the risky shortcut to jindabyne (FCCOOL Tidy up)

[fccool59]

Due to a upcoming real estate inspection I took a couple of days of work to get the car ready for turning over.
I also had rego due in the ford and spent half my time of looking for some tyres for it, turns out the ford has metric wheels, they are not 15 or 16" but 390mm.
the paint copped some runs and sags, I have to start setting up my gun better beffore mixing the paint, also some areas of the firewall got fry up's on a bare metal/ etch/high fill/ color job.

[fccool59]

inside I now have solid brackets for consul, shifter, acc pedal, and heater.

[fccool59]

oops, wrong pic.

[Glenn 'Stinky' Stankevicius]

You have my admiration for your persistance and passion. Here I am complaining about the mutant cement floor in the my garage that is flaking away!

[Martin]

Leon, you started with a rust bucket - now you've got the bucket.  Good it see it the right way up.

Haven't heard anything about the neighbours for a while - you obviously beat them into submission.

Keep plugging along.  I wish I had your body/welding skills.

Martin

[zulu]

Good on you Leon, good to see her right side up!

[fccool59]

I had a pretty lazy weekend, got my F%$d pink slipped finally after spending heaps of time last week trying to find tyres to fit metric rims, I gave in and put 15" Mt druitt mags (the ones they call chasers) on it to finally get rego after a week with no transport, still didn't make it though, rta shut 5 mins before I got there.
When I got home I looked at the job I had ahead of me on the FC, a totally rotted out dog leg area.
I ended up looking at it till it got dark and did nothing.
Today was a bit slow to, my gazebo blew over a few weeks ago and the kids attacked it while it was down, so now the sun becomes a little discouraging.
here are some pics to show what got done.
I sat one of the new seats (still waiting for me to buy a sewing machine) in the car, this makes the car seem near complete but there is still heaps to go.
obviuosly the inner sill area is going to have to be painted again, I new this would be the case before but there wasn't much I could do about it while the car was on it's side.

[fccool59]

some more

[fccool59]

And more, I forgot to put in the peice at the rear that goes between the inner sill and outer, this is going to be a pain to do now. also, check out the sill at the bottom of the back door, maybe a little to far forward. fortunataly due to some subtle custom changes happening in these areas it wont be too much of a problem to fix. The car will have minimal seems and joins showing to help give more of a sculptured look than a bunch of pressed steel panels joined together.

[fccool59]

how should I tackle these?

[fccool59]

not much progress due to mega heat and lots of tricky slow bits to make up that I havent been very motorvated to do.
Finally the engine is back from machinning after spending 5k wich also included some parts.
some things are a little different to how it was going to be done.
It ended up with a camtech cam  custom ground made to pull upto 6000 rpm with around 9 psi boost.
the block has been decked, O' ringed, tunnel bored, plugged and bored.
Head was cc'd, ported, new big stainless valves, double valve springs, yt series billet yella terra rockers, yella terra guide plates and ARP studs.
3.3 black crank was machined for a 179 and balanced and has a ARP main stud kit to hold it in.
pistons are ACL race series with extra machining to reduce CR and black rods wich are balanced, closed honed and shot peened with ARP bolts.
head gasket is a ACL race series copperhead copper gasket.
when I went to pick it up they still hadn't modified it to fit the black head to a red block, they said they had done alot of red heads to black blocks but not the other way around, we ended up with the red block holes tapped and plugged and some water holes drilled in further towards the bores, hope this is the rite way.
They recomended that I bring the motor back to fit the rings, dial in the cam and fit the head gasket, guess that will just about mean the lot, apparently it needs a 18 thou ring gap for each piston and I have no way to file the rings if need be.
scariest thing is that they said I should do 1000 k's around here on cheapo valvaline xld oil before I hit the freeway, if I get this ready in time for the nationals is there a back street route?

[COL58FE]

leon,
        i take my holden hat off to you x10 mate,is there any rust you can't fix i don't think so.good on ya,and i'am sooking over red lead and pin holes and a few dent's. if you don't get best effort trophy at the nat's i'll  stop restoring my fe. ;D ;D ;D.
                                                    cheer's col.

[fccool59]

these bits are a pain, fortunately this side isnt to bad and only needed minor surgery inside, making these patches to fit perfect I have to make them in a few peices, maybe a panel beater could do it in fewer peices but I am not a panel beater
I hope this is gonna work out alright.  
If they arent the right shape there will be ugly gaps showing.

[fccool59]

I had to stop and think here as just about all the pillars have rust, should I chop it?, however there would be a hell of a lot more involved in it than just cutting down the pillars.

[fccool59]

here she is in her current state, there couldn't be any thing more fun than being showered by sparks while rolling around in the mud in the stinking hot sun every sunday.

[fccool59]

here is a picture of the block now set up for the 12 port head,  see, it has extra water holes and the old ones are plugged.
O rings are also fitted too help keep in high pressure.

[fccool59]

here is a pic showing the chambers that have been cc'd to drop the compression.

[fccool59]

my new YT series rockers.

[fccool59]

today I started to patch up a pillar, I had thought about grinding the weld earlier in the day but by time I got to weld it I had drunk quite a bit of beer and made a big messy chunky weld rite were I couldnt get in with a grinder.
Does anyone know how you clean welds in spots like this?

[fccool59]

oops, here is the pic of the weld I cant get to with the grinder, its in the bottom corner of the windscreen.