Sorry to interrupt, but I've had a recent traumatic event. On August 5, 2009, my little sis was in a bad ATV accident and suffered severe head trauma. She has been in a coma since then and some friends are hosting a car cruise fundraiser to help offset the cost of her medical bills. She is making some progress and is now breathing on her own. She also has opened her eyes a few times but is not moving or attempting to talk. If you live in the area, we'd love to meet you. You do not have to own a classic car to attend and motorcycles and daily drivers are welcome. There will also be a silent auction with lots of car related items donated by businesses and individuals (and we're always looking for more donations). I'm posting this here to help the organizers spread the word and to try to help my little sis as much as I possibly can. God Bless you and drive safely, PLEASE!
1969 GTO - Beverly Hills, CA
The first photo above is pretty close to how the GTO looked when I went to CA to pick it up and trailer it home. After looking at it closer and in person, we found it needed some TLC.
The '69 GTO is now a PHS documented, numbers matching, freshly rebuilt 400-4bbl with a mild cam, AT w/console, factory A/C car. It has a 3:23 rear-end and rebuilt TH400 tranny with a 2500 stall converter.
Restoration Begins
What started out as a simple job of resetting the back window, has ended up being a total restoration project. After removing the back window, we found two very minor rust spots and some surface rust to repair. Easy fix! Welded in two small pieces and the heat bubbled the paint. No problem! Just sand it down and blend the paint back in. Discovered that the paint was peeling in sheets (really bad paint job) so decided to sand the entire car and repaint. After priming the back window area, the primer had a reaction with the bad paint and cracked all over. That led to stripping the car to the metal, which revealed a few more areas needing attention. As long as we were going that far, we then cleaned and repainted the undercarriage/frame.
Then we decided we should fix the leaks on the motor so went to replace the oil pan gasket. Can't do that without pulling the motor! When I bought the car, the guy told me the motor had been rebuilt 10k miles ago. It looked pretty good on the outside but we soon found out what a can of engine paint can cover up. After removing the valve covers to replace the gaskets, we found a good inch of oil sludge laying on top. The motor had NEVER been out of the car before! It ran good but was very close to throwing a bearing. Thank God I tore the motor apart!
After tearing the motor out, we disassembled the entire car, with the exception of the dash and decided to put all new body and motor mounts in.
The interior was been gutted as well and we found no rust on the floor pans...amazing!
Body prep was completed (thanks to my cousin and body man, Mike) and it has been painted as you will see in the pictures on the second page. My brother-in-law, Scott, is assisting with rebuilding the engine. Had it magnafluxed, bored .030 over, installing a new Crane cam, double true roller timing chain, new pistons, HEI distributor, and mini hi-torque starter, among a ton of other new parts, right down to the bolts!
Since this car will no longer be original (expresso brown), I decided to go with a custom color. I will call the color Midnight Pearl. Red has always been my favorite car color but the blue pearl in this paint is nice too. The car will appear black until the sun hits it just right. Then you'll see the pearl color come out.
