Youll be ready for a new career Glenn. Looks wonderful.
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63 Parisienne sport coupe (The Big GTO), black, maroon interior, 409 4 speed; former owner of a 59 El Camino, 63 Corvette SWC, 62 Chev Bel Air SC. 1963- Pontiac top selling car in Canada
Mahone Bay, NS Still not old enough to need an automatic
63 Parisienne sport coupe (The Big GTO), black, maroon interior, 409 4 speed; former owner of a 59 El Camino, 63 Corvette SWC, 62 Chev Bel Air SC. 1963- Pontiac top selling car in Canada
Mahone Bay, NS Still not old enough to need an automatic
Started to tackle the Drivers side rear wheel well, the inner was quite rough as you can see. I was able to fabricate a new piece in a few hours and bead rolled it to match the original design. Was also able to fit the repaired Passenger wheel well into place on the weekend and will leave it screwed in until we can finish fitting the floor to make sure it is all straight prior to finish welding them back in.
Sorry it's been over a year since my last post on this topic, life keeps getting in the way of making consistent progress on the car. The right rear wheel well is held in place with self-tapping screws so we will be able to make final fit adjustments easily when the centre pan and left wheel well are tacked in using the same method. Here are a few pics showing the condition of the left wheel well and progress thus far. You can see in the 1st pic why I wanted to use the wells from the parts car. The seams and vast majority of the metal are in grate shape.
The front edges are in rough shape but easily repaired.
Below is the inner well front edge repaired
Below is the outer well front edge repaired. He did it in one piece and I think he did a pretty good job of matching the factory contour
The left rear outer edge was rather rough but there was enough of the one on the main car that we were able to make a template
I couldn't find this one when I was doing the post but here is one showing a complete new inner lip. You can see we still need to repair the back edge where it connects to the trunk. I will do a separate post to cover the gas filler tube shield.
I thought I'd show this stuff in a separate post. I thought the shield for the gas filler neck was in good shape on the main car and wasn't kind in removing the one from the parts car. I got at it with the air chisel and it lost. Later when we got the other one off and blasted it we discovered it was toast as you will see. Luckily it's good enough for a template.
At this point I nearly cried and Blake didn't think a new one could be made. A little coaxing and weeks if not months of thought on his part and one day he decided to give it a go. Below he is shaping it with the planishing hammer and at times we used the shrinker and stretcher.
He ended up having to make 3 relief cuts to get the shape he needed, cut out the excess and welded it up.
Below is where we are now. It just needs to have the rest of the flange welded around and we'll take it to a shop to get the hole cut with the rolled edge so it isn't cutting the rubber.
Last post of the day, I promise. We know a guy who makes and bends lines for a living so had him come over and do the gas line, transmission and brake lines. I bought rolls of tubing from NAPA but the 3/8 gas line I need because of upgrading to a 4 BBL, wouldn't take the bends needed. The link was collapsing, just too thin. We went to his shop got some serious stainless steel pipe. It has the same ID dimensions as the NAPA stuff put the wall is twice as thick. I'll let the photos speak to the job he did. When you order 3/4 gas line it comes in 3 pieces. He did this is 2.
I need to get new clips to hold down the brake lines. I also want to thank DonSSDD for sending the routing for the 3/8 gas line, it tucks under the right front control arm and goes inside the tunnel on it's way to the gas tank. Gas line for 2BBL cars is 5/16, stays on the top side of the tunnel and fits into the same clips as the brake line.
This has now been cut to length and joined with a brass compression fitting.
It was tough finding rubber grommets where the line passes through the tunnel but I managed to find something that seems to work.
In this post I'll cover the finished version of the gas cover shield which has proven to be a real time eater to recreate but we're pleased with the results. We were unable to find someone who was able to cut and role the hole that the rubber ring gasket for the filler tube to pass through. Luckily we were able to cut out the one from the parts car and weld it into the new shield.
New shields for the body mount boxes came with the pan system I bought, see next photo
We are tacking the rear wheel wells and floor pans with sheet metal screws until we are satisfied how it all fits. We'll then remove the wheel wells and treat with POR-15 before final assembly. You'll get a better idea in the below photo.
I now have a rotisserie and we'll probably wait until we are able to mount the body to it before we paint the underside of the remaining floor pans. We'll have to treat the welded areas with POR-15 anyway so this makes the most sense. It will definitely speed up the process and probably be a better looking product when it's finished.
The trunk floor pan needs to be modified at the back end. Chevy and Pontiac are quite different. As you see below there wasn't much left but there was enough. Pontiac has a filler piece that goes between the taillight header and the trunk floor pan. It is the piece with all the holes from drilling spot welds. The filler wasn't good enough to be reused in either car so had to be made. Those photos are below.
Sorry these aren't turned correctly. The next photo will show what needs to be cut off. Essentially, it is most of what is behind the cross member. You'll see the seam and it becomes obvious. The filler piece is held on with visegrips so we know what has to go.
Below is the filler from the top side.
The next photo will show how much we cut off the tail end of the trunk pan. You can see the factory spot welds for main brace. The last photo shows we cut right up to the back edge of the brace.