Some thoughts on the recent video showing the impact of a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air vs. a 2009 Chevy Malibu. After getting into our 1959 Biscayne project, the outcome seems more believable! Safety has come a long way.
Is the climate windy and wet in your muslce car? While preparing our 1962 Galaxie 500 XL ragtop for a recent road trip, we noticed just how bad the car rattled. It turns out that all the window "fuzzies" were dried out, allowing the window glass to rattle in its tracks. All the car's window and door weatherstrip was deteriorated, too. This tech feature shows how to replace these items with new parts from Dearborn Classics.
We reassembled our restored front suspension with some new tricks to make our 1969 Pontiac Firebird "Routy" drive and handle better. First we replaced all the stock worn-out control arm bushings with some new Global West Del-A-Lum bushings for minimal deflection and smooth articulation. Then we replaced all the loose steering components with new parts from Classic Industries , including a new steering box, tie rod ends, center link, ball joints, idler arm, and pittman arm. Once we could put the wheels back on, we rolled the subframe under the body, aligned it, and bolted it up. Out back, we added some Del-A-Lum bushings to the Detroit Speed & Engineering 3" drop leaf springs and put the rear axle assembly back in the car. Classic Industries had more hard-to-find nuts and clips for the front leaf spring mounts. Now we can hang all the sheetmetal back on the car and start the panel alignment!
Our 1965 Chevelle project arrived in our shop with a front disc conversion, but we wanted the fade-free stopping power of 4-wheel disc brakes, so we added a rear disc brake kit from OPGI. This kit utilizes late-model GM calipers with integrated emergency brakes for a simple install, and it also comes with the matching combination valve and pre-bent hardlines and hoses.
Click on the link below, watch the video below of the Corvette making a chassis dyno pull at at Finish Line Performance and enter your guess of how much horsepower and torque the car made, and you could win a V8TV / Royal Purple Iron Man 2 Prize Package!
Register in this forum and enter your guess before May 31, 2010 to be eligible. The winners will have the closest guesses to both Horsepower and Torque, and will win a Royal Purple Iron Man 2 T-Shirt, a limited edition Iron Man 2 Comic Book, and a V8TV hat! That's right, WINNERS, as the 5 closest guessers will all win the prize package!
Today, Kelle and Nathan are working on the body shell of the
project 1959 Chevy Biscayne "Post Modern". The car has been completely disassembled and media blasted, and we sprayed a coat of DuPont DTM Epoxy Primer to keep it from flash rusting. This update shows some of the metal patches already made as well as the rough outline for the quarter panel repairs.
Here's the first set of photos from the teardown and media blast of our 1959 Chevrolet Biscayne "Post Modern." The metalwork has begun, and we've shot the entire body and parts in DuPont epoxy primer. We've got a long way to go on this one, but the ball is rolling!
After the metalwork was completed on the bottom side of our 1969 Pontiac Firebird "Routy", we applied some Eastwood
Epoxy Primer to the underside and inside of the body shell to prevent rust and to provide a base for the next steps. We then sealed all the seams with 3M Automix Heavy Bodied Seam Sealer (8308) using their pneumatic applicator. We like to mask off the seams with 3M tape, then apply the sealer, brush it smooth, and then peel the tape before the sealer hardens. The sealer ensures no moisture will creep between the panels and start to rust. Once sealed up, we scuffed the primer and applied several coats of Eastwood 2K Ceramic Chassis Black on the bottom and inside of the body. The 2K Ceramic Chassis Black looks like the factory black used on chassis parts, but is far more durable than regular paint.
Charley Lillard and Mark Stielow teamed up to build one of the most outstanding 1969 Camaros to date. Ride along in "Jackass," a 1969 Camaro powered by a 2009 Corvette ZR1 supercharged V8, stopped by ZR1 carbon ceramic brakes, and riding on the best suspension goodies from Detroit Speed, Art Morrison Engineering, Currie Enterprises, and more. Hang on tightly! Video from the 2009 Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational DVD .
We were doing a tune-up on a car over the weekend and the timing was so badly off that it had a little backfire. "Little" enough to destroy a muffler! This was actually pretty cool to see it come apart, but now you know why cheap mufflers are so cheap! This one blew out completely, throwing rust and carbon build-up all over the place.
