Thanks napster. I modified the brackets and got it to 1/2" gap. That is as far as it would go. Yours look a little less than 1/2". I like it. I did some searches on the internet for photos and a lot of 70,s have a fairly large gap.

Its been a while but Im still at it. Ive had a few setbacks. The dash was one of them. The dash that was in the car was in really bad shape. I decided to try a plastic overlay (cap). I used one on a 67 GTO drag car I had and it came out really nice so I figured it was a cheap and easy way to go. I was wrong. I pulled the dash and glued and clamped the cap in place. I then reinstalled and wired up. Everything was going good until I went to put the glovebox door on. It wouldn't fit. No matter what. I tried using a heat gun to give it clearance to no avail. Had to pull the dash again. I found this vendor ABCmoparts.com that had a couple of recovered 70-72 dashes in stock. He gave me a deal on one that had the radio section cut out for a CD player. That was OK with me since I wanted a in dash CD player anyway.

That looks pretty good, how is it, good form and fit?


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The fit was not too bad. I had to do a little carving with an exacto knife to get everything to fit right.

Rear seat and door panels installed. These are the originals. I just cleaned them up and reinstalled. The front seats had some tears so I got new covers and sent them to the upholstery shop. That will be a few weeks so I am going to work on the motor now.

Wow, those are nice!

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Nice Bruce!

Who are you using for upholstery in the Valley? I have some seats coming up soon for recover...

:confused:

I took them to Bell Auto Upholstery on Deer Valley. They gave me a 4 week lead time. They were the cheapest I found. You might want to wait till mine are done and I will let you know how they turned out.

Here are pics of the shortblock. I used Butler Ross .030 pistons. The rods are RPM forged A beams.

Here are the finished heads. They have Ferrea valves with 1.77 exhaust. The exhaust flange was pretty gouged up from the steel shim gaskets. They had to remove .025 to make them flat again. This is why I never put steel shim gaskets in anything. The heat cycling causes the steel shim to act like a cheese grater. If seen several sets of Pontiac heads with the exhaust flange buggered up including round port heads.

Thanks Bruce. I used Bell about 8 years ago for the bench seats in my 72 GT. Been happy with their results, just didn't know if there was another good source. Always on the lookout. :thumbup:

And who did your shortblock work? Was that Zimmerman? I'm guessing Tibor did your heads, right? (he's done 3 sets for me to date)

Bud Yancer w/MACH Development did the machining on Shortblock and heads.

I bought an oil pump, one piece pan gasket, and a oil pan from Butler Performance. I brazed the pickup in place. Ive been doing that on motors Ive built for the last 40 years and never had one fail. I only go around a third of the way around the pickup so I don't overheat the pump body and warp it.

Heres the bad part. The oil pan is useless. The holes are so far off there is no way its going to fit. That is a factory timing cover so that is not the issue. Sent pic to Butler so I can get a refund on this junk.

Boy, that is disappointing. :mad: I'm sure Butler will make it right.

Thanks for the info on Bud with MACH. Always like to have other names of successful Pontiac engine machine shops here in the valley. :thumbup:

I have ceased working on the engine until I can get the oil pan issue resolved. In the mean time I restored the evaporator housing. I scrubbed it with soapy water to get the dirt off. I then wiped it down with lacquer thinner and then shot it with a flat clear.

That turned out great, Bruce. :thumbup:

Soapy water, lacquer thinner and flat clear is the magic, eh? I'm making a mental note. My 72 should be coming apart in the near future, in need of similar improvement.

:)

Butler gave me a refund for the oil pan. I ended up getting a Canton pan. In the mean time I finished the interior. Did I mention that I hate doing interiors? I used PHS seat covers and front door panels. The door panels were a poor fit. None of the holes lined up very good. The door window felts were a really bad fit. Large gaps. I saw someone else posted that they didn't fit right on their car. Next up is the motor. Finally I get to do something that's fun.

Motor is done and ready to drop in. I went with a Summit 2802 cam. Its mild enough for a car with A/C. The trans has been rebuilt with a Kilgore lower first gear set. With the 3.08 rear gear it should get out of the hole pretty good.

More fun with aftermarket parts. I went to put the motor in and it wouldn't seat all the way down on the frame mounts. We tried everything to get it to seat. Ended up pulling the motor out and measuring these new Torque Lok motor mounts. When measuring the distance between the tabs that seat over the frame mount the Torque Loks came in at 3.69". I measured some old stock motor mounts and they measured 3.79". That's a tenth of an inch too tight for the Torque Loks. Not sure what Im going to do now. Ugh.