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Monday, March 24, 2008

Little update for today

I have not been doing much, just finished school and trying to finish up a few loose ends in the garage. I did pick up a 1990 244 volvo black interior and pass seat, and some black armrest from the local pick n pull. I waited about 3 weeks for the car to get into the yard. Not easy to find black interior.



I also started to strip the undercoating off the drivers fender with a little heat and scraper.


You can tell where I cut the blue car and welded it on to the front clip of the gold Bertone. I hope to start to move a bit faster. My goal for the next job is cleaning up the engine bay and have it painted.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

The new pile

I had seen this car 5 years before and tried to buy it, but the owner would not sell. One day, while browsing cragslist, I found it. I decided to go look at it. They wanted $1500.....no way. I knew the owner, and we settled on $750. The car had a rebuilt tittle, which was good for me. I hate cutting up rare classics. They only made 6,622 of these cars from 1976 -1980. So, with that , I sold the rims for $100, and the front end for $200. I scrapped out the blue car. The total was $450 after I sold parts off the car. I could live with that.

I saw the pictures above a few years ago and thought "that would be a sweet drag car."

The interior of my new pile was tan. It was not in very good condition. However, that's going to change. I tore the interior and almost all the wiring out in the car.

I plan on doing a very good wire job. I have been hunting Ebay for sometime for some nice half price or lower buys.

Very nice products. I did not want to cheap out on the wire at all. That's why I got the good stuff.

This is where the front clip ended up from the blue car. The front of the car did not have a good repair job, but I fixed that as you can see.

I had changed the front crossmember for the second round, added some support, and 1/2 more clearance on the oil pan.

Volvo fire walls have bolt in panels on both sides. I cut the whole side out and rewelded a fabbed part I made. The tunnel area is a lot bigger than the stock area. This will make it easier for access if I have to drop the trans ever.

Monday, March 10, 2008

So on with the next pile of junk.

So, I settled out on my car, paid some bills off, and bought a few goodies for the next round. I found the car I thought I was going to do the 2nd swap in.



I worked a few weeks on it. I stripped the interior and re-did the tunnel and fire wall. The care was clean and strait, no rust. I also did a mini tub in the rear, which would have worked out very well. I also have to thank, Adam, my little brother for all the help on that little job.
As you can see here, it's underway..... heading for the fat motor install. But low and behold...

What is that doing on a trailer, with the front clip missing? I would like to ask my self the same thing. Adam was very upset that he helped me with the mini tub and the car ended up at the scrappers without a second thought. My wife, at this point, did not know what to think. I was crazy. Buying a car and then throwing it away with all that work into it. I would like to point out that I was crazy to buy the motor in the first place without telling my wife. I think I was pretty brave to buy another car. The car of all cars will be in the next update to the story.


Thursday, March 6, 2008

The Project

This is going to be just a fast update about where I am with my faithful project. So, this all began back in 2000. I had made the mistake of finding a Grand National motor and trans in L.A. My brother, John, had happen to be going there the next day. To make a long story short, he said I would be crazy to pass this up. I would also like to note that I was crazy to take it too. I had the motor and trans shipped to work. One other side note, my lovely wife had no idea what was coming home.

So, it began. I stripped the motor down and began to clean it up. I bought a few new parts and painted the motor.



At this time, I did not have a car to put it in, but I found a 1980 242 2 door Volvo with a blown motor for $200. It ended up being a year or so later when this showed up.





I didn't really know where to begin, so I looked at it for some time, until I got tired of looking at that nice motor sitting on a stand in my garage. If you look at something long enough its bound to give you the itch. I started to tear into it.




At this point, your thinking "Man that is a lot of work to just get it ready." I am only going to post a few more pictures so you can see what kind of work is involved before you tear into something like this. I have been welding for 12 years, and I know my way around a fab shop, so I had just a little hint of what was to come.

I had the engine bay painted and the cross member set up.




The motor went in for fit up just to make sure. Now mind you, there is a lot of in-betweens here that I am passing up to save on your reading time.


After that, it was just a matter of tubing and wires, etc.
And the finished product.....


Here are a few pictures I took of it finished with rims about a year later.



I also ended putting in a ford 8.8 rear end with ford 9" barrings and Ford F-150 12.5 break drums.

I also boxed the lower control arms too.
Here is a video of my run at the track. I would like to add that I had a burnt converter, and my slicks were rubbing on my fenders down the track.


Here is my time slip for the run. Twin turbo diesel truck, a close run for sure.


Last year I totaled the car doing 35 mph on a nice sunny day.

Believe it or not, the motor and rims were okay. I managed to save most of the car.
You can see from this engine bay picture that everything was pushed back just a little.


Here is the last front end shot.

That is all for now. I will be continuing the story. This seems like a good place to stop.
On the next posting, I will tell about what I picked up for a rebuild.