curtis73's 67 LeMans build thread.

We'll talk when the replacement ones show up. Damn 17x10 wheels make everything harder.

mbruneaux wrote:

curtis73 wrote: Took it around the block today for its first drive with mom and dad!

Beautiful

It looks happy in that picture. I'm glad you bought it, Curtis.

Did the DMV thing today, new tags, title in the mail, registration. Neat part about it was AAA's computers were down so they had to do it old-school. That means I got an actual Pink Slip for it. That's getting framed.

Stacked headlight cars always get me. I love it.

Hey Curtis, hope you're subscribed to this thread, because I need a favor:

Put your hand through the hole in the dash where the radio used to be and feel around a bit. See if you can come up with the opener for my garage door. It should be in there somewhere. If it is, would you please mail it home to me?

The new Concert Coach would like to learn how to open its own garage door. Thanks!

crankwalk wrote: Stacked headlight cars always get me. I love it.

and the winner in this category.......

Latest update:

Got insurance on it. No classic or agreed value, just good old fashioned daily driver insurance. I also got a new vacuum booster and 1-1/8" master cylinder and an adjustable prop valve. Once I get that in, the next order of business is wheels and tires. No matter how much I drive around, these tires are just badly flat-spotted and they don't want to relax. While I'm at it, I will do a front disc conversion with the LS1 F-body bits

Another thing on the list is swapping out the gasoline. I assumed it was mostly empty, but it is in fact pretty full of decade-old gas. It runs great at idle and cruise, but the slightest touch of the accelerator kills it unless you pump it as you go. Ignition is tip-top and carb is (or at least should be) spot on, so the old fuel is the big smoking gun.

I'm also going to replace the water pump. I think its pumping fine, but its leaking pretty heavily with the dried up seals and gaskets. Since it is coming off to do seals and gaskets, no point in putting on the old one when I found a reman for $30.

Now if the weather would just cooperate. I'm not too keen on working in the garage when its single-digits.

Supposedly my new uppers will behere this week. You still game?

Tell me more about em.

Stock style rreplacement tube uppers. Was easily able to get -.5 & +5 caster befire running out of room with my wheels. About 1k miles on them. Unknown manufacture, were new when I got them off craigslist. No ball joints, takes stock parts. Delrin bushings.

My alignment spexs were lowered ~3 inches up front.

Ive got roughly 75 in em.

Got some real work done on her today. I had ordered a new master cylinder and power booster. For now I'm just going to upgrade to power and keep the drums until I move forward with the big upgrades. One of the front wheel cylinders was sticking so I replaced both of them. In the process I noticed some rusty hard lines so I'm ordering new ones.

In the process of doing that, I want to plumb in my adjustable prop valve so I spent some quality time with the plasma cutter making a bracket to hold it. I have one more line to bend for a pattern.

I'm having Classic Tube send me stainless brake lines, and instead of sending me stock MC lines, they'll fab up front lines based on the pieces I bend up and send in.

Dry fitting the booster, MC, and prop valve:

So nice to see all the progress I wasn't making.

Got the brakes all done. Drums rebuilt, booster and MC in place, adjustable prop valve adjusted. Took her for a nice ride this afternoon. Tomorrow I will get it inspected so its actually legal for road use, then I'll drive the whiz out of it to suss out any other issues to tackle, but so far it seems completely roadworthy. One thing to tackle soon will be tires. These have great tread but they're a bit flat-spotted and a decade old, but I won't rush.

Front suspension creaks pretty loudly but I don't care. Long term plans include a complete re-do of the front end, and all of the bushings and ball joints seem great. I think its actually the spring creaking.

curtis73 wrote: I'm also going to replace the water pump. I think its pumping fine, but its leaking pretty heavily with the dried up seals and gaskets. Since it is coming off to do seals and gaskets, no point in putting on the old one when I found a reman for $30.

Hopefully you went ahead and did this. if the pump impellor is steel instead of cast iron, you may find part/ most of it has dissolved if the car has sat for awhile.

You might want to shoot some grease in all the zerks, just to be sure

Finally got the upper control arms off. Still want them?

curtis, please rush on the tires. when i got my caddy it was on 12 year old great tread rubber that i could feel the flat spots on. a couple hundred miles in lost a belt (the entire tread split across, so all the belts?) wiped out a mint passenger fender on an otherwise near perfect untouched original car.

i might have some LS1 F body front bits sitting around

curtis73 wrote: Front suspension creaks pretty loudly but I don't care. Long term plans include a complete re-do of the front end, and all of the bushings and ball joints seem great. I think its actually the spring creaking.

Yeah, I think it is too. That appeared in the mid-'90s when I replaced the springs all round. It comes and goes but I never could figure out where it was coming from, and whanging the spring with a BFH while trying to flex the suspension didn't seem to cure it permanently.

dusterbd and patgizz, ping me on curtong at gmail. Interested.

patgizz, you're giving me an excuse to make another pilgrimage to Summit :)

I've been looking for some lightly used 14" tires to get me through until I step up to 17s but nearly all of them are teeny tiny... like 185/55-14s from a little econobox. Not many 235/70s out there these days.

Jerry From LA wrote:

curtis73 wrote: I'm also going to replace the water pump. I think its pumping fine, but its leaking pretty heavily with the dried up seals and gaskets. Since it is coming off to do seals and gaskets, no point in putting on the old one when I found a reman for $30.

Hopefully you went ahead and did this. if the pump impellor is steel instead of cast iron, you may find part/ most of it has dissolved if the car has sat for awhile.

Yes I did. The pump itself looked pretty good. The impeller was cast iron and looked great, but the seals and packing were toast. It peed a pretty good stream out the weep hole. New stat, hoses, pump, and a good flush.

Update. Its inspected and I'm driving it almost every day. The next pressing issues are tires, fuel gauge, and the off-idle sputter.

Otherwise, its a real conversation piece. I took it to the ice cream shop tonight and the crowd kinda migrated from the picnic tables to around my car

Booyah. Got my GTA rims all polished and painted and had some Kumho Ecsta AST 245/50-16s put on them.

Still chasing down a nasty bog. (dies at part throttle accel and decel) I have the carb sorted out. I'm going to drop in an HEI distributor to avoid the pitfall of throwing 20 different parts at a points system trying to chase it down.

I very much like the look!
Get the center caps if you can.

JohnRW1621 wrote: I very much like the look! Get the center caps if you can.

I found some center caps. I didn't find exactly what I wanted so I'm continuing the search. I can get NOS sets for $70, but they have a firebird or WS6 on them. I found some with the Pontiac emblem in them, but they were chrome and I'm not sure I want that.

You'll never guess where I got the idea to put GTAs on it... Wayne's World. Remember Rob Lowe's GTO in that movie? It had GTAs on it and I always thought that looked the most "right"

I don't usually like modern (25 year old!) wheels on old cars but, damn, those look great. Bonus points for the fact that they came off another Pontiac.