Here comes the Judge, my 69 GTO

I’m running out of things I can be doing on the GTO now whilst I await the engine build, decided to make up the new hard brake lines for the rear, I have a length of 3/16” stainless steel brake line.



A cutter



A line bending tool



And most importantly a proper flaring tool



With the suspension at full droop there isn’t a lot of space between the caliper & the coilover so I figure if I bend it up for this minimal gap then it’ll be fine under load



My flaring tool, is quiet cool I think, it has different dies to hold different diameter lines & the different ends are used for different flare styles



You slide the tube into the die





Then you set the dial to 0 & pull the handle to push the tube into the correct depth… once this is done then you can clamp down fully on the die to hold the tube solid

Since I had the wheels off I figured I’d fit the disk end of the new Wilwood handbrake cables



These simply pull on the internal drum of the new disk brake set-up





Then I ran the new cables along the same route as the old ones ran

Other than the actual block itself the only other original part off my old engine we’re reusing is the front timing cover, so that was blasted & cleaned up too







One of the heads has now been port-matched to the intake to help with the flow

The new MagnaFlow 3” stainless steel exhaust for the GTO turned up today, I was getting silly quotes from exhaust shops to make me one here so it was much cheaper to buy a sectioned kit that was pre-cut to fit my exact car.





The old exhaust I pulled off had no H or X pipe, this is an X pipe system so will sound much better & give better performance to boot



The mufflers are a straight thru design so I’m glad the car is already registered as I think with this new system it would fail the road worthy test on noise







The rear of this exhaust is designed to pop out the sides just past the rear wheels.. I’m not sure if I’ll route it that way or not, I’ll wait till I have it on the car & I can see how it looks to make that call… I bought a set of GTO correct chrome tips incase I decide to go straight out the back past the fuel tank like the old system did

I have driven it to work before, but I don't like driving it in Melbourne rush hour traffic as there are a LOT of muppet drivers out there & I normally see 2-3 crashes a day on a drive in & out of work & don't need this car rear ended if I can help it..... also I have to get out of the car & walk around to the carpark boom gate to get my ticket & that's a bit of a pain in the arse too

quietsailor wrote: »

a couple of crashes a day!!! what kind of loons are you driving amongst

Sadly driving standards here are really bad... last year we had 39,404 road deaths & over 4.4M people where injured badly enough to require medical attention... not sure on how big the number would be if you counted the folks who where in a crash but didn't need or didn't seek medical attention

Just a quick update to this thread… Melbourne has been in some pretty draconian lockdown for the last 8-10 weeks due to our second wave of ****e virus fun… they started to ease this somewhat last week & that meant that the engineering shop that was flow benching my cylinder heads was open again so we could get them back as they had been prisoners as the shop wasn’t allowed to open up by law…. Anyway lets not focus on the months lost… porting of both of my heads is finished now







Not only that both heads are on the engine now…





Along with the whole valve train being finished



Intake & valve covers are on….



In fact it’s pretty much done… there are one or two tiny details like the oil filter housing that we need to reuse needs to be cleaned & painted & installed etc.. but all things being equal I should have the engine back in my shed in a week or so now





Whilst I think it almost looks too good to be hidden in a car… I cannot wait to get back on to this car & get he out on the road ASAP…

So out the engine came again & I test fitted the headers to the engine to see if I could work out the best way to do the install



I could see where it was fouling on the safety tab of the mount, so I trimmed it off, leaving as much of the tab as I could….





I really don’t want to remove the oil filter & it’s housing, but you can see how it would be impossible to install the header with them in place





I decided to fit that header up & to use my engine leveler to see if I could tilt the engine in with that one header pre-installed





Mrs_XB & I spent a full 30 minutes struggling with this & the short answer is no…. there was no way it was going to fit… so out it came again so I could remove the filter housing

This update will be a bit all over the place as I was working with no real plan on the weekend & bounced all over the place because of this & also because of my probable ADH… look a squirrel…

I thought I’d test fit the new mini hi-torque starter that I got with the engine kit, it’s tiny!! I have no idea how this thing has more torque than the old outgoing starter has…. But I suspect its something to do with Aliens from Area 51.



There is heaps of room for this mini starter here, I held up the old one to the same spot & it would have been right on the headers.. so the mini starter was a great idea







Now the wiring will be a little different for this new starter, the main post is on the opposite side to the original so when the cable is connected to the starter it no longer reaches the battery.. so I’ll make up some new leads for that with new post connectors too



The original heat protection tube that shields the starter wires as they pass the exhaust looks like it can be reused, just need to make a bracket to hold it



The wiring instructions for this new starter aren’t really clear to me & to be honest that may just be the fact that I don’t really understand wiring… if I’m halfarsed in most things I do on these cars I’m fully zeroarsed with wiring, as an example I don’t fully understand why when I unplug something from the wall socket without switching the wall socket off why doesn’t electricity pour out onto the floor? I do however know enough to fully understand the smoke law which states (I’m paraphrasing here) once the smoke exits the wires or the device it’s impossible to get the smoke back in… so I’ll have to do some Dr Google research & maybe even open the GTO service & repair manuals I bought & do some reading before I hook up wires & test fire anything… the last thing I want to do is to send 12.6V to something or through something that really didn’t want 12.6V.. so I’ll be learning all about relays & switched power wires etc…

I had been thinking that I’d need to paint the gearbox before reinstalling it… but some elbow grease, some actual degreaser & a wire wheel & it looks great.. so this is ready to go back in





Before reinstalling the trans I’ve taken the time to set up the oil senders, the car has an idiot light in the dash that comes on where there is zero oil pressure.. I had fitted an aftermarket mechanical gauge inside the car a good while back but I’d never gotten around to connecting it… so now I have made up a set of adapters that allow me to connect the mechanical end into the top of the blue T piece & the original idiot light sensor to the end so in theory I now have a live feed of oil pressure & in your line of sight idiot light for when I’m not looking at the gauge



I was pleasantly surprised that the new correct AC compressor that I ordered on Tuesday night out of the US turned up here midday Sunday…. It’s very shiny, much chromes

Next up is the installation of my MSD ignition box



It sits on rubber isolators



Now I’ve got to map out the routing for the wiring & try & make that neat





There is also a new MSD coil that needs to be wired in



I also need to sort my fan… the clutch in this clutch fan is failed



I have a brand new clutch to go on



Then I just cleaned up & painted the fan blades to make it all look a little better… at some pint I may switch across to thermo fans but for now this set up works fine