Capt Fiero's new 87GT Project Car

David,

You could of course add a little Latin flavour yet with the same functional theme of "Back Draft" and perhaps name it:

"Validus Ventus"    

 

I'm glad you're moving on Capt'n, cause that 87GT looks damn good, even sitting there half covered in snow.

Glad to see you've been able to get going, that snow and cold weather was fustrating to say the least.

March on - cheers Dave

It,s sad to see an icon of WCF be dismantled but I know it's time. I have no doubt that most of it will live on in the new car. Keep up the good work.

ps- I call firsties on the test drive :)

Well here are the pics from today.  Managed to dislocate my shoulder while moving the cradle/engine/trans assembly into the garage.

        I'll see how I am doing tomorrow after I go see the Doc.

A few notes, That section where the muffler is, that is the ENTIRE exhaust for the car.  Exits out the side of the car.

You can see the belt wrap on the alternator pully.  That bugger will never squeal. 

There are a lot of things to clean up before the engine is ready to go into the 87.   If my arm is buggered up, I'll probably start on the little things like rebuilding the headlights in the 87.   

 

 

wow, sorry to hear about your shoulder, any update from the doc? 

If you want another pair of hands or some extra muscles I have quite a bit of spare time thrursday though Sunday. let me know if you want some help. 

Ryan

    I am actually feeling a fair bit better this morning. I think when the daylight comes out, I'll go and pop both headlight motors out, and bring em into the garage. I'll try to do a pictorial of the rebuild of 87/88 headlight motors.

Everytime I've removed glass from a car I've used a tool with a hooked razor blade. I think I got it at Princess Auto. It slides around the window and then sits flush on it just skimming the edges of the glass doing the least amount of damage to the rubber.

It's pretty handy and works very well. I'll try to find a picture of what I'm talking about.

*EDIT* It looks something like this.

Pic

Ok so today was the day to pull the old engine out of the 87 and start prepping it for the V8.
             I got one hell of a surprise, I went to remove the wheels and there are wheel locks on, with NO KEY.  I called the previous owner and he informed me the key was stolen.   So I had to do it the long way.  Leaving the wheels on the car while removing everything.   (All you have to do is reach around the wheel, remove the 10mm calliper bolt for the brake hose and remove the 13mm bolt for the brake line to strut bracket.  You can leave the E-Brake lines on the callipers and just disconnect the Main E-Brake cable from the assembly on the rear of the cradle.    I am liking the new hood and decklid every time I see it.

Well enough chat, here are today spics.

Sorry I did not take any Pre jacked up pics. 
So the first pic, is the rear of the cradle lowered.

This is my ASSUME THE POSITION pose for all my engine swaps.

Nose getting a little close to the ground

Hood just seems to look good on there

At this point, I removed all the trim bolts in the side of the nose to let it flex a little bit.

Yikes,

Time to get down, err, UP to business

Man that was easy.  Into the garage it is.

I always use 2 hyd jacks under the cradle to skate it into the garage.

I think I need a bigger garage.  You can see the Caddy motor on cradle in the background.  I have to swap the Getrag onto the 4.9. 

Naked

The top of the taillight section is just over 6ft off the ground

I can’t wait to get this back into the car and start driving it.  Its going to be so nice to have a V8 burbling behind my head again.

------------------
85GT Soon to be 87GT,93 Eldorado 4.9, 5spd Dual O2 Custom Chip, Custom Exhaust.  MSD Everything Capt Fiero --- My Over View Cadero Pics     Yellow 88GT 5spd Full Poly Suspension, Lowered 1/2" in front, Corner Carver.
     

 

Well the previos owner came by tonight and with the use of a large hammer was able to get one locking lugnut off, he will by with friends tomorrow to try and get the remaining 3 wheels off.  The deal was I got the car for $300 but he wanted to keep his wheels. 

 

As promised here is today’s progress report.

I had to get that damn suspension out of the way.  So I removed the Toe Link, then popped the lower ball joint, and yanked it off.  

Success, the Trans is coming away from the engine.  Until the dam thing got stuck on the frigging inspection plate.

Used the hoist to keep the motor high enough to simply lift and slid the trans off of it.

You can see the massive heat scoring on the flywheel.  He said the car would not even move.

Sorry I did not take any pics of the Isuzu removal, but here it is off.  You can see the nice awesome Clutchnet clutch again.  Man it bites hard.  I love it.

That is the entire exhaust on my 4.9  Custom 2 piece Y-Pipe, into a large stainless bottle muffler and out to an old Camaro low profile tip.  It is really quite at idle, but LOUD as hell, when you wind the motor up.

Getrag Trans DIRTY AS HELL, That won’t do for my car, after 3 cans of engine degreaser and one can of Paint stripper it came clean.  I did screw up, the Paint stripper can, had a busted nozzle, so what does any idiot do when he is tired and frustrated, GETS A BIG HAMMER.  I stuff a nail in the top of the can, drappped a towel over the can and the nail.  Hit the nail down into the can, it didn’t hiss or anything.  So I grabbed the nail through the rag, and slowly started to pull it out, that’s when the can decided to start shooting.  I had my jacket on with my hoodie and my glasses and gloves.  Well the crazy spray managed to get onto a bit of my wrist where the jacket and sleeve were not covering.  Instantly started to burn.  But I was standing there with a can spraying stuff and I needed to get “said stuff” onto the trans housing.  I gritted my teeth and continued spraying down the trans with the paint stripper, as soon as I was done, I ran into the house to the sink and soaked my arm then washed it a few times.  Got a bit of a rash, but no major problems.  
I went back out, gave it a 2nd coat of degreaser and fired up the pressure washer.

Before

 
After

Anyone recognize this shifter linkage, is it one of Rodney’s.  I don’t think its stock.  Looks way to well done to be OEM.  Machined bits, with what looks like Rodney’s Oilite bushings.  I took lots of pics of it.

Even the clutch fork looks like it might be a newer one.  OEM style though.

I promised a shot of my garage computer work area.  I have everything I need out there.  Computer, smokes, fridge in other corner of garage.  
 Can you guess my desk chair.

 
There I peeled back the seat cover to give ya a hint.  You can see my main heater in the lower left corner of the pic.  It’s a 40,000 BTU Forced Air, Jet  A, Kerosene / Premium Diesel fuel heater.     It was just over 0C (32F) this morning, but in my garage it was a nice 23F (75F)