Hi Everyone
Between work, life in general and a mild heart attack on 12/12/08, I have finally found some time to work on the panel. The "heart transplant" (read engine change) has taken place. Then got the power brake conversion completed, along with bleeding the brake system. I finally got to
drive it home christmas eve.
It runs and drives nice, so far. Its now resting in my driveway, for the moment. Decided not to "clip" the front frame, just work with whats there. I found on my first "shake down run" that I should have changed the steering over to power.
The original "plan" has kinda changed for the panel. At first it was just gonna be a nice driver, now its going into "show truck" mode. I do event promotion work for the Daytona Turkey Run & Spring car shows held at Daytona Intl Speedway.
The "new" plan is to use it as a "event promo" vehicle for the shows. Thus, we now have all new inner fenders, rad support, fenders, 4 core aluminum Griffin radiator, Comp roller cam, RHS aluminum heads, Flaming River polished column, all new tinted date coded glass and almost every interior and exterior trim piece for it.
The engine is coming back out for a complete freshening. Same with the 350 trans & rear end. Thats when the main body work will start. My main goal is for it to be "bulletproof" as far as the driveline goes. The panel will get lots of miles going to shows when its finished, so I dont want any problems on the road.
The interior will be all new, with (yet to be determined) power seats, carpet, sound system w/GPS, A/C, all the "creature comforts" for those long road trips.
As far as the paint design goes, Thats still being discussed.
Now, for the "good" part, the panel's "debut" will be sometime between "Speedweeks 2009" at Daytona Intl Speedway in Feb, or at the latest the "Spring Show" at Daytona the end of March.
More Updates Later
Larry