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We are waiting for the engine rebuild but rather than fall behind Gary decided to go ahead and finish up the body by putting on the fenders, radiator assembly, bumpers and trim.

The fenders went on smoothly, with some beautiful straight lines. The dash went in and Stu installed my new AutoSound radio, with a single stereo speaker in the dash and two box speakers attached to the rear seat support. I must say the sound is very good, even with the top down which renders the rear speakers useless.

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Here is a picture of the dash with the radio installed

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The engine was finished up by Mountain High Performance and Gary took it over to Verle Stevens for dyno testing. After breaking in we were having some issues with the carburetor. This had been rebuilt but the service provided was not the best, and now it seemed there were some mechanical problems as well. The results we were getting were very poor and so the unit was removed and taken apart. The first thing he noticed was that the linkage holding the secondary metering rod was broken and so just to be sure Verle did a complete rebuild of the whole thing.

Once the carb was put back on the engine ran much better. It was holding oil pressure and not showing any signs of temperature run up. They ran a number of tests, playing with the timing and decided that the best overall results were obtained with 32 degrees total timing. It was producing 485 ft lbs at 3400 rpm and 357 hp at 4500 rpm. This was very acceptable considering the cam that we installed, see: https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums/big-blocks/48133-engine-pro-camshaft.html

Here are the last dyno test results. Here is a great sight for interpreting dyno tests.

I am really glad we did the testing. It cost me $600, but confirmed the build and gave me the confidence in the engine I would need to drive it 2000 miles back to Rhode Island.

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Here are some photos of the engine on the test stand, the carb in surgery and also the engine after it received its paint job.

Here is the link to the primer on interpreing dynot test results:
http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles/reading_dyno_sheet/index.html

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I was scrambling to find a console for a non dual gate auto floor shift. I had bought a console with the car, but at the time I did not realize that it had been cut, or rather, was ignorant of the requirement for the regular shifter. We had just assumed it would work so now we had a month to go and no usable console. There seems to be a fair number of consoles available that have been cut for the dual gate shifter but not too many virgin ones. I had several leads but they kept falling through. Finally I found one, had it shipped and wouldn’t you know it, it was cracked in shipping. Not just cracked, but the rear portion was shattered. A couple of hours of work with some epoxy and the jig saw like pieces were fixed together, and after painting it looked OK.

The new wheels came in, Cooper Trendsetters and were put on the newly painted rims. I am very happy that Gary convinced me to go with the whitewalls.

Assembly continued and the engine installed. The car still does not have its full interior and is sitting a bit high, but is starting to look pretty good. Steering and suspension is roughed in and the beginnings of the exhaust system put on. The mufflers from InLine came in but were not correct so we went to the local muffler shop and bought two off the shelf. Even though they are generic I like the sound – it is close to stock, but with a slight rumble. I did not want anything loud and even she who must be obeyed will hopefully not take offense.

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I arrived in Denver on Wednesday My 23 and went downtown to Avis. If you ever rent a car in Denver for a more than a few days it is much less expensive to pick it up in town. The airport fees are criminal. I arrived at Level One at 3pm but the car was still at the upholstery shop having the top sorted out so I started to go through all the left over parts and decide which I was going to keep and which sell. There were still quite a number of things which were going to be used on the car that had not been blasted or painted so I tucked into that chore and stayed pretty late.
The next day the car came back, and it was evident that there was much to do. I had planned on having the car on the road by Friday the 25th, but it was obvious that that was not going to happen. The interior was still bare, no door glass, lots of things in the engine compartment. I discovered that the seats, which had had new covers put on did not have backs or sides, so those had to be ordered, along with a number of critical items.

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On Sunday Stu and I worked on the car from early till late. We played around with the Electric windows for quite a while and I am convinced there must be a more efficient way to adjust them than trial and error. I am sure that I will have to make some further adjustments after the top has settled in driving shape.
I continued on Memorial Day, polishing the stainless window trim, blasting, painting and cleaning parts, and stripping the old door panels for parts. I started taking some photos of the undercarriage.

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Some more Photos of the rear suspension

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Some photos of the transmission. I took the pan off to blast and paint it Argent. If you look closely at picture 565 you will see a kink in the speedo cable as it comes out of the drive unit. This kink was to latter cause a failure in the cable just 300 miles into the trip home.

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Here are some photos of the front end

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What a week the last few days were. Still waiting on quite a few parts which were ordered last Thursday. I was expecting them to come in on the Tuesday following Memorial Day, but nothing. Found out that they had been ordered with regular shipping, not next day – AGGGGHHHHH. We started scrounging around to try and find some parts off of friend’s cars or hidden away in people’s barns. I saw some pretty amazing collections of cars and parts stored in some really grass roots conditions (no pun intended). I am amazed at what liberties you can take with metal parts in an environment like Denver. I would love to live in a place where rust is unknown.
The next three days, we had four people working to finish things up. Still no parts arrived, but we had most of the interior done, and the engine was running so we took it sans hood to have the suspension and steering adjusted. The car drives great and the steering is nice and tight. Here is a photo of Norm and Gary giving the car its first drink.
I must say it looks beautiful, with the twilight blue, white top and white sidewall tires.
Friday was another hectic day. We had been working 12 hours a day and were getting tired. At last the door parts arrived at 5:30 pm, along with window rubber trim and windshield wipers and other stuff. I was exhausted and so left Gary working on the finish. At this point we had not road tested the car at all, so Gary wanted to put some miles on it that night.
Saturday came, and we had hoped to leave by 10 am. Gary had only put about 50 miles on the car, and I needed to say goodbye to Marcel and Michele so we drove down to Littleton to have breakfast with them. Marcel makes the best cappuccino on the planet.
On the way down we noticed that the seat belts were way too tight. I am not a big boy, and they had no spare room for me. So once back in the shop we measured them – sure enough they were the wrong length. Gary had bought them from a guy who reconditions original ones, but his webbing was way off. Norm, a friend of Gary’s had a set for his GTO so he brought them around and we spent a good two hours putting those in, along with painting the spare, putting the decals on the car, changing the oil (Joe Gibbs) and fixing a vacuum leak on the brake booster line.
At last there was no more to do. There were so many things we had not tested, but time was critical; it was Saturday evening and we had to be in St. Louis to meet up with Jerry Wilson by Sunday evening. We packed up some spare parts, stopped at Sears so I could buy some basic fix-it tools, filled up with gas and headed to downtown Denver to drop off my rental car. That was the final chore, and we were on highway 70 by 8pm. I plugged in my mp3 player loaded with 1970 music and left Denver behind to the tunes of Three Dog Night.

Here are some final photos of the day. Some last interior parts to put on and adjustments to make. I have a story to tell of the trip back to Rhode Island, 7 days and 2400 miles, which I will do on a separate thread.
Thanks to all for your comments and help over the last year. When I began thinking of this project two years ago I would never have imagined how important it would be to have your support. The camaraderie and technical input of Classic Olds is amazing.

Cheers, Peter