Discussion Forum - Northstar Chevelle Club

If it's reliable, airfare to Vegas is dirt cheap. Fly in, drive it home...

Karl just brought home an elky with four speed pedals and transmission hump that would fit right in that thing.

Rear end option 

https://gbodyforum.com/threads/8-8-in-a-g-body-pretty-much-step-by-step-enjoy.17317/ 

To take up where I left off:

My grandson and I drove the car a few hundred miles, and put it in storage a couple of winters while I thought about plans and worked on my ’64. Plans turned out to be more than I originally thought.
My dash was the standard “idiot light” one. Since I didn’t want to stick a gauge pod under the dash, I bought a complete Monte Carlo SS dash. I bought a dash cap and slipped it in place. And took it off and trimmed and sanded and heated and molded for hours to get it to fit. When I glued it on, I used just about every clamp I own, along with countless zip-ties, and got it to fit pretty well. For some reason, GM changed the pins between lights and gauges, so I had to move a bunch of wires in the connector. While I was doing all that, I cleaned and painted everything. The dash had been cut to install a radio, so I had to replace some metal. I think it is done now.

A member of this group wanted the transmission, so he came over and we had a good time pulling the engine and trans together. When we got it out, he discovered it wasn’t the one he wanted. I took the brackets and accessories off, sent the rest to the scrapyard, and cleaned up all the trans fluid we had spilled.

Since I wasn’t getting around very well, I put a stool in front of the car and started disassembling, cleaning, and repairing damage. The header panel was pretty nice, but had a few cracks, so out came the die grinder and JB Weld. I coiled up the wiring and cables, and tied them out of the way. Pretty soon the fenders were off, and the inner panels cleaned. I cleaned and painted the frame and firewall. I found cracks in the A/C housing, which I fixed. I used a lot of JB-Weld

These are not bad looking cars except the bumpers and door handles. I bought fiberglass bumpers that match the fenders. They only come with mounts on the ends, so I will have to build structure under it. This is from the internet since I forgot to take pictures of mine. About all I can do with the door handles is sand them down so they don’t stick out so far. Enough of the mechanism is pot metal that it would take someone much more skilled than I am to re-make them.

I rebuilt the front suspension using S-10 Blazer spindles and brakes. I cleaned up the rear suspension and installed an 8.5” 3.70:1 posi from a Buick National

The interior was a sickly green color, so I fixed or replaced all the plastic pieces and dyed them all black. I bought the seats from a Monte Carlo SS. They are a medium gray, so will go well with the rest of the interior. The rear seat frame and foam is slightly different than the Malibu, so I carefully removed the upholstery from the Monte seat and installed it on the Malibu foam. Fred said he can match the fabric and fix the tear.  This was a column-shift car. I had Vanz rebuild my column eliminating the neutral safety linkage and shift lever mount. I bought a charcoal carpet set.

I bought a used Monster Transmission 22 4R and lock-up torque convertor with a 2500 RPM stall speed.

I had an 87 350 short block including the roller cam set-up, and a set of Vortec heads. They are in getting machined.