Here comes the Judge, my 69 GTO

The next thing was to install the new lower bracket for the coilover suspension, made sense to do that on the bench, needed to ensure that the bracket was mounted at 90 deg to the axle housing tube, I’m sure there is probably a clever tool to use for this, I don’t own one so improvised, this bracket uses the existing hole for the original lower shock mount & then requires you to drill a second hole to secure it properly.







Likewise the new upper bracket mounts to the existing upper shock mounting holes & require a 3rd hole to be drilled to secure it in place





I installed the new replacement upper control arm



The new replacement lower control arm



Also the new triangulation brace that ties the upper & lower control arm mounting points to each other



With all of these installed & hanging it was time to slide the diff under again

Then it was time to mount the new handbrake (or E-brake given this is a US car) backing plate







Then reinstall the axles into the diff housing





Then the new disk brake rotor & hat slide over the e-brake backing plate



Install the new 4 piston caliper





Then put the wheels back on & drop the car to the ground & torque up all the new suspension bits to the instructed values.. not a bad ride height for my first guestimate

Now it’s time to tackle the front end, first step the strip down



All of the this needs to be removed



I’ll be reusing the tie-rod ends & I only replaced them a short while ago (well in driven miles terms) so care was taken to split them in such a way as to not damage them



The upper ball joints are split now & will never be reused so a lump hammer & a tuning fork did their work here





I’ve removed the lower arm & spindles in one piece, I’ll split the spindle from the lower arm on the bench, I’ll need to reuse the spindles in the new set up



With the front now stripped I have another collection of old front suspensions bits I’ll probably never need, I’ll box them up like I did with the stuff from the XB & the Challenger & keep them.. you know, just in case



I’ll give the front end a little clean up but won’t go mad & then I can start installing all the shiny bits

With the F1 cancelled this morning I found myself at home with a day of leave from work & nothing to do…. So I cleaned up the front chassis rails & the crossmember





Once cleaned up, I painted it ready to install the new parts









I’ll be replacing the radiator & the A/C Condenser too so out came the rad



I had to remove the front grills to get to the bolts that hold the condenser in but I can’t seem to get it out thru the engine bay side as the brackets are in the way… bit of Dr Google research needed here I think as I really don’t want to have to remove the nose as I’ve been told that that is a massive pain in the rectum

That’s the install done now…







I have tomorrow free now as I had planned to be at the F1, so now I’ll install the new front brakes & reconnect the steering arms instead, then I’ll have another go at removing the A/C condenser before I install the sway bar as right now I can stand up in the engine bay in front of the crossmember but the sway bar would be in my way

Next step was to install the caliper bracket onto the spindle, these have to be shimmed to fit as the engineering on these cars isn’t exactly too NASA levels of exactance…. So I went with a guess of 4 shims for the lower bolt as you can see from the 2nd pic





Then you install the rotor assembly & then you can measure the top & bottom gap from the bracket to the disk & either add or remove shims as required until you have the same gap from the bracket to the rotor top & bottom







Once you have that sorted then you can put the split pin in & screw on the billet cap



Then you install the caliper & again measure the gaps, this time left & right of the rotor faces to the caliper wall so you can shim the caliper so that the rotor is in the middle of the caliper



Then you install the pads & you are done

I have a new fuel tank to go in the car, an aeromotive setup with an in-tank pump… the kit is pretty good, comes with the correct OEM shaped tank as you would expect but with a recess cut out to take the new pump outlets





They supply the correct -8 (& -6 for the vent line) connectors



The fuel pressure regulator & inline filter



They also supply the correct pressure gauge for the regulator & the 3 x -8 connectors that you need



The one way ball vent for the tank vent line



& finally the wiring kit for the pump



I then went out panic bought a heap on AN fittings & some braided line so that I can make up the whole system once I’ve given the rest of a chassis a quick clean & paint



Just need to decide where to mount the regulator in the engine bay, you mostly see them mounted off on the inner wing

Everyone on the interwebs who knew told me that you cannot remove the AC condenser without taking the front panels off… can’t be done don’t try, I really didn’t wan to do that… so I spent a long time looking at it whilst having a beer & figured I could do it by removing the drivers side bracket & then gently twisting that bracket out & then pulling the actual condenser out thru the engine bay











Take that interwebs… got it out without damaging anything at all.. now that’s out I’ll clean up the space behind the nose





I have a brand new condenser to go in, it’s silver & whilst I know there is little to no real thermal benefit to black vs silver I think that the silver will stand out too much behind the grills so I’ll paint it flat black

I’ve decided to fit a remote trans cooler to the front of the car since I have both the radiator & condenser out, I’ve decided to bypass the radiator & it’s only job being cooling the engine. I bought a PWR cooler that has AN fittings & not the usual barbed ones that use hose clamps to hold the hose on





I’ve bought straight & 90 deg -6 AN connectors as I’m not sure how the mounting will be up front yet





I’ve also painted this stealth black too



I’ve also gotten the correct ¼” NPSM to -6 connectors for the Turbo 400 transmission, as I plan to run -6 braided lines instead of making up new hard lines





This means that my stock pile of -6 & -8 AN fittings & braided hoses are building…

I can’t just leave the horn flipped onto the other side of the support like I have now as its in the airflow & I don’t want that



The bracket on the back of the horn is molded into the horn & can’t be removed without cracking the horn case, so I carefully spent some time heating the metal & gently folding it into the new shape I wanted







That works… the horn mounts to the original holes & is now out of the way of the cooler but still out of the airflow too… now to make up some brackets for the cooler



The cross bar at the top is a square section so I can’t drill a whole & push a bolt thru, so I’ve welded a pair of screws on to mount the cooler hanging brackets





Not happy with just the two vertical brackets even though they’d probably be fine, so I made a horizontal brace too



Then I painted them both black

I’m trying to spend an hour a night now out in the shed working on stuff, it doesn’t sound like a lot but it does help progress things along. The AC drier turned up, it was again bright chrome so I’ve painted it black to match the rest of the AC parts up front behind the grills..





I decided to clean up the gearbox crossmember, man was it caked in crap on top





It took a while & it was a messy job, but as with these types of jobs it now looks great painted in the same black coating as the rest of the chassis









Also painted up the fuel tank straps.. hopefully this weekend I’ll get the tank installed & the new fuel lines run

Next was to work out where to mount the inline fuel filter, it needs to be easy to each to replace & also out of the way.. I looked for spots above the diff close to the tank but none of these really looked good to me





In the end I think that midway along the chassis rail where there is a vertical brace is the best spot, it protects it, keeps it out of the way & is easy to get to when I need to replace it..

quietsailor wrote: »

This is going to be a practically new car - like Triggers broom

maybe.... for now I'm not pulling the body off the frame & doing a bare-metal restore of it.... so lets call it a mechanical freshen up for now

CoBo55 wrote: »

Freshen up? Jesus that's some money on a freshen up!!

Have you seen my other threads on here..

With that done I then I removed the cooler again to give me as much space as I could get to install the AC condenser



Installed the new drier before installing it into the car



What happened next was an hour of me inventing new swear words… no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get the new condenser into the car, turns out that it’s 3mm too tall to fit in at the very front on the condenser so I ended up having to trim a 45deg angle off the top of the condenser frame to get it to fit



After that I won’t say that it went in easy but it went in…





Then installed the trans cooler for hopefully the last time



Then installed the grille

Then it was time to install the new fuel tank, unlike the old one the filler neck is not part of the pressing here & needs to be added, also hooked up a vac line for the fill vent that will run across the top of the tank & connect to the original vent tube behind the license plate





This “simple” task also turned out to be a bit of a nightmare as this new tank is a little wider than the old one that was taken out





Finally managed to get the thing in… I think that with 2 people this would have been a lot easier or if the diff was still out it would have been easy… but its in





Obviously with the tank fully installed I can’t get to the AN fittings on the top of the pump



Luckily the tank braces allow me to lower the front enough so that I can wire up the pump & connect the lines without the tank falling on my head







Hope to get an hour or two one night this week in the shed & get all the lines made up & installed

Gremlinertia wrote: »

Wow its coming together so well, a great project to follow thanks..

Thanks... it is a nice feeling to be knocking jobs off the todo list as fully finished.. just hope that my engine builder is still working thru this lock down or who knows when I'll have it back on the road

I’m running the lines the same route as the factory hard lines really just on the other side of the frame



The fuel filter I’m mounting in this little protected section





Now that the tank & lines are in I can install the rear sway bar & officially say that the rear suspension install is done





The very last thing that I have to do at the rear is make up new rear hard brake lines to run from the distribution block on the top of the diff pumpkin to the calipers.. I have the correct fittings to make the caliper side of the lines, but I’m still waiting on the other fittings & a roll of the actual hardline to be delivered





I also have a complete new wiring loom for the rear end & once I’m finished under the car I’ll rewire the rear of the car

Moving onto the front, I’ve installed the new battery tray



I’ve installed the new radiator for now… yes yes I know it needs to come out again to put the engine in, but I also need to do a shed tidy up this weekend & by installing it I achieve two things, it’s one less part box taking up space & it’s in the safest place.. unlikely to be damaged sitting in the car





Next up, I’ll install the new front sway bar & mount up & plumb in the fuel pressure regulator & then I’m kinda out of parts until the engine arrives, I have some things to do inside the car too but I’m waiting on some parts to rock up.. getting close

quietsailor wrote: »

That must be a pleasure making up those braided lines now without ripping your fingers off

I can't express how much easier this previously dangerous task has become.. my new fave tool for the weekend for sure

After trying both the 45 & the 90 on the inlet I was happy to see that I can use the 90 as I had hopped, I think that this is the neater of the two options that I could have gone with







That’s the fuel system done now until the engine is in & I can make up & plumb the line from the regulator to the carb itself



I’m fast running out of jobs for this car now… tomorrows plan is to do my annual shed tidy up & then I’ll probably start back on the Challenger & the XB again

For the brake lines I’m making up, I needed to double flare my 3/16” line, so step one is turn the dial to 3/16 flare 1… this makes a bubble flare





Then you adjust the dial to 3/16 flare 2 & that gives you the double flare







Here is the gap at full droop (so as close as it should ever get) & then at normal ride height…





So that’s the brake lines run

Thought I’d just share some progress pics for the engine build for the GTO… because who doesn’t like looking at shiny engine build pics…

So the block was assembled to check for deck heights, clearance issues etc as I’d said before



After that was done then the block was cleaned again & then primed for paint



Then we painted the block in the correct Pontiac blue… it’s not my fave engine colour I must admit but it looks good… it’ll be a bitch to keep clean going forward in the bay of course & I’m sure I’ll be wishing I’d just painted it black… but here it is



New freeze plugs in



Rotating assembly now in for good









The new oilpan got a painting too rather than leaving it in its raw aluminum

These new heads are what they call big D port heads, add this larger port opening to the fact that we’ve done some smoothing work on the ports the original gaskets I had no longer fit the heads so I got onto Butler performance & got a set of large port gaskets for the heads.

quietsailor wrote: »

It must be some relief to see the engine coming together! Has the builder said when they'll get it finished?

Not in a detailed way no.... I saw him on Tuesday night to give him the gaskets & he said used phrases like it was close & wouldn't be long now... but didn't want to give a direct date... it's a long weekend this weekend here so hopefully he spends a bit of time on it in a final big push kinda way.

But when I saw him Tuesday he told me of another part needed so that only got ordered this week & won't be here till next week now