1971 2 Door, L16 --> 2.1 Long Rod --> CA18DET

[Canadian510]

The site i use to host my pictures since photobucket went crazy (vgy.me) dropped their servers over the past few days and while being fixed caused google chrome to block the site. After a few fixes i can see my pictures again, just want to check if everyone else can haha (google chrome users may still be blocked but others should be fine)

[Byron510]

Photos are all good on my PC...

Keep up the good work and posts.

Byron

[Three B's Racing]

Did some rough engine bay work tonight with the drill and a sanding disk. Going to give the entire bay a pass with it before moving to some finer stuff by hand. Then can go about filling unwanted holes and smoothing everything out

Don't forget about your upper and lower unibody channels. Being out of sight, they typically are out of mind then they rust. I did all mine including inside the front and rear crossmembers, rear swing arms, from lower control arms when I was using them and all rocker panels and rear lower 1/4 panels plus a few other areas.

Definitely giving them a going over too. Did the whole rear about a year ago so it's time for the front to get some love while it's easy to get at.

Awesome!!

[MarkReidHRC]

Yep, I see them. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t see them a few days ago.

[Canadian510]

Going to try and kick this into high gear, first car show in my area is 70 days away and it's a big one! Car probably won't be running but pretty sure I can get the bay painted and the VE sitting in the bay looking pretty by then.

Got most of the bay sanded with the disc, just need to hit the rad support and a few smaller areas before starting by hand. Looking into paint and wondering if anyone has a good place/site in Canada they've ordered paint from in the past?

Also ordered my bearings finally, ACL Race standard size crank and rod for now. Going to check when they get here and maybe mix and match one standard and one plus size depending on how everything measures out.

Also grabbed another project car, a 1991 Mazda Rx7 for $200 (yes $200) with no engine/ trans or rocker panels haha. Welded tons of scrap sheets but never anything on an actual car so figured worst case it's welding practice best case another car. Turns out it's not too bad and have already welded some new metal in.

Anyway on to some pics!

Current engine bay



And the rx7, no idea what I'm going to do with it yet

[icehouse]

A wire wheel on the drill will work way better. Harbor Freight has packs of them for like 6 bucks. I buy 5 or 6 packs and it does an engine bay.

[Canadian510]

A wire wheel on the drill will work way better. Harbor Freight has packs of them for like 6 bucks. I buy 5 or 6 packs and it does an engine bay.

Yeah I evantually went to a wire wheel on the grinder, it was way better than the sanding disks haha

[icehouse]

I like the wire wheels the best on the drill. If you use the grinder wire wheel when the wires fling off they can stab into your skin really deep I've found.

[Canadian510]

I like the wire wheels the best on the drill. If you use the grinder wire wheel when the wires fling off they can stab into your skin really deep I've found.

Yeah I found that out the hard way haha

[Canadian510]

With this show coming up I doubt I'll get everything done to the point of driving the car but want a semi complete engine at least in the bay. The game plan is to finish up and paint the bay, get the bottom end put together on the VE, and at least have the head bolted to the block with ITBs and a header attached.

Speaking of ITBs came across these



They're the only ones I can find that are built for the VE and a bolt on solution so may go that route, doesn't hurt that they're gorgeous.

And for the header route the new McKinney Motorsports De/Ve header has definitely caught my eye

[Canadian510]

The progress keeps on coming, ordered one of the McKinney headers the other day and glad I did this early. They estimated a 6 week wait before it'll even be shipped out, cutting it close if it'll be here on time.

Also started skim coating/blocking the bay, and have reconfirmed my hate for body work.



Could rebuild engines or work on anything else all day but body work just aggravates the hell out of me, at least I have a good friend who is amazing at it to give me pointers and laugh at my mistakes lol.

Picked up the paint/primer/clear on Friday, a guy I work with gets everything at cost from a local shop supplier so paid half of what I was expecting there. Still have weeks of work left sanding the bay but everything has to be mixed before spraying so shouldn't go bad, and gives me a bit of an incentive to finish up everything.

In non body work news thinking I may grab some other t3 suspension pieces to finish up the front and replace some bad bushings at the same time. Also looking to refresh the steering box while it's out, checked the fluid in it and the metal shims under the cap were chewed all to hell, hopefully can actually get parts for it.

[Byron510]

I’m with you on the ‘body work sucks’ department. I’ll only do my own! And even though I bought a bunch of fancy tools (and I went back to finishing by hand anyways), it still sucks!

So I totally feel for you and your look in the photo.

But the photo revealed one other thing. Are you going to take the indent in the pass inner fender out where hat battery sat? Just wondered because you’re there and the body work isn’t totally done yet....

The TBs above look pretty cool by the way. High bling factor. Same goes for the header.

Byron

[icehouse]

Like Byron said, take out that battery tray dent. Frank was doing doughnuts at full lock, it heated up his paint and popped it off, the battery tray dent is just far enough where depending on ride height the tire can hit it.

[Canadian510]

Like Byron said, take out that battery tray dent. Frank was doing doughnuts at full lock, it heated up his paint and popped it off, the battery tray dent is just far enough where depending on ride height the tire can hit it.

Wasn't going to but that definitely swayed me Haha, guess there's no better time to do it then now.

[icehouse]

Like Byron said, take out that battery tray dent. Frank was doing doughnuts at full lock, it heated up his paint and popped it off, the battery tray dent is just far enough where depending on ride height the tire can hit it.

Wasn't going to but that definitely swayed me Haha, guess there's no better time to do it then now.

Yep, best time is now. I do them all after seeing what it did to his car. Anyone who knows Frank knows he overdoes everything so the chances of anyone else doing enough doughnuts is slim but I don't want to risk it.