Looks fantastic! Like others have said, can’t wait to see it done! Love the stinger hood! Bravo

Alright Goldfinger (dubbed you that 2 months ago today as a matter of fact)

Just perused to thread again to get my fix. Any updates on getting the car home or pics of the hood finished up and assembled on the front clip? I'm also imagining that you have dragged it home and are now ready to start cleaning up the engine bay and the underside of the floors etc?

Post updates when you can, and of course we'd love to see Miss Moneypenny with the car pictured at home.

Cheers :smirk:

As Mr. Bond once said, "There's a saying in England: Where there's smoke, there's fire." Couldn't be more accurate! Where do I start? I guess I can start by telling you that my friend (who is a professional detailer) and I probably spent 60 hours sanding and polishing The Prospector. After he was satisfied with the finish, yes he's pickier than I, we added three layers of SB3 Trinity ceramic coating. The result is just STUPID! It looks like the panels were stamped from Fort Knox's finest bullion.

Other than that I've been helping my dad with his 67 L78 Chevelle. He purchased the car a couple years ago. It is a spectacular car that scored 996/1000 at the 2010 MCACN where the restorer showed the car. The car has several other accolades but it was a trailer queen. Whoever assembled the engine did a pretty lousy job. I don't know who built it. This car has a pretty amazing history. It's had a bottom end noise since he got it and it's only gotten progressively worse. Pulled the motor and the #8 rod bearing was spun. Waiting for the crank to get polished and cut. Already had the line bore straightened out, as well as the rods. Was nice to see NOS TRW .030" over pistons in there. Trailer queens aren't my cup of tea, I need to drive them. The previous owner probably didn't even know there was anything wrong. The car is SPECTACULAR!!!!

Once we get that princess put back together and out of the shop I can rack up my junk and remove the front clip and sub frame. I haven't forgot... Pics will be on the way!!!

My painter painted the firewall after he jammed the car. This caused the black firewall paint to roll over the top instead of the gold roll over onto the black... Not the end of the world, I was able to polish the black off the top to better replicate the correct way.... Look at that Reflection....

Lookin’ good!

That paint looks a mile deep...and that hood is just killer. Very nice work guys!

As previously mentioned my free car time has been wrapped up with Dad's L78. All I can say is what a lousy build that WAS. I'm not sure who previously built this engine but upon tear down it was evident the job was very amateur. The crank was cut but not chamfered. The line bore was left alone but someone resized the rear main.... Needless to say the line bore was all out of wack and all the rods were out of round. Since we were this far, we wanted to make sure the heads were good too.... so we decided to send out the block and heads to Heath Hiebert (local Grand National boat racer) of Advanced Racing Engines in Riverside, CA. Great work. Great price. Most of the springs needed shimming from prior machine work to the seats. He corrected the line bore, replaced the cam bearings, honed the cylinders, did a valve job, and put new valve guide seals in the heads.

This car was strictly a show car, so I'm guessing the previous owner had on idea since he never really drove the car.

The 6223 crank was wasted after I spun the #8 bearing. The machine shop sold me one for dirt cheap and we had it cut .020" under on the mains and rod journals and polished it. The entire rotating assembly was balanced by Revco in Long Beach, CA. This guy, Gary, is amazing and very reasonable. He was able to resize the original dimpled rods too.

My friend and I reassembled it. New rings, new COMP 143 replica cam, new lifters, had the intake and water neck vapor honed (amazing process if you're unfamiliar), new Melling high volume oil pump etc... We broke in the cam, changed the oil and took it for a drive...

WOW!!! Amazing!! Engine is so smooth. Valvetrain nice and quiet. Great linear power, we installed the cam straight up. 16* initial timing, 38* total. Running it on Sunoco 110 leaded.... As I previously mentioned, we did see the motor had NOS TRW pistons.

Now... back to the Prospector

Please tell us more about the 67 L78..............

That's an entire story in it's own.... You can follow along here! Car has an awesome story. It's a remarkable car that now drives as good as it looks.

https://www.chevelles.com/threads/ebay-67-l78.385669/

Thank you - I recall the story about Curt now - sad as it is.

Agreed. He did an amazing job restoring this car and hunting down the protecto plate/engine block. That Chevelle is probably my favorite car...

So yesterday was fun! We removed the sub frame. :smile: As we all know this car is a low mileage unmolested early production car. The body mounts are in great shape! The tape for the rear body bushings was still intact!

I have dug up some things in this archeology experiment that differ from what I thought were correct.

Many things on the front suspension seem to have been painted black at the factory rather than "natural finish" such as the drag link, tie rod ends, spindles, and the steering knuckles, and pitman arm. The idler arm definitely looks like it is natural cast iron. I always thought these parts were left natural finish from the factory. I HIGHLY doubt these parts were painted black after the car was purchased new. Note the orange inspection paint on the drag link, pretty cool! The car retained all the factory bushings, control arms, riveted upper ball joints. Only thing that looked altered were the shocks. Figured everyone would like the condition of the ID tag on the one coil spring..

So my question to you all is would you refinish the black aforementioned parts in black, or would you do them in a natural cast finish? I am leaning toward the black because it seems like they left the factory that way. Either way, black parts will be powder coated....

A common question that we all ask of ourselves. Black, natural, or add some contrast with grey or phosphate color mixed in? Myself, I like a little contrast on the inners, outers, and sleeves. I leave the steering arms natural but have satin clear coated them to preserve the paint daubs once redone. Everyone has different views on this and ultimately is up to how you like things refinished and there is no right or wrong on a great car such as this.

I would however caution you on powder coating any parts that connect to other metal parts under stress. The powder will often crack and can then flake off when the joints are tightened back together. For that reason alone, I now paint all of the front steering and small suspension parts and only powder the frame, control arms, and sway bar. The rest is easy to media blast, prep and paint while the big stuff is off being coated. But that's just me...

Loving this car and trust it will turn out to look spectacular!

This car is beautiful. But I'm partial as I have a Gold Chevelle. Thought I'd share a gold interior 67 I used to have.

That interior is beautiful! I love the door panels on the deluxe interior. My car has gold standard, no pun intended haha, interior. Did yours have plastic or steel seat backs? Look like the later plastic ones in the picture, mine has the early steel ones.

Slowly but surely coming along. Last week I sent the subframe, control arms, engine mounts, cross member, inner fenders, core support and sway bar to a local powder coater. Very impressed with the results. Yesterday I sent them my leaf spring buckets, and bumper brackets.

I decided to use Rich, Enoch on this site, to replate much of my original hardware. Can't wait Rich!

FINALLY !! some new news and progress...:cool2:
I had all that stuff powdered on my '67 too and it really is a nice way to go.

Had a little fun getting dirty this weekend. As I've previously mentioned, the underside of this car is in very good shape. After a day of cleaning with Simple Green, Super Clean degreaser, and a steam cleaner I gotta say, WOW! I'm pretty proud of the condition of this car. These pictures don't do it justice. I need a plug for the right rear frame rail and the right rear 1/4 panel. Let me know if any of you have an original you want to sell. Also feel free to ask questions or ask for more detailed pictures. ...

very nice work. It's really satisfying to see this kind of transformation with just a little (well, actually a lot) of elbow grease.

Nice work! Wow is that ever clean.

Wow...that cleaned up real nice. Excellent work right there Chuck.

Thanks guys. Very happy with the condition, virtually untouched other than cleaned. Can't wait to get my original hardware back from Rich so I can catch up to the other bad ass Day 2 Camaro builds happening on this site!

Chuck reached out to me about 6 weeks ago to have his original hardware restored and I was thrilled to be included in his project. I am posting some of the before and after shots of the hardware so that you can see a bit of what we do.

NO KIDDING !! Opposite of what we have to work with up here in the rust belt. Usually, there IS no floor left to clean.

Rich, Enoch, did a great job on my hardware. He is very communicative and knowledgeable as I'm sure most of us can see based off what he sells on this site. As you can see in the picture of the assorted bags of hardware, he's more OCD than I am... but hey it makes putting the right bolts in the right holes easier. He is a valuable wealth of knowledge and I appreciate the time he took to organize everything for me, THANKS Rich!

We are making good progress on the subframe. My 15x4 Cragars required a 3/8" wheel spacer to clear the brake calipers. I am ordering 2" wheel studs so they lug nuts will have more meat to bite on to.

The coil springs are from Coil Springs Specialties in Kansas. The springs are the same height as my original small block springs but the coils are thicker, hopefully they work out all right.

The calipers are from Anthony S and had them rebuilt at Muskegon Caliper in Muskegon, Michigan. Very quick turn around there, they machined the cylinders, added stainless sleeves, and new pistons. The rotors are reproduction 2 piece units from Heartbeat City.

The shocks are generic Gabriel... I think:hmmm: which I painted with white VHT epoxy paint to replicate Hurst/Gabriel drag shocks.

My buddy was making fun of the dinky sway bar. I just pointed at the skinnies and said don't think we need to worry about this car winning any autocross events.... :grin:

Looking great!

Jason

Looks great! I have those longer lug nuts if you want them? Text me buddy

Thanks Russ! I had some spacers layin around for the last 15 years that I found and they fit perfectly! I'll keep you posted on the lugs :biggthumpup: You never fail to amaze.

This is the original steering box I cleaned up. Date 216th day of 1966. I didn't get it fully rebuilt as it is very tight. Original pitman arm is still very tight too so I just cleaned it up and sprayed it with Fast Cast.

Wow, very nice !!! All of it..:cool2:

Man...the car is sure coming along now, and the pace has really picked up quite a bit. Love how you've done up the front subframe! Your attention to detail is looking spot on to me Chas.

Keep at it buddy.

Thanks Graeme!

I had a couple hiccups. As previously mentioned, I bought my rear end from Moser back in December. Went to install the axles and noticed we had to machine the backing plate to fit the larger 35 spline axles, no problem my father in law has a lathe and made quick work of them. Then I went to install the axles and found them to very very tight, well actually they were bottoming out against the Wavetrac. I called Moser and they accessed the blue prints to my build... pretty neat they save those files. The guy on the phone determined the bearing retainers were pressed 1/4" off of what the plans call for causing the axles to bottom out. No problem, I sent them both axles and they corrected the issue and installed new bearings.

Another "issue" with the rear end is with the perches. The perches have 1/2" holes for the U bolts, which is great however the holes aren't exactly in the right spot. Looks like Moser drills the holes in the steel then puts them in a press to shape the perches. This results in the holes being too close to the edges of the perch, not in the center, which causes misalignment with the J bolts for the traction bars. I had to clearance the holes a bit to allow for proper J bolt alignment and jam nut installation.

You can see how the J bolts weren't sitting square...

I know these traction bars aren't real Lakewoods. I have a set a Lakewoods and I'm not thrilled with their condition. I believe these are Moroso (Competition Engineering) pieces but are very similar to the Lakewoods. I would like some real deal perfect condition competition J Bolt style Lakewoods but these were a fair price and they're in great shape!

We also got the subframe installed along with the front calipers after I sourced the correct hard lines for them. We also installed a new gas tank with the original tank straps. I painted them black and intentionally applied the paint thick with some runs as I understand they were originally dipped in black paint. I didn't realize the tank I ordered was stainless steel but I actually like it, I think it'll get a little duller as time goes on.

As usual, it's ALL looking great. I noticed in going back over the last few pages that your heater core looks questionable. Are you having it pressure tested and cleaned before install ?


The bolt holes off center in the perches was a GM thing. I ran into the same issue on an '80 Trans Am at work a couple months ago. I can't turn the upper nuts to adjust the tension of the bottom nuts without taking them out of the perch and guessing how much to move them down. Time consuming PITA and it's waiting to get on a drive on lift to tighten the spring ends and set the snubber height under full weight.

Good observation! The heater core is no good for me because I'm stuffing a Big Block in here. Oddly enough I think the heater core is dated October of 66 and the car was built in September so maybe it was a warranty replacement. It is a Harrison. I think it is leaking, I won't be using it, if someone wants it, it's theirs.

That all being said I have a new Big Block heater core, and a new engine compartment heater box. The original date coded blower motor works perfectly so I repainted it and soaked the cage in Evaporust then Boeshield to help prevent future rust. I restored the under dash heater box and haven't posted pictures yet. I am waiting for the new fire wall insulation pad to come before I reinstall it all.

I was a Moser dealer for 15 years. I know exactly what you are talking about with those spring perches. There are better quality perches, but when you buy the rear end from Moser you don't get a choice. Tom's Differentials sells a much better perch if you ever need a set for something else. The hole in the backing plate needs to be bored to 3.155 inches so that the bearing can pass through it.

Exactly, as it hasn’t bolt in axles with ford sized bearings. I opted for Timken bearings.

I just love this build. You guys are going to force me to follow suit!!

Tim

Thanks! It's been really fun. This car is a neat blend of restored but original floors and undercarriage.... Really looks cool underneath this car, well preserved!

Wow - great project, well done.