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1970 Chevelle Pro Touring on a High School Student Budget

207K views 333 replies 84 participants last post by  dlabooda 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
After finally committing to an engine for my 1970 Chevelle (a 6.0 Vortec), I figure it is about time I made a build thread. I bought my car in January of 2010 when I was 15. It was the first car I looked at so I probably jumped the gun a little bit and could have gotten one that was a little more solid but I have always enjoyed a challenge.




I then proceeded to take it apart. In my infinite wisdom, I did not document how things went together or what the fasteners were so I know that is going to come back and bite me when it comes time to put the car back together.




After pulling the motor and transmission and getting the body off of the frame, I realized the that frame had multiple cracks and splits in it. I have no idea how I could have missed all of the cracks when I first checked out the car. This should be a lesson for anyone looking at a project car: check everything!



 
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#2 · (Edited by Moderator)
I bought a solid frame from a fellow TC member and got it assembled with Energy Suspension bushings, Moog ball joints, and UMI Performance upper rear control arms. I also bought a set of disk brakes off of a '71 wagon and Eibach lowering springs.





 
#3 · (Edited by Moderator)
I then towed the frame back up to the the barn where I was storing the body of the Chevelle and reattached it. Then I towed it back down to the garage and started the working on the sheet metal.









This week I bought a gas tank for a 92-96 Caprice and started test fitting it. I only required the frame rails to be ground down a little bit at each corner. I also finished chopping out the rest of the trunk floor. I plan on building my own frame braces and reusing the gas tank braces. Then I will build the trunk floor out of sheet metal with an access door to the fuel sending unit of the gas tank.




So that is all of my progress so far. I just bought a 6.0 Vortec engine out of a 2001 Silverado on ebay and it should be here on Tuesday. I plan on finishing up the bottom sheet metal so that I can take the body back off of the frame to paint it, then start working on the drivetrain.

David
 
#4 ·
Nice work David. I bought my 65 in high school too....23 years ago. Just now starting on it. It was to big of a project for me back then, so its sat, waiting. I admire your committment, it'll be fun doing it and nice when its done. Good luck, I'll be watching for updates. Hope to start a build thread on mine soon.
 
#6 ·
Looks like you have the drive and some know how which can be a dangerous combination.

I miss the days of living at home no bills, and working just after High School. All the spare money could go to cars or girls.
 
#9 ·
When I saw the first couple of pics David my first thought was this kid has gotten himself in over his head. But after seeing and reading your thread I realize I was hasty to judge. Looks good and your doing a great job so far. Some times it take youth and enthusiasm to over come ones fears of getting in over there head and you seem to have both with drive to boot. I'm going to tag this thread so I can watch your progress. Invest in some service manuals like the factory assy. manual and the chassis service manual and it'll help some on the getting the stuff back together. Keep up the good work and keep us posted!:thumbsup:
 
#10 ·
Pretty impressie you know how to weld when your only 16-17 years old. I did the same thing to my chevelle but I started when I was 18, I am almost done at 24. I did alot of sheet metal replacement(full quarters, door skins, fenders, hood, rocker decklid etc) and to me it looks like it would be a good idea and see if you can find a nicer body to work with.
 
#11 ·
Great looking work you are doing.
You mention fabing the trunk floor, have you considered raising the floor some to
compensate for the fatter B-body tank? Not necessary, but since you got it cut out anyway.





Keep up the good work,
Malcolm
 
#12 ·
Great project. I purchased my GTO when I was 15 as well. You are doing way more than I ever did at your age. Keep it up.

Raising the trunk floor is a great idea. I would also suggest making an access panel so that you can easily service the fuel pump if it ever goes out.

Andrew
 
#13 ·
Thanks for all of the encouragement. I hadn't thought of raising the floor to compensate for the thicker tank. I will have to look into that. Does anyone know if the stock caprice fuel pump will be up to the task of feeding the 6.0?
 
#19 ·
Thank you. That is exactly what I was looking for.

I've been working on making new trunk floor braces and I noticed that the cross brace that is underneath the package tray is almost completely rusted out. I am going to drill out the rear seat/trunk divider panel to get better access to it. Are there any structural issues I should be aware of when I do this?
 
#20 · (Edited by Moderator)
So I got the 6 liter last week and I have been taking it apart ever since. I took my 350 off of the stand (which is for sale by the way) and put the new engine on it. At this point it is completely stripped down except for the harmonic balancer/pulley and the piece that goes between the cylinder heads. Does anyone know how to get this off and get the two wires unplugged? Even though the engine has 210,000 miles on it, I can still see some of the crosshatching on the cylinder walls. Because of that I see no reason to do a complete rebuild.

There are quite a few electronics and plumbing connections that I have no idea about what they are so I hope there are a few experts here who can help me. :D Are there any common problems or weaknesses in the Vortec engines that I should be aware of such as weak main or rod bolts, etc?




 
#21 ·
To get the wires out pull the rubber plugs out and then with pliers squeeze the knock sensors plugs and they will release. Easy. Can't think of a reason you would need to remove the valley cover.
Go ahead and throw that oil pan in the trash.
Head bolts are not reusable so plan on buying new if you pull the heads.
Pinouts for the harness are on either ls1tech or lt1swap.com.
A/C compressor will likely not fit in stock spot without notching frame, kwik brackets address that.
ls1howto.com has some good info. Might as well swap cams now, all you'd have to do is pop the front cover, turn the engine upside down on the stand to drop the lifters into their cups and swap away.
What accessories, intake and trans are you going to run?
 
#22 ·
If I was going to swap cams at 200k miles I'd swap the lifters too. 243 casting heads would be a nice upgrade too.

Agreed on the A/C Compressor but for budget notching the frame maybe the less expensive option as he looks like he can do the work himself.
 
#24 ·
After quite a bit of struggling, I managed to get the harmonic balancer bolt off but now I cant get the balancer itself off. The puller I have does not fit so I am not sure what to do.

I heard somewhere that most of the gaskets on the ls engines were designed to be reusable. Is this true and if so do they have a certain lifespan, in other words should I be replacing everything on a 200,000 mile engine?

You can see in the pictures how some of the valve covers have dirt and grease on them. Would this just be from road grime, or is something up there leaking?

For some reason, I can't get the dip stick tube out of the block. I assume it is just pressed into the block. It was rusty around the exhaust manifold and it broke off there when I tried to twist the thing out. Am I missing something here or is it just rusted in place?
 
#25 ·
Never worked on an ls engine, but you should be able to come up with some kind a rig to pull off the balancer. Some big washers anything. And yah never heard about the ls gaskets being reusable, but if it were me an a complete gasket set wasn't outrageous I would go ahead and replace everything, just good insurance. I would strip it down to the short block and clean the engine with degreaser and water. then give it a good coat of paint, clean all the gasket surfaces and then put it back together.
 
#28 ·
If you are going to trim the oil pan it might be okay but otherwise it hangs low as ****. Even my cts-v pan hangs below the crossmember. The pulley on the power steering pump is going to be too big, you need to get one from a donor. There is a ford pulley and several mid 90s gm pulleys that will work. I'd replace the front and rear cover seals for sure and of course the head gaskets (unless they are mls and look good) and the valve cover gaskets since they are cheap. Water pump gaskets get crusty as well so you might as well replace them. It will never be easier to replace them than it is right now. When you drop the oil pan you should be able to knock the dipstick up and out. The factory dipsticks are ****ty cheap pieces of trash and mine broke as well.
Pulling the crank pulley is easy, getting it on is harder. Go buy a long bolt of the appropriate thread (see ls1howto.com's cam swap section, I forget the pitch) to get it back on. Banging the pulley until the stock crank bolt threads is a less than ideal solution. If you don't know what I'm talking about you will soon.
 
#30 · (Edited by Moderator)
I have seen stuff about replacing. I have to take a look at the salvage yard. Would you recommend replacing the front and rear main seals too? What all goes in to that? I've seen ls1howto's page and that is for an ls1 type pulley. I can fit my puller on the truck style balancer.

I got the rear seat panel drilled out so that I could get access to the rusted out brace behind it. With the panel gone and the rest of the trunk floor cut out, it is not nearly as intimidating as I thought it would be. I am going to bend my own brace that will be slightly taller to meet up with the new trunk floor. Does this brace have much structural significance? Should I be concerned with bracing up the body before I cut it out or will it be fine?


 
#31 ·
now i have a 70 chevelle also, it was my dads and ive been with my car since birth, no kidding, i finally got the keys to it when i got my license, and i also am working with a high school budget, but looking at all this, how much is "high school" budget for you? i mean, i have no ritch parents and i work part time, i only get like 700 a month so im tight with my budget, i cant see myself doing all this to my car, even though im in California and theres no rust in it
 
#33 · (Edited by Moderator)
I have been busy the past week so I have not had a chance to get much done. I did do some more test fitting of the caprice gas tank and I decided to raise it up by making the trunk braces taller. It's only moved up about two inches but it still makes a huge difference. I also decided it would be best to have a local welding shop bend the trunk braces out of 16 gauge metal instead of trying to do it myself with 18 gauge. They should be done sometime this week, then I can start welding them together.

I also picked up a 4l60e out of a 1999 LS1 Camaro today. It looks to be in really good shape and I got it for a great price. I am assuming that it will bolt right up to the 6.0 but I am not entirely sure. I am assuming it has an electronic speed sender which is the black thing in the second pic. Is this correct? It would actually be a good thing because I am going to install aftermarket gauges.


 
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