OK, so I was the *lucky* bastard who ended up with GandolfTheGrey's (previously MichaelT55's) 1972 V8 Car. Specs were as follows.
Engine:
-1962 Buick 215 Aluminum V8
-STD bore, 10.5-1 (stock) comp ratio
-Cyl heads-ported exhaust ports, 3 angle valve grind with hi-retainers-shaft rocker stands shortened .060"-pushrods shortened .125" for geometry correction.
-Camshaft-M-488 custom ground by Shadbolt engineering(Vancouver B.C.) C/W hydraulic lifters
-Spheroidal graphite iron crankshaft, 5 main journal center, thrust mains, .010" under -Rods ground .001"
-New rings
-Hi volume oil pump, Buick V8 filter housing
-Facet electric fuel pump-GM canister filter
-Offenhauser alum intake
-500 cfm Edelbrock carb C/W electric choke
-Buick distributor with Unilite conversion
-Kennedy engineered product #1000 Buick to Porsche adapter
-KEP 9" Flywheel, clutch and throw-out bearing
-Custon h.d. radiator w/ twin Spals
-Toyota Corolla heater

TRANSMISSION:
Custom built V8 side shift trans by Dr. Evil.
Custom ratios
1st gear lock out
Fresh rebuild, newly installed

BODY:
-Rayco FRP front fenders
-Mitcom 916 rear quarter panels
-P.B. Tweeks FRP flared rocker panels

ELECTRICAL:
-Hella H-4 Q.I. headlites
-Eurolens rear tail lites
-Tach converted to 8cyl
-Mechanical oil pressure and water temp
-Alpine CD
-Electric windows
-Updated blade style fuse blocks
SUSPENSION:
-H & H Carrera 19mm adj front sway bar
-Addco 16mm rear sway bar
-140# rear springs (100 stock)
-Stock front torsion bar
-Koni adj front and Koni H.D. rear shock absorbers
-BMW 320i front brake conversion
-Stock Porsche rear calipers
-All four calipers have stainless steel liners and completely rebuilt.
-Adj proportioning valve
-19mm 911 master cylinder
-All rotors have been crossdrilled
-All flex lines are braided stainless steel
-Pagio performance brake pads, all four wheels
-Carrol Shelby Mini-Europa wheels 7/15 front 8.5/15 rear
-Custom roll bar with rear chassis supportsClick to view attachment

Looks like a good car, right? Gandolf had recently redone the engine and trans and shift linkage and, in fact, it runs and drive really nicely. The trans works well also. After it took 3 weeks to get the car from MN, I was pretty excited, and I already had a full 5-lug conversion ,sway away axles, 17" Fuchs, new tires, konis, Boxter brakes from Rich Johnson, etc sitting in piles waiting for the car.

Car arrived late Wednesday and I drove it, cleaned it up and parked it in the garage. Yesterday afternoon, this happened:

I yanked the rockers and my heart started to sink a little. I NEVER buy old cars without looking at them first...I made an exception in this case and it bit me in the ass. In Gandolf (steven)s defense, he did nothing except the mechanicals on the car when he had it and barely drove it. BUT, the rust is pretty ugly.

Hell hole is good (probably because the car was converted in 1984 and the battery moved to the front trunk). BUT the long is hammered, as is the passenger jack point. The inner long is surprisingly OK. Front of passenger footwell is separating. Pedal box has some rust, drivers inner fender and master area have been repaired from an accident, I imagine. Drivers tub is pushed up some, but not wrinkled. Passenger rocker area was poorly repaired with fiberglass and was holding water. I found standing water under the floor mats and seats. Passenger quarter is separating from the sail panel (fixable)

Also, the front fenders are molded into the cowl, so they have to be cut out. I have QRS GT flares and front end to install in the car, so that is on the list also.

Its a good running car with some nice parts, but its kind of a mess compared to the 73 I just restored.

Wiring was a mess, power windows only sort of worked. Extra gauges were old school and one of them was arcing on the subwoofer installation..Arggg...

Anyway, teardown happened in one night, so today I get started on installing Brad's Long kit, the gt chassis reinforcement and a bunch of patch panels.Click to view attachment Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

More picsClick to view attachment Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

and some more

No problem zip tying the battery cables to the rear swaybar, right?? It should be ok.. Click to view attachment Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

So, yeah...going to be doing a lot of this for the next few days. I hope to get the longs in by tomorrow so that I can support it there and yank the front and rear suspension to bring down to the 914 swap meet in san jose on sunday

Wish me luckClick to view attachmentClick to view attachment

Bummer

Bummer indeed.
At least it looks like you have the skills to make it right again.

Ouch....using the speaker to pick up the metal scraps?

Bummer about the rust.

The car is going to look so much better when you swap out the front fenders and those wheels. At least you can drive it and enjoy it during the process.


Matt

Yeah, definitely a bummer, but stuff happens.

My wife (who is less than thrilled with the multiplying teeners) was like "so can you fix it?"
Me: "of course honey, no problem...I just didn't WANT to fix it..."

I just have to keep telling myself that its nothing compared to chopping the top on a 50 chevy or half of the other work I have done on custom 50's cars...Everything is small and easy..yeah...that's the ticket..

.........and I had this one on the "watch" list on Ebay. MI seemed like a long way from CA so I did not bid...even though the price seemed right.....right? WRONG! Looking forward to the "fix"!

Dude, don't lose the magic speaker that goes behind the jacking point to keep everything in tune.

Day 2 saw the removal of the rear right suspension, complete with a broke off trailing arm console bolt...HOORAY! I soaked them for 2 days. 2 came out like butter. One rotated half a turn and snapped...Should be fun to remove.

It also appears that the long has been patched full length at some point in its history. Metal is good, and its gas welded with a goldish metal that is hard as hell. Not sure what it is, but I am guessing the welds aren't factory. The longs look nothing like the ones on my 73. I had to make spacer pieces to weld to the long to get the Mayeur kit to but up to and be able to plug weld. No biggie, but one more thing to deal with..

Hoping to get out today around 10am and put some more hours into it.Click to view attachment Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

Holes were added so I could spray Ospho in there all over...Click to view attachment Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

Super cool. Dig the pup too! Let me know if you need any spare parts. I think I have an extra pair of CFR dog ear plates.

Rob, I may just take those off your hands. Bring them if you are heading to Harrys on Sunday. I definitely want to check your rides out also.

I too was following the car on ebay; not to buy, as I have my 914 fix, but because I thought it was a smoking deal with the mechanicals, and couldn't believe the low selling price! Given all the metal work, i feel better about the price now. I also had the same thought about having to R&R the front fenders for a stock look. It will be a cool ride when you are finished!

Days 3-5 were pretty exciting also.. Got the longs done on both sides, the front and rest of the rear suspension torn out. Found a bunch more rusty stuff

Also removed the toyota heater box and plumbing, pulled the battery cables so I can route them in (rather than under) the car, yanked a bunch of crap wiring and started to pull the fenders.

Damned fenders were molded to part of the original fender (very odd stuff) so they are going to be a beeeyatch to remove.

Got all my 911 CVs and Flanges thanks to some folks on here and got my Sway Away axles as well.

Turbo tie-rod kit is here.

Custom SpeedHut gauges ordered up as well (since I have to rewire stuff anyway..why not?)

More pics. New 17" Fachs and RE71R tires waiting to go on!

The BMW 320i calipers, struts and drilled rotors are for sale also. Make me an offerClick to view attachment Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

Those 17" Fuchs are nice!

Nice meeting you last week!

Thanks! You too man!

Nice work! The Brad Mayeur kit should stiffen it up quite a bit, especially if the longs were weak. Should feel great when you get it back on the road. You'll love the Speedhut gauges. Very easy to set up and use. What style did you get?

These right here. I know the Brad kit made a night and day difference on the 73, and that car wasnt as flimsy as this car was. I am doing the GT Reinforcement and trailing arm reinforcement also

Nice! Mine are very similar. White during the day, blue at night, black surrounds but the same font and layouts.

Cool. They have great reviews and the gps speedo makes life easy

What breed/kind of dog is that? He (she?) looks just like our dog, whom we got through a rescue league, so there was no history on our pooch.

Probably related! He came from big dog rescue and was expected to be 65+lbs of deer hound mix. .he's 42lbs of wire haired asshole. Loves us and great with my 3yr old but is hit or mostly miss with strangers and other dogs

Keep up the pace Erik. Nice work and ditto on the Fuchs wheels. I love 'em on GTs.

No updates for a while, sorry. I did get the interior torn down, hood off, fuel tank off and started tearing down the trailing arms for reinforcement and powdercoating.

Rich Johnson has been working away at the suspension and brake components and they are being shipped. I managed to sell the 73, so I can order up the fuel injection for the motor, so that will be fun. I pulled out all the HVAC components and will be filling the fresh air vent slots in the cowl as well as the washer nozzle holes.

Erik,
Cool work bringing the longs back in shape, you are quick with the repairs. Nice looking weld, that shows years of practice.

Dave

Thanks Dave. I am actually disappointed in those welds. My welder gas solenoid was getting funky and there wasn't much shielding gas getting to the weld, so they are a little porous. That's being fixed now before I continue with the welding. I did get some other little stuff blown apart though!

I think I am going to rename the car the FML914..Every time I take something apart I find another marginal repair. The bottom of the fuel tank hold was rusty at some point and poorly fiberglassed over. I can fix it, of course, but geez.

The car was originally irish green. but the front portion of the car looks like it may have once been light blue before being painted irish green and then black. I just have to keep going and reweld/reinforce everything..arggg...

Got fuel lines out so I can run a fresh -6 to the back to support the EFI thats on order. Going to relocate the battery cables through the center tunnel also (instead of strapped to the coolant pipes under the car) Started thinning out the wiring harness of extraneous wires. Decided to eliminate the relay board entirely. Going to a one-wire alternator as well.

My project board was fairly well crossed off, so it got wiped and re-written with a new list of excitement...

YIKES! Imagine if the insulation rubbed through those...probably nothing but could be...

You're doing it right Erik. When you find a few weird things you have to go all the way down to square one and start fresh. There might have been a repair done if only one section was blue. It happens. As long as the tub is straight it's all good.

Yeah, when I got the truck of the transport and parked it in front of the house I looked at it and was like "what??" the cables were dragging on the ground because the zip tie broke! That's pretty much why it got immediately torn apart.

While your at it, you should just drop the 901 and go with a modern trans with a cable shift. Then you will actually have low enough engine rev's to travel 75MPH and get good gas mileage.


What's one more thing?

Yesterday I got the rear inner fenders cleaned and tacked in the gt kit. Also cut the front fenders off because I couldn't stand looking at them any more. I also got one trailing arm reinforcement pretty much done. Trying to finish the other one today so they can go to powder coat Monday.

More

Trailing arm

More pics from the weekend. Got the entire GT reinforcement kit welded in. Got the trailing arms boxed and ready to go to powder coat.

Had this on "watch" too..........and I'm happy you got it since you've got MAD motivation to get it right....WOW......keep going!

Is the white GT front fender replacement fiberglass?

Yes. From QRS

My my my thats a lot of welding!!

Yeah. They seem like small parts..but it adds up. Took probably 12 hours all told of actual trigger pulling and tapping around. My neck is gonna be sore for a while!

Final color stays black?

Probably. It was originally irish green, which I dig. But I like the blacked out look, so I am gong to do all the trim black as well. I may change my mind, but who knows.

I just ordered up the MSD Atomic EFI, ProBillet Dizzy and 6A controller for full EFI excitement. Pricey stuff, but it works really well and should be flawless at altitude and at the track. Should pick up some good low end torque also

Sweet about the EFI. I want to hear how it goes, as I was looking at that for my previous V8 conversion.

I decided that the old, hammered relay board and associated wiring had to go. The Buick actually had a Porsche alternator on it (anybody need one?) so I am going to a custom case, lightweight, 1-wire alternator that Dean's Electric is building for me. Since most of the relay board that I would have been using is pass through wiring anyway, I will solder everything up. Fuel pump will be right by the fuel tank and I can use the Atomic EFI to manage power to it. I found 3 broken wires in the main harness, two of which were for rear lights, so I am glad I took the time to do this.

Now that takes patience!