sicky olds

My buddy Glenn, Louis and his son garner came out to help me work on the wagon some over the 4th of july week. First time it has seen the sun since I did the body swap about 2 years ago lol. Vin inspection went well and it was not reported stolen Next step is swapping the Original 1971 title over to my name. Wonder if the DMV will let me keep the original title HMMMM????

sicky olds

Then we pulled the TH400 and mocked up the t56. Was surprised it only took a day. But it was just a mock up, still need to get a driveshaft and get the trans built. Def getting more excited for this build now.

Funkwagon455

I would strongly doubt that the DMV would let you keep the original title.. I would say that your options would be to make a high quality copy of the title for your records. If you REALLY wanted to keep the original, you could submit for a lost title replacement. This would likely cost a significant amount, and be more of a pain than it is worth.

sicky olds

That and it wouldn't be in my name lol.

VC455

I kept the original T-400 cross-member so my transmission sat higher than yours.

I had to cut out the floor reinforcement above the slip yoke and U-joint, so I welded in a U-shaped piece of 1/4 x 6" plate in that position. It carried the floor reinforcement plus i made a matching 1/4 x 6 piece to bolt below the u-joint to form a front driveshaft loop.

Otherwise it looks like our work has been similar.

sicky olds

We have talked on Facebook right? you're on the south texas olds page right?

sicky olds

I looked through your thread and I was wondering if you have pictures of how the crossmember looks and how it was modified for the t56

VC455

Yeah, Tom. I realized it was you posting just after I sent that message.

Here's a picture of the cross member. It is a stock 1970 Cutlass double-hump cross member in the T-400 position. There was no need to do any modification. The fore-and-aft position was correct to within an eighth (but I do have a 1/2" plate adapter between the scatter shield and the transmission to convert the Mopar bolt pattern to a BOP pattern). The top of the 1/4" plate driveshaft loop hasn't been welded in position yet in the picture, that's why it's at an angle.

Using a stock trans mount put the engine-transmission angle on the factory spec (a bit too high for a 3.5" MMC driveshaft, but a torch, a 4" pipe, and a BFH expanded the driveshaft tunnel just enough at one pinch point).

sicky olds

Maybe I have my crossmember in the wrong spot? I will have to check into that maybe? and I haven't gotten to check the drivetrain angle and such yet since the trans is literally just the case lol

VC455

Tom, did you figure out acceptable mounting for your 6-speed?

I was thinking this morning that your car came with a T-400; therefore, the cross-member should have been bolted in to the correct--farthest rearward--position.

Our differing experiences with the cross-members may be due to the different versions of the transmission. Yours is a GM and mine is a Mopar. Perhaps they have different mount positions.

sicky olds

I thought the t56 was the same transmission and just the bellhousings are different? do you happen to have a total length of trans including bellhousing?

VC455

You are correct. I checked this and found all T56s have the same length main body. It's the TR6060 that has the longer body.

You can see in my underbody picture that I am using an aftermarket scatter shield instead of the bellhousing. This is a Lakewood BOP scatter shield, so it should be the same dimension as any GM bellhousing (for example, any Muncie will fit behind the Lakewood, regardless if the Lakewood has BOP bolt pattern or Chev pattern).

The only thing that may be different is the rear housing that holds the shifter. From pictures, it looks shorter on the GM units. Compare your rear housing to the pictures of mine.

sicky olds

Buddy at work upgraded his brakes on his 05 gto and posted his old setup for sale. After about a month I realized these would work on the wagon so I am now in the process of doing 4 wheel disc brakes. Biggest problem with getting gto brakes is the bracket they come with (abutment I found out is the true name) so I bought c5 brackets off of ebay. From kore3 I bought the adjustment brackets. Then for the rear I bought the spacer. Kore 3 brackets come in Friday so this weekend I can get the bracket installed to see how it will look, need to find drum hubs for the front and back plate for the rear.


Then for the motor I installed the 4 degree bushing and reset the timing chain. more to putting that motor back together later .

sicky olds

Got my brackets from Kore 3 in today. Hopefully I will have some sort of mock up this weekend. or at least the caliper installed to see what it will look like.

sicky olds

Well the weekend is here and I needed some garage time to clear my head. So i mocked up what i could with the new brakes. first side took about an hour and a half because i couldnt find the instructions and was messing with different things. 2nd side took about 30 minutes tops, including disassembling the the old brake setup. Now just awaiting a couple parts like the drum hub, new rotors, pads and the brake line. More to follow

VC455

You chose nice brakes from a great vendor. Looks great!

sicky olds

I like the looks so far, just glad i didnt sell the 18s since that is the size i will have to use

sicky olds

Drum hubs showed up in the mail on monday and got them installed, just have brake hose and rotors to install then fronts are done then onto the rears. Then i decided to test fit some wheels that i had sitting around, I honestly cant decide between the 2. The black and silver ones are what i bought originally for the wagon and the solid black ones i bought for my 06 gto but the offset was horrible and didnt work.

Also thoughts on caliper color? I am thinking a nice darkish blue to match the blue that will be in the interior.

VC455

Tom, I like the black wheels with the chrome bolts. It's that extra bit of flash that sets them apart from the boring all-black that has become so prevalent.

Calipers can be dark blue although silver would make them sparkle inside those black wheels.

The firewall is looking good. I know how much work it takes to clean it up.

Gary

sicky olds

So I went ahead and painted the calipers Blue to see if I liked the color on them, in which I will get them powder-coated later on. Also got the rotors in and used corvette stel braided lines as seen in the pics.

sicky olds

Then I finally got around to doing the rear brakes. Only issue I seemed to run into, besides lining everything up, was the backing plate would not clear the bearing. So i decided to grind off the lip, in which i am pointing at in this pic here.
26914063_1993999793948654_912095845_n.jpg
And after for comparison
26855768_1993999800615320_1415171640_n.jpg


Then everything bolted right up, that is except the GTO rear brakes i have did not work correctly and had to use the Camaro brakes i bought with the backing plate from the junkyard.

sicky olds

So I then got bored of looking at the multiple color engine sitting there in the garage so i taped her up
26941301_1993990467282920_61334168_n.jpg


And then painted it Cast iron
26940336_1993990713949562_85010630_n.jpg

sicky olds

The monotonous of all sivler was really getting to me so i went ahead and painted the valve covers as well. I decided to do something kinda different with my M/Ts. I used a paint called Wrinkle Coat( pic of can below). This is how it works.

First you get your part
26941333_1993990387282928_10818936_o.jpg

Then after cleaning/prepping it you paint it with the paint
26996476_1993990690616231_633493544_n.jpg

You are supposed to leave it sit to dry for 2 hours at least as its a slow drying paint but I sped the process up by taking a heat gun to it and you can see it start to transform right before your eyes
25497440_1993990460616254_1230522007_n.jpg.

After wrinkling all of the paint it looks like this
26940593_1993990863949547_1939623484_n.jpg

Then i took some sand paper and sanded off just the tops of the fins and the lettering, here is a comparison of before and after along with them side by side
26913955_1993990847282882_73558157_n.jpg26942754_1993990940616206_2050234212_n.jpg

Then placed it on the engine and here is how it looks
26940516_1993990770616223_1966353114_n.jpg

Funkwagon455

Looking sanitary!!

sicky olds

So i sold my 84 MCSS since it just sat there and i didn't do anything with it for extra play money for the wagon, so i bought some things.


Finally went ahead and bought my Multiport EFI system and 3" Pypes kit with cutouts.

sicky olds

Yeah my garage needs an overhaul in cleaning and organizing lol

sicky olds

Then i installed some random items that have been sitting around in a box

sicky olds

Then I had a little bit of play money left over and after looking at parts I had to buy to repair the t56 I had I decided to look for a new one. Well I found something a little different and at a great price, a TR6060 (1200 bucks with slave cylinder and brand new clutch kit). But instead of it being from a new Camaro it was from a 2009 Challenger. Even though it was Mopar, I couldn't pass up the price. So I drove 5 hours to Phoenix, paid the man with a smile on my face and threw it in the trunk of my GTO and drove home that day, Of course after getting me some Whataburger which is the closest one to Las Vegas.

sicky olds

So i unbolted the Mopar bellhousing and installed my Mcleod bellhousing to it.

sicky olds

A big issue that i am seeing usingthis TR6060 is the mounting that Mopar uses (black brace on bottom of this pic) It looks like it will hang WAY too low for my liking.
26036248_1966673590014608_1944892517_o.jpg






So after reading up on what the Mopar peeps are doing i think i will have to go with something along the lines of what this gentleman did in his. But i think i will use the 3 bolt holes that are a little higher and go from there.
26856880_1988644577817509_698077168_n.jpg

sicky olds

During my conversation with Tick performance they said that the input shafts are way too different to use between the LS version and the Mopar Version. So i bought a caliper and tested it myself.
Here is the dimensions for the Mopar version.
26981873_1993991077282859_2022783836_o.jpg26913352_1993991073949526_1064199606_n.jpg


And the LS version
26941290_1993991090616191_1509204974_n.jpg27017043_1993991097282857_1019667260_o.jpg


Only difference that i am seeing is the diameter of the end of the input shaft, even the gto input shaft slid into the dodge clutch just fine to confirm correct amount of spline count. But if my block is drilled correctly really isn't that far off due to it being .75 drilled out of the crank.


Only other issue I might run into is how far it sticks out of the bellhousing. Any insight on this would be if I need to trim the length or anything? I will post this question in another forum as to not pull away from the build thread i have going on .

sicky olds

And that is all the updates for now lol. More to come as i have some more tricks up my sleeve for this unique ride .

RetroRanger

the valve covers came out great and i dont mind the cast colored engine either

sicky olds

Thanks, i am a fan of it too. I didnt want to paint it blue and if i painted it black it would not pop inside the engine bay when done was my thinking.

young olds

When I bought my bellhousing it came with two aluminum spacers that fit between the tranny and the bell. Maybe an answer to your problem?

sicky olds

Do you have a picture of that?

oldcutlass

Looking good Tom

Greg Rogers

Great job, Boy I wish I had a body like that! Ooops I mean a Vista body like that! I'll bet your cast off body is better than my Vista.

oldsguybry

Awww , what's wrong with multi-colors ? I like a lot of colors .... Good job , that beast is looking good ...

young olds

I don’t, but can get some this weekend.