72 TA : New Project

[Xplantdad]

Keep it up Steve...I enjoy reading about your tips and tricks...

[Dave Rifkin]

I love watching your progress; I love the second generation F-bodies. Your dedication and the results that you have gotten at home have been an ispiration to me and my '69 Corvette project.
I don't have the tools, skills or the room to tackle a job such as your T/A but it has inspired me to tackle the interior of my Corvette as well as a heater core replacement in the 'Vette.
I thought I was done with the heater core this afternoon when I noticed that I screwed up installing one of the foam gaskets. Under normal circumstances I would have said the hell with it and just left it as is but, I think I am going to order another seal kit and re-do it so it's done right.
I found myself asking myself "What would Steve or any of the other Yenko members do?" We all know that answer which is why I am ordering a new seal kit.

You guys all do great work and, although I doubt I will ever turn out the results that you do, I have been inspired to get my hands dirty and not accept half assed results.

[njsteve]

That's scary when someone wonders "What would NJSteve do?" Maybe I should get my own sign now?

I would probably figure out some way to dissolve the foam gasket into something 1/100th its size and then inject it into the area using a single tube Dunkin Donuts coffee stirrer (never use Starbucks, you risk a bad chemical reaction). Once installed I would then inject it with the replenisher agent to enlarge it back to its original size. Barring that ...I would take it apart again and put that stupid foam o-ring back on (BTW I have done that a couple time myself on A/C-equipped cars).

Good Luck with your project. I am happy to have the chance to entertain and enlighten.


BTW Part II: You don't really need that foam o-ring thingy that much. You could buy some 3M strip caulk and just feed a bunch of it into the gap around the heater core tube until you have sufficient amount on both sides to fill the space. The purpose of the foam is to keep out engine smells and moisture, and to keep the tube from rubbing against the metal of the firewall. You may want to try this instead of yanking the heater box out again and risking damaging the new heater core (been there, done that, too).

[Dave Rifkin]

Where I made the mistake was not the foam insulation around the heater core tubes; I actually got that right. Where I messed up was, there's a foam gasket that is supposed to go around the opening in the firewall ,from the inside, before the heater box is installed. That's how I installed this foam seal, only to find out after everything was all nicely routed and buttoned up, that there were instructions on the flip side of the paper I had been looking at.
Like a dope, I never realized that there were instructions with my heater core seal kit and just reviewed the pictures. It looked like the foam seal went on the firewall (engine side) before the blower motor assembly was installed.
I don't know how much of a big deal that is, I just figured you guys would probably take it apart and do it the right way.

[njsteve]

And here is the final pair all finished and awaiting the nose assembly to put it in.

[njsteve]

ENOCH sent me a couple more photos today of the block sanding progress. He has both doors done, (including the NOS skin on the driver's door), the hood and the trunklid. These were a couple of the in-process shots. More to come...

[njsteve]

I was doing some more finagling around with the car today, cleaning up the headlight buckets. While I was waiting for them to dry off I unbolted the trunk latch. I took some photos for documentation purposes. As you can see the trunk latch was installed when the car went into the giant primer dunk tank back at the Norwood plant in December 1972. You can see the red primer covered with traces of the exterior white overspray as well as the black and turquoise trunk spatter paint over that. It's interesting to see that the undersides of the mounting bolts have the primer on them as well. That e-coating did its job: it got everywhere.