67 Butternut Build

[sjaroslo]

Well, much time has passed and unfortunately I don't have as much to show for it as I would like! Amazingly, the plumbing STILL sits, waiting for me to get my act together, but I have found various other small projects to try to keep my mind off of the intimidation factor of the plumbing. In fact, I've even made some progress on that front, so all is not lost--I just can't seem to get out there to make a final push for a final design. More on plumbing perhaps later.

As I had mentioned earlier in the thread, everything was relatively rosy back in the July timeframe, with the expensive parts that I had ordered mostly through Prodigy rolling in--Wegner serpentine drive system, Rick's Tanks/vaporworx system (unfortunately, after a very lengthy delay waiting for the CTS-V pump to arrive before they shipped out the tank, they shipped the wrong tank--no corner notches as was ordered by Prodigy--but Hector was all over the mistake, had the correct tank out to me in a jiffy, and arranged for FedEx to pick up the other one), Vintage Air, and a bunch of Wilwood stuff--so it was the Wilwood stuff that I decided to tackle first.

I have another thread here https://www.pro-touring.com/showthre...iper-Alignment that delves into an issue or two that popped up during the front rotor install, and sorry for the duplication of some pix, but it has been rewarding if not a little frustrating, but I suspect that's how most builds go.

The truly crazy part is that, once I got up the nerve to say "OK, I'm going to tackle the front brakes installation!," I got out in to the garage, got all of my tools lined up, and did Step 1: Undo lug nuts and remove front wheels--except the wheels would not budge! I beat 'em and kicked 'em and rocked 'em and rolled 'em, and they were like on there with Super Glue or something... Anyway, one of the things that you learn when you have your car built in Florida is that everything that can, comes back with a fine glaze of surface rust on it.... Because the wheels had been riding directly on the hubs (no rotors in place), they had developed a slight resistance fit due to the hub-centric design. A careful application of a stout screwdriver-as-prybar actually got the marriage to break up, and the very simplest of everything that I was going to be doing for that part of the project was finally accomplished! I hoped it would all be downhill from there, but maybe not so much.



So as not to bore the ones who have stayed here and not checked out the caliper alignment thread, the short story is, once the calipers were all bolted up nicely (and they are beautiful and the instructions are really good and the rotors are HUGE and weigh a ton), I was not happy with how the caliper centered over the rotor, but thanks to the suggestions of several Forum members, especially Jay at The GMR, we came to the conclusion that either Morrison doesn't include (or Prodigy had removed and forgotten to reinstall) the C6 bracket that holds the wheel anti-lock sensor. The thickness of that bracket was just the right amount that would re-align the caliper/rotor relationship perfectly. The parts were less than $10 each, and after some Dremel work, some ball joint work, some Torx head work, some Loctite work, I was able to get everything back to the state that it SHOULD have been in the first place and those disc brake pads slid in like a hot knife through butter! Of course, if I had known at the time, this would have ALSO been a great time to have replaced the front wheel studs--but that is fodder for yet another of my ridiculous threads: https://www.pro-touring.com/showthre...Nut-Pipe-Dream

Although it was logical to begin on the front brakes, it was also practical, because the major parts that I was still waiting for from Prodigy were my rear calipers and a few smaller brake-related parts. Unfortunately, this is where the phone calls and e-mails stopped even being acknowledged, and I am out the $600+ that it took to source them from Summit, which pisses me off more than just about anything that has happened with my relationship with Frank. It especially stings after I stick my neck out to publicly endorse him in this forum and end up, in essence, with him having stolen that money from me. As I said earlier, in no way does any of this take away from the beautiful car that the shop bolted together for me, but my ringing endorsement earlier on just feels pretty embarrassing these days. I hope that something changes and that there is a future for Prodigy but for right now, they are on my sheit list.

BUT, once I put the anger behind me, I ordered up my parts and actually, am right in the middle of working on the rear rotor/caliper installation as I type. In taking apart the rear brakes, I found that I wasn't particularly impressed with the safety-wiring that the shop had done on the rear rotors/hubs, so I took them all apart, re-torqued the bolts, and re-safety wired. I also picked up a replacement caliper mounting kit and shims, because I want to re-do the work that the shop did there, as well. I am curious if they used Loctite on the mounting bolts, so I'll find out. If they did, I may abort my plan of re-doing it, unless I absolutely have to.

Let me post this up and then I'll start working on some pictures to go along with the narration...