Wednesday, May 8, 2013

One Month Later!!!

Well I am happy to say that I survived the last month!  Sorry not to update my pages, but been swamped selling parts and fixing the house while trying to keep my day job!  I picked up a few fun items along the way.  I bought a sand blast cabinet from Harbor Freight.  I know, they aren't the best quality gig in town, but for what I have to do, it really works well. What didn't work was the air drier that I bought.  I bought a simple $12 Husky brand from Home Depot, to find out it was pretty useless for sand blasting.  So I went back to HF and bought their two stage filter and drier for $45 - about half the cost of competing set-ups.  I have barely assembled it this week and yet to test.  I am crossing my fingers.

I had an extra rolling cart that I leave it on and roll it outside when using it to help control dust.  The main complaints I read about this cabinet was that it leaked, no light and cheap gloves.  So far, this cabinet came assembled and caulked.  I hook a shop vac to the left side port and it keeps it from leaking as long as I don't forget to turn it on 8-/.  The biggest mess it makes is when I open the side door to remove the parts...so far, so good!  It is nice to have this for smaller parts.  The cabinet will fit a 302 head, but I don't think the inside grate will support the weight.

On top of the cabinet, I have been talking with machine shops and considering engine builds.  I have decided to keep this build stock.  Originally, I was going to port and flow the original 302 heads (which I will still do a little), but at $500 per head for a shop to do it, puts it out of budget for me right now. So port and flow and hardened seats and new guides put the heads at about $1500.  After checking into the heads, it is about the same price or cheaper to buy a set of good breathing aftermarket Edelbrock, Dart, Trick Flow or other heads that have bigger valves and ports off the shelf.  So for this initial build, I am going to go with a stock build with some mild porting/port matching.

Really as I kept changing this and that, the build was pushing over $5K and I had to real myself in.  I decided for the first build in this car to go more mild and keep it sane and a fun cruiser I will enjoy on the freeway and around town.

Something else I picked up to make it more enjoyable is some sound deadener.  Dyanmat is all the rage, and because of my budget, I am going to go on some friends word and try out Audio Technix sound barrier.  It is a bit thicker than Dynamat (67mil V 80mil) and has had some pretty extreme testing done on it.  I will do the roof, firewall, outer door skins, floors and qtrs around the rear seat.  Any visible areas in the trunk will not be deadened to keep a stock look.

Here is a photo of the car - it is home now, and I just placed the script in it for fun.  I put some of the rubber bumpers on things and just finishing up some loose ends before I get going real crazy.

Brad and Jessie helping to navigate back into the garage by putting it on dollys

California Made It Happen!


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