and competed in the Optima USCA event at NCM Motorsports Park. I couldn't be happier with how the car is performing, but we will continue to make improvements. Currently, we are installing a Ridetech Tigercage. That started with replacing the factory rubber body mounts, as with most 50 year old cars that is easier said than done. The Tigercage is only offered for coupes, but we were confident that we could make it work. The only real issue is that the package tray is slightly further to the rear on a four door or a post car than on the coupe. That should be solved by making our own bars from the main hoop to the package tray. Hopefully this winter brings more upgrades.
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It was good to see you and Tackora last weekend! The crewcab is coming along nicely and looked good on track too!
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Saminator
Great to have you and your build going on here on the forum.
Glad your parents rock and are car people.
The 4 door is killer and hope to see you ripping around in your chevelle sometime in at LS Fest in bowling green.
Pro touring and all the car community is such a great bunch of people.
We have a local guy here in Little Rock that's been a drag racer, ran a track, a chaplain at the track and just now got inducted into the drag racer hall of fame. His name is Steve Hanes.
He owns The Speed Shop NLR arkansas.
He's 70 and still neck deep in the cars and his daughter drag races too.
Just cool fun people at every corner in the car scene.
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Nice updates, and love the patina on the car. Glad that you kept it.
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Great update. Where the heck are you finding these clean crew cabs?
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looks good Sam! love the picture with all the parts in front of the car :-) Life gets in the way of car stuff sometimes.....nice you are finding the time to get back at it.
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As always, a lot has happened since my last post. The first of which being a new chassis. We had this frame sitting around from my dad’s 66. It has already had the ABC Performance channeling and boxing kit added to it. It was under his Chevelle when he had a run in with a tire wall, but it has been straightened since then. I knew I wanted to convert to a true coilover on the front and switch the “borrowed” LS3 crate engine out for my own. I made the modifications, and had it sand blasted and re-powder coated. I cleaned and swapped all the suspension and engine parts over, and I rolled it back underneath the car. Little frustrations along the way but up to this point things were rolling along quite well. That was until I fired it up. I hesitate to even write about this out of embarrassment, but mistakes are made, and lessons are learned. During engine assembly I must have been sidetracked and I failed to install the new oil pickup O-ring. As soon as I started it, I saw the lack of oil pressure and shut it down. I fired once more with a mechanical gauge hoping that may have been the issue. It was not. I troubleshot, found the issue, and fixed it without pulling the whole motor hoping I had not already done catastrophic damage. I started one more time with decent oil pressure and started putting some miles on it.
My wife and I took the car to the Midwest Muscle Car Challenge event that the wonderful folks at Bowler Performance put on. It was an incredible weekend! Lots of old muscle cars getting more autocross laps than you could want. It really felt like the old days again. I was getting concerned as the weekend went on and the oil pressure continued to get lower. We kept enjoying the weekend, but I decided I’d pull the engine as soon as we got home and start the rebuild. A real gut punch having put the car back together days before.
I had the engine pull down to a science by this point, and it came out with ease. During the tear down I found I had spun all the main bearings and trashed the cam. With some effort I was able to track down new bearings and had another cam on the way. I had the car back on the road within a couple weeks. There are still plenty of upgrades coming and small issues to fix, but it sits in a decent place.
Progress has been slow recently, my wife and I had a baby, built a house and I have stayed pretty busy with my military commitments. None the less, the car should get out some this summer.
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Looking good my friend! Keep us posted.
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Congrats on hitting so many milestones! Great updates on the car too!