Projekt Hoopty update -- She's ORANGE!

The countdown begins. The dash, steering and front suspension pieces are back on. More to follow in coming days.
We re-used the majority of the components from the old frame head assembly, cleaning and painting what could be re-used and buying new for a couple grub screws.
I bought $800 worth of MSD ignition stuff today, and some other odds and ends to make re-assembly go smoothly. We're on track to have this thing done in ... you guessed it ... two weeks.
Time will tell, but it's really going together smoothly.

Good for you Cory! Looks great!! Nice to work with/like a professional.
I bet you have trouble sleeping.--Good luck.

Looks great, Cory! But you should set the idle down a bit.:)

BD

Orange-cha'... excited? Looks great!

Yup, That IS orange allrighty. Reminds me of something, hmmmmm....

Still thinking, I'll figure it out eventually. Orange....hmmmm....Steel construction......lots of cross members..... I'll get it..

I LIKE IT!! That's really gonna look nice with the Gulf color combination on the body.

And you must have some serious power in that engine if it can make the tach register 1200RPM when the engine's on a stand next to the car.

INCREDIBLE color. I don't know why we don't see more like this?! Maybe Orange is the new black.

If they call an orange, orange, why don't they call a banana, a yellow? Looks great. Put a helmet on the mantis, a nice orange one.

When I see cars down to the frame I see a future project for me. I would like to do a Frame-Off one day. To redo vibration dampening, some frame re-inforcements, modern wiring etc... with what I have seen over the years. It won't be this winter but maybe next year. My car was built in the late 80's and I love and pamper the car as they all should be and drive the snot out of it as well. But there are serious improvements that can be done with what we have seen with the new builders and Cory's expertise.

Great color Cory! Just ask Jjr; he just painted his dune buggy orange and it looks great!!!

Now thats a frame. This is the kind of frame yo need for a 2600 cc T-4 like they were talking about in the engine mec. part of the site I hope you have double disc on the rear

This puppy screams give me Hoss power.

Im only disapointed in that its not getting a speedster body ..

Perfect color Cory. It looks great, almost U.T. orange. Go Vols!
Hoss

Actually, Barry, it IS getting a Speedster body. Cory has modified his old CMC body so that both ends will flip open, leaving only the doors in place. It looked great in the build-up stage, but when painted it'll be incredible. He's chosen the old Porsche/Gulf racing colors of light blue over orange. I can't wait to see this beauty when it's done.

Just came up for air after another two days' parts cleaning. Thanks for all the compliments.
This configuration will allow for the 2366, but not the 2.0 six. Powdercoat man says there are enough flaws in the chassis -- places he couldn't reach -- that when I get that metal done I'm supposed to bring it back to him and he'll do those pieces, too. He also ordered me two cans of color-matched touch-up paint.
Under a thousand bucks for the whole works, and I'll only ever have to do it once.

I didn't take any additional photos yesterday, but look for them by Thursday with the car mostly together. Let me also add that measuring twice and cutting once has made re-assembly a breeze.

Barry, here's the general idea:

Some more shots from over the weekend:

Almost forgot -- great shot of the Giant Golden Orange Bridge, Dale! And everyone else, I can't thank you enough for following all of this progress. I'm hoping for an East Coast Fall Cruise or something for a shakedown. Looks like maybe the Norfolk area on or about the third weekend of October is a likely trip.
If the tach's right, I won't have to wait on my engine. Nice catch!

If anyone's interested, there were a few lessons I learned from the powdercoat process:
Not all of my welds were ground smooth, and enough of them were that it looks to my eye like it was put together in a hurry. I would like to think that nobody's going to notice when all the pieces are fitted and in place, but I'll know they're rough.
Simple fix for anyone contemplating this process might be to take a flat-headed screwdriver and a hammer, and pop the 'boogers' off as you go. I used a four-inch grinder to smooth everything I intended to put sheet metal over, but I left the ones where round stock met plate or box tubing. I made it hard for the powdercoater to reach several areas by doing that.
Also, there are a couple areas that need to be touched up, like the vertical surface inside of the fuel cell's rack and on the roll tubing connecting the passenger's side footwell to the frame head. That was probably due to the lighting in the powdercoating guy's booth. The frame head itself has bare metal behind the lower axle beam on the face of the front end of the tunnel. I can fix all of that with the spray cans when they show up this week, but it could have been avoided if I had prepped the chassis a little better.
I wouldn't lay any of that on the process or the guy; I could have taken a little more time and didn't for fear of missing the window there again.
There are a couple pieces of the frame that came back bent, too. Most notably, right ahead of the frame head, where all the three-quarter-inch stuff is connected. The second piece back, where the riser is for the fuel cell bracket.
That and the two other small bends were the result of not providing easy lifting-points for a forklift. I don't know how I could have avoided those and kept my overall lines, but I didn't even think about it. Again, learn from my lesson.
Overall, I'm still very happy. Yesterday, I learned that I'll have to chase out about half of my pre-drilled holes before I put rivets in, and that added a good bit of time to what could have been a smooth process. I don't know if that was avoidable, but I didn't plan for that eventuality.
The long hollow pieces are smooth inside, too, and I could (should-would-have-if-I'd-known) have capped those off and welded them shut if I had realized the powder wouldn't adhere to the inside walls. The tunnel is the worst offender, although it's certainly very clean now. I'll be spraying the inside of the tunnel with Chevrolet Hugger Orange high-temperature engine block paint.
If I discover anything else, I'll add those lessons here, too. Overall, I'm tickled to death. It's just little things now.

Cory,

It looks SWEET ! ! ! But you know that already. Just a super job, can't wait for some more of the progress pics, I've started a desk-top folder of them.

I was wondering what size your tach is? It's a really nice fit and isn't way over the top like so many in the Auto Meter product line. Nice, simple, and useable.

I'm looking for something to fill the center pod opening in a Pre-A dash, and that seems like a perfect size and style.

Thanks !