MadMike's Big Bumper (1974Z) update

[MadMike]

As mentioned in the garage section, now that it's 20 degrees outside there's a flurry of activity in the cold garage and my 74Z. Either that or the fact I have to gather up all my 73Z stuff had booted me in the pants to figure out what I have/need/don't need for the 74Z.

Anyway to make a long story short... today is the FIRST day where (so far) - nothing's gone wrong. I'm fixing a PITA problem and I fixed it without incident.

Whoever screwed my car together back in 1974 was either lit up or on cruise control cause every door bolt hole was cross-threaded. I went to hang the doors on the car many years ago and noticed that problem. Since the plan is to hang the doors (permanently) on this car tomorrow, I went out and tapped all the mounting block holes in the door jambs and door shells (these are from a 1970 and weren't messed up too bad). Sucess. I didn't sheer the tap off in 1 of the holes, I didn't drop the door on my foot. I didn't get a hernia...

This is part of my "tapping jacked up holes" batch work.

I respotted all the sheet metal and have it laid out nicely for the paint gun, and opened up some space.

I have 15 plastic bins of goodies for this car. I can't remember what's what. So it should be relatively safe to sort through these bins. I'll do that this afternoon.

Yesterday was "under the car" bitch work. Installing the (heavy full size) starter, wire conduit (undoing bellhousing bolt - the hardest one), speedo cable, checking oil. Whoops, I didn't realize there was a quart in the engine (didn't register on the stick) - so that's all over the floor now.

Last tip of advice for today: the car has no front end sheet metal on it. I used a tire to put my ratchet on top of temporarily.... then scooted out from under the car and accidentally rolled the tire. Next thing I remember.... I was still laid out on the floor but I was trying to make a concious effort to get off the floor and get into the house before crapping out. I look like Tiger Woods with a golfball sized welt on my eyelash. And apparently when that hit me I was in the process of getting up, so that slammed the back of my head into the concrete.

So - while I'm careful to not have the whole car fall on my ass, I neglected to think about smaller stuff.

As I mentioned in the engine section, I gotta overcome the stripped out hole in my crankshaft snout. That is/was a major hurdle and pissed me off. I'm going to enlist some help to get that solved so I can finish screwing the engine together and fire it up.

[68400BIRD]

You could have just shoved your head in a snow bank to stop the swelling. I'll send you some free snow. Good luck on the crankshaft hole. Post up some pics.

[3SLO5]

no proof any work got done without pictures.

[BTTB71SS]

Glad your ok though...

Never know when something minor will hit ya

[MadMike]

Alrighty...

DSL or if you got some spare time, I uploaded some around the shop photos of what's happening here: http://www.nastyz28.com/temp7/74Z

quick overview of the car:

[BonzoHansen]

Not sure that car will make it to Carlisle 2010.

[BTTB71SS]

Originally Posted by BonzoHansen

Not sure that car will make it to Carlisle 2010.

LOL...


Nice Shop Mike

[Chevrolaine]

Take that couch out of the garage and the car will get done much faster!!
lol

[Shane]

Mike - I saw a big bucket-o-bolts in one of those pictures. What are you going to be doing with those? If you don't want them, I'll take them off of your hands. But, YOU HAVE TO PAY SHIPPING

Car looks good Mike. Is this the one that my buddy built the tranny for?

Like the brake booster too.........

[Venom73]

Keep the work coming, Very nice shop, I'm jealous

[olstyle]

Lookin good Mike. Sorry about the ratchet....... "thats gonna leave a mark"

A 74Z 28 with AC, isn't that rare? IIRC that ws an option, not standard?

[Shane]

Originally Posted by olstyle

Lookin good Mike. Sorry about the ratchet....... "thats gonna leave a mark"

A 74Z 28 with AC, isn't that rare? IIRC that ws an option, not standard?

It was an option, but it's not rare. 73 was the first year that you could order air on a Z.

[MadMike]

Yessir... the 74 is my only camaro that has A/C. The 80 and 73's don't have it. A/C was always optional in the camaro, unless it was restricted (on the Z, prior to 1973).

That wood is for Kyles Eagle project. He's going to build some dog houses for the humane society in town.

Shane, I'M GOING TO THROW AWAY those NOS date coded, numbers matching correctly plated bucket'o'bolts. I had to hunt down every nut bolt and screw for this car, so I spent last weekend sorting through 3 tons of hardware. And I'm chucking (no pun) a lot of it.

Tonight I got the doors on. Lined up nice & fine. That got me to thinkin, I can assemble the insides of the doors and the door panels and have them ready. I found a lot of stuff I was looking for.

[Shane]

Originally Posted by MadMike

Yessir... the 74 is my only camaro that has A/C. The 80 and 73's don't have it. A/C was always optional in the camaro, unless it was restricted (on the Z, prior to 1973).

That wood is for Kyles Eagle project. He's going to build some dog houses for the humane society in town.

Shane, I'M GOING TO THROW AWAY those NOS date coded, numbers matching correctly plated bucket'o'bolts. I had to hunt down every nut bolt and screw for this car, so I spent last weekend sorting through 3 tons of hardware. And I'm chucking (no pun) a lot of it.

Tonight I got the doors on. Lined up nice & fine. That got me to thinkin, I can assemble the insides of the doors and the door panels and have them ready. I found a lot of stuff I was looking for.

Mike - before you put those door panels on, put some nice new thick plastic b/w the panel and the door to keep the moisture away from the inside panel.

If you need any NOS air, I got some of that too. Need some 35 year old NOS grease for the front end linkage? I got that too, but you have to pay shipping.

[esgal]

nice garage mike, im pretty much jealous, i had to argue with my parents for months before theyd let me use half of my dads garage(which i have completely taken over in recent weeks)