Cantedvalve

Lizard skin on. We masked off an inch from each flange, and layer down two coats. Is it factory? No. I do like how it looks though. Wednesday we’ll put down another layer of epoxy, and Friday color.

I welded in the two boomerang shaped pieces to the inner structure. I installed the quarters to make sure they were reasonably located.

So we have stuff done. Floor has been sanded and primed. Today we cut the marker light holes in the quarter panels. Talk about nerve wracking! Turned out well though. This is the passenger side. It had a 69 marker hole in it, and what I learned is that the bottom of that hole is the same height as the bottom of the 70 hole, so it helped line things up. The driver side was freehand and We got it after a couple of attempts. The quarter is sanded and ready for round 2 of primer, after which the lizard skin goes in, then more primer, and finally Grabber Blue.

Idler end has a welded stud that can point up OR down depending on how you install it. Not saying that is it, but worth a look.

Your center link upside down?

Tonight I worked on welding all of the inner structure together while Josh continued to strip EDP coating from the quarter panel. I got the inner structure welded to the wheel wells, and the rear seat support welded to the wheel wells and inner structure. Next is a pause on welding parts on so we can clean and prep and primer the whole thing.

Last night we did nothing on the car. I did help my daughter do front brakes on her car. I showed her on the driver side, and she did the passenger side.

Interior of the quarter panels. Sorry, I failed to specify that. It is sound deadener. Factory had it, and we are approximating a factory build, so we will put it in there. While im here, we also need to get the marker light holes cut before we do any of the spraying on the interior.

No pictures today. Started welding the filler panel to the rear seat support. Should finish today or tomorrow. The boy has been working on stripping the EDP from the inside of the passenger quarter. He is anxious to see color on the car! Once that is done, we will hit it with epoxy primer, then Lizard Skin, then epoxy primer again, and finally Grabber Blue. Now I’m getting anxious!

Earlier this week we did some more mock assembling to make sure we had things in the right places. We put the quarters and roof on to make sure the positioning of the rear filler panel was correct. I measured my Fastback at 31-5/16” down the middle. The car we are building measured at 31-7/16”. I think it is in the roof. I also measured the trunk diagonal to corners and it came out exactly the same as my car, so I am confident enough that everything is in the right place. I stripped the inside of the filler panel and brushed on some epoxy primer. I also stripped the upper seat support brackets, primered those, and drilled holes for the plug welds. I’m hoping tomorrow we can weld some of this stuff together.

Tonight was busy but necessary work of grinding down welds in the wheel wells and primering the bare metal. Nothing sexy.

Work continues. Wheel wells are welded in place.

Inner wheel wells are welded in. We put epoxy primer on all surfaces first, then cleaned the back metal off through the hold via a flattened drill bit in a die grinder. We also got paint! Single stage urethane Grabber Blue.

I am digging that Jack Daniels overflow tank!

Today was more of the same. Media blasting and primer on parts. We also let the parts bask in the sun. Tomorrow hopefully we assemble again and get ready to weld. Josh has been doing an awesome job with the primer. Parts are turning out very nice!

I also include a few pictures of our water and oil removal systems. I have what is essentially a transmission cooler on the compressor that takes the hot wet air and cools it off. You can’t touch the copper tubing going into it as it is way too hot, but the pipe coming out is quite cool. Ambient, maybe a touch more. Works well. There is a water and oil separator that takes out the condensed water before passing the air into the tank. Also, I have a desiccant dryer that uses 5lbs of desiccant beads. It is for spraying or blasting only.

I have good drugs! Between nerve pain blockers, steroids, and good old Tylenol, I’ve got most of the pain managed. Today the boy and I got back on the primering of parts. We got the outsides of the wheel wells, the insides of the cowl pods, and most of the torque boxes primered. In the driver side, I drilled the spot welds on the e-brake channel because I saw some sort of what looked like oil staining around the tabs where it was spot welded on. it showed up before and after sand blast, and didn’t evaporate, so I decided to separate it, clean it, primer it, and I’ll reassemble it later. Pics are of the mystery stains and the parts we primered. Need to finish up the other sides tomorrow.

Did the same exercise with the heads. Clearly no work needed.

So it’s been awful here lately. Between the crap weather of mid 30’s and rain/snow constantly for days, and the fact that I tweaked something in my neck that makes everything painful - sitting, standing, laying, thinking about any of the those three - there isn’t much getting done. I did take a moment to check out how much porting would be necessary on the intake we are using. For refresher it is a Edelbrock F351-2V intake - the predecessor to the Performer 2750. The original Boss 351 had an aluminum intake, so this was the closest we could get within economical reason. It’s used, as any F351 intake would be these days. Flanges all look good (although it will probably get cut due to decking the block). It needs cleaned up. I put the recommended Felpro 1240 intake gaskets on the flange, and found that the spacing of the ports was good enough, and that I would have a lot of cutting to do to match up to the heads we are using. The heads intake ports are 1.470x2.100. The gasket is 1.500x2.120. I don’t need them to match perfect, but closer will be better. I won’t be touching the heads, so it’s all in the intake.

Yesterday we didn’t do much. We reassembled the desiccant dryer and then powder coated the distributor housing. We are going for a cast look. It came out well. Intake will get the same treatment.

The holes on the firewall for the export brace dont line up with the holes in the cowl. They are off both in X and Y directions. The firewall is original. I replaced the section that the export brace bolts to, but I have the original piece still and it still lines up. The rest of the cowl fits great. Should I be surprised if I have to move the holes in the cowl to match the (original) firewall?

Tonight was spent rebuilding my desiccant filter that I had neglected. Last night I sang blasted the castings and painted them. Tonight I rebuilt the copper inner tube. I still need to clean and coat the new 2“ pipe that will be the new housing. the way mine works, is that the air comes in a 3/4 copper tube, makes a right turn in the copper tube, goes down to the bottom of the 2” black pipe, and then is forced up through the desiccant beads back to the top where it goes out the other side. I epoxied a screen inside the outlet to prevent beads from getting out. Some people just put it in the top and out the bottom, but that has the possibility of passing water out if you neglect the beads. Mine had probably 4” of water in the bottom, as the last time I changed it was in 2021 I also extracted a bolt from the distributor housing we will be using. It was stuck and I twisted the head off trying to unstick it. I welded a small sheet metal screw to it that I could put a wrench on, and I got it out. The heat from the weld probably did most of the work.

The last few days we have been prepping parts for primer. Drilling holes for plug welds and removing coatings from parts that wont be accessible once welded in (like the torque boxes and flanges on the wheel wells). Nothing sexy, just blocking and tackling. The weather here was beautiful for a week, which led us to getting a lot done. However, its back to London-type weather for the next two weeks. Fortunately we have enough to do that we will stay busy and not lose time, but damned if we dont want to shoot the primer and weld things together! We have some powder coating to do on parts that we will probably do just to keep the boy interested, but first I have to rebuild my neglected dessicant drier. We've overused it, and it filled with water (at least it was still taking it out of the air) and rusted the insides (black pipe). I have another section of black pipe that I can replace that part with, and I cleaned up and painted the bottom cap. I need to clean out the top T because I didnt build that part to be removeable. Maybe I can fix that issue and make it a screw in instead of sweated.

We spent the morning drilling holes and sanding flanges. We also put the firewall in the car to test fit again, and to see if I can install the torque boxes the way I want. We ran out of 3 inch sanding disks, but they should be here today. The lower cowl panel export brace holes aren’t quite lining up with the firewall. I didn’t play with it too much, but we may have to relocate them. Driver side of the firewall needs to come up 1/4” to meet the cowl flange

Some recent acquisitions. We were able to find a nicely restored original Hurst shifter. Reproduction rods and handle, but original levers and T-handle. Also just purchased an original 1969 gauge cluster with tach and 140mph speedometer. Not sure I’ve ever seen a 140mph speedo before. Will obviously need to trade the panel for a 1970, but the gauges will work.