Budget Daily Driver Project "Heavy Metal"

[Brad1970]

Here is the start of my project. 1972 Pontiac LeMans Luxury. 400ci, TH400 tranny. Not the original tranny & motor from what I've been told by the previous owner. Body is fairly good shape, not a lot of rust & runs great. I bought the car from a guy in Kentucky who bought the car from a guy in my home town here in Arkansas. He had moved to Kentucky from AR 4 yrs ago... small world.

Anyway drove the car 9 hrs back home & not a problem.

Got the car in Nov. & started in the trunk with a wire wheel taking off the surface rust & a bit more. Discovered a hole in the wheel well/trunk line (common spot) & in the rear close to the spare tire tie down ( few smaller spots) where the trunk brace is.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I pulled most of the interior & my Father & I removed the rusted out passenger side floorboard & installed a patch. I've been wire wheel brushing the floorboards & what not, & using rust inhibitor paint over the cleaned areas, then using flat black on top of that.

Last week I ordered some of the suspenion pieces I wanted & got in some of it today. For the front I went with Savitske's SC&C Stage 2 Plus, nascar style ball joint (screw in), lightweight arms, with SPC lowering springs 550lb front, 135lb rear & Polygraphite bushings for front lower arms. In the rear I've ordered Spohn upper & lower adjustable arms with Del-Sphere joints & Vari shock single adjst. I'lll get those installed in the next week or so...

[Brad1970]

here are a few more shots

[Brad1970]

guess I can only add so many at a time???

[CruizinKev]

nice project - looks good!

upload your pics on photobucket and post the pics here look at the "How to post pics"-thread

[Brad1970]

hopefully these make it...

[Brad1970]

as you can see on my 1st pics, the stance of the car is BAD.... the springs on the front are totally sagging, shocks are bad bad off... so with more parts on the way I'll have it handling eleventy billion times better in a week or two...

Here are some shots of the patching of the passenger side...

[JeffT]

Ahhh, new parts are in. It's like Christmas in January!

[ProMav71]

I had a 72 Luxury Lemans in orange with side skirts. Wish I still had that car it was in great shape. Keep the pics coming!

[Brad1970]

Update... waiting on my Spohn rear upper & lowers to come in on Friday & the other half of my Vari shock order to come in on Tues. Hopefully over the weekend of the 13th I'll be able to get it all installed.... hope hope hope

[Brad1970]

My Spohn rear uppers & lowers came in last Friday & the last pair of Vari Shocks are on the UPS truck out for delivery as we speak... Hopefully we'll get all the suspension parts installed on the weekend of the 20th if the weather holds out...

I measured the SPC springs just for documenting sake just in case someone had questions about them in the future..

The Rear springs are double pig tailed (although I've been told they don't have to be) & are a variable rate (when I talked to Mark he told me the springs were linear, but maybe he was just talking about the fronts)...

Rear springs are about 13.75" uncompressed, 135lbs, variable (shown in the pics) I was told rear factory springs are 14"... SC&C says a 1" drop in the rear from factory stance. Front springs measure around 13" uncompressed, 550lbs, linear (shown in pics). Factory front springs I was told are 16". SC&C says 1.5" drop in the front from factory.

I was a little skeptical about the spring rates until I saw these 2 threads ... http://www.lateral-g.net/forums/show...lle+suspension

http://www.lateral-g.net/forums/showthread.php4?t=19847


Mark told me these were the spring rates to go with unless I was going to be doing road racing with the car only. Then I might need to consider going higher in spring rate. You want to get a spring rate on your car that doesn't over run your shocks abilities, otherwise it will ride horribly, not to mention handling.

I went with the Vari Shock single adj. as Bilstein HD's may have been too soft for my plans on how I would be driving the car from time to time.

http://i937.photobucket.com/albums/a...rts/spohn3.jpg

http://i937.photobucket.com/albums/a...rts/spohn2.jpg

http://i937.photobucket.com/albums/a...rts/spohn1.jpg

http://i937.photobucket.com/albums/a...Parts/SPC2.jpg


http://i937.photobucket.com/albums/a...Parts/SPC1.jpg