Fresh body work :)

[bgdowski]

Im in the midst of restoring my 73 GT and decided that i would share some pictures with you guys. Feel free to share your comments...

A History: I bought the car a year ago and drove about 150 miles since i purchased it (I go to school out of state, and the car sits at my parents house). The guy i bought the car from did quite a good job of hiding rust... So i decided to strip some paint for a new paintjob, and ended up replacing metal and doing alot more work then i expected to. I also pulled the motor out and did a full rebuild (but thats for a different thread, eh?)

Since buying the car, i have added a weber carb, pointsless ignition, and 16x7 wheels.

Without further adue, here are some pictures of my baby! (updated pictures if you would like)

[newman27]

Looks like you are making good progress - POs always seem to find ways to hide the rust don't they? Thanks for sharing the pictures!

Matt

[Sparky73]

Hey man, lookin good!

Looks like your not too far from me. If you need and/or want any help, just let me know! I'd be more than happy to come down some weekend. I've been doing body work since I was 14, and have plenty of tools and paint guns.

I've also got a GT that needs the motor pulled..

[rrossjr]

Originally Posted by bgdowski Im in the midst of restoring my 73 GT and decided that i would share some pictures with you guys. Feel free to share your comments...

Great start! Are you thinking about keeping the same paint scheme?
Tell me about those wheels.
Ron in Indy

[bgdowski]

Ive been wrapped up with everything, and admittedly, very lazy when Im not working on things...

I plan on keeping the original color scheme as of right now, but my ideas flip-flop every day (too much daydreaming while in college)

The wheels are Enkei RS7 rims and are 16x7's all around. Offset is +35 and they are wrapped in 205/40/16 tires.


Since I last posted, my buddy who was helping me with the bodywork, this being my first resto, has bailed on me and i am left on my own. All the work done so far was in his garage, with his welder, his air tools, ect. So I guess when I get home for the summer I will start building up my army of tools to do the job.

[wrench459]

Get it back on the road as soon as possible. Make it safe to drive then work on the old girl when you feel like it.
Allot of people don't understand how long a complete resto takes and lose interest.

[bgdowski]

Thats the plan Wrench, as soon as I get home for the summer. I may even find some motivation during thanksgiving break to bust a knuckle or two, we will see!

[Bill Hoffmann]

Ouch. What happened to the radiator support?

[bgdowski]

Funny story... We didn't quite have the resources to raise the car up and remove the motor from underneath the car safely, so we decided to pull the motor from above. Only thing we had to do differently was remove the radiator support. Once the motor was back in after the rebuild, It welded back in no problem. No negative side effects were observed. You cant even notice after i ground the welds down

[namba209]

Originally Posted by bgdowski Funny story... We didn't quite have the resources to raise the car up and remove the motor from underneath the car safely, so we decided to pull the motor from above. Only thing we had to do differently was remove the radiator support. Once the motor was back in after the rebuild, It welded back in no problem. No negative side effects were observed. You cant even notice after i ground the welds down

Bad plan. Sure wished you'd asked before you did that. Any cutting of structures is bad on a unibody, withoug sufficient bracing prior to cutting. You could have very easily used the cherry picker to lift the front of the GT above the engine after it was sitting on the floor and pulled it out easily. Also, with some finesse you could have rotated the engine in the hole and raised it and cleared the support. I've done it both ways and my support is still intact. Oh well.

[bgdowski]

I realize I probably should have done it, and i was worried about body flex. Thank you for the advice and suggestions for further motor pulls.

[opel kid]

Originally Posted by namba209 Bad plan. Sure wished you'd asked before you did that. Any cutting of structures is bad on a unibody, withoug sufficient bracing prior to cutting. You could have very easily used the cherry picker to lift the front of the GT above the engine after it was sitting on the floor and pulled it out easily. Also, with some finesse you could have rotated the engine in the hole and raised it and cleared the support. I've done it both ways and my support is still intact. Oh well.

when i bought my Gt it didn't even have that radiator support, the po cut it out because they were going to put a 350 in it so we had to find a parts car and cut the support out of it and weld it on.

[namba209]

Originally Posted by bgdowski I realize I probably should have done it, and i was worried about body flex. Thank you for the advice and suggestions for further motor pulls.

Could be I was little harsh in my response. I was reading Ben Rich's book on the Skunk Works, again, and may have gotten a little like Kelly Johnson's my way or no way syndrome. Sorry if it came out that way. Below is a pic of how my CIH engine come out of Willit? and a further pic shows how the V-6/T-5 went in. As for the unibody flex, I had the engine and tranny mounts fit perfectly in the body before it went to the body shop, minus the crossmembers, and when it came back, I had to open up the bolt holes just a bit, because those structural members were left out and the car was moved around while it was at the body shop and did flex. HTH.

One Out - Opel Photo Gallery

http://www.opelgt.com/photopost/show...php/photo/1992

[wrench459]

Next time remove the head first and it will come out the top without surgery.

[blancojp]

Ron:
The radiator support is a very weak structure and does not provide any warpage, since it is installed almost over the main member. The problem you had was because the bodyshop probably removed the main steering member without having any of the other supports in place.

You can easily take the engine out from the top if you remove the water pump and exhaust manifold. I have yet to remove an engine from the bottom as the factory says. Besides, I have no desire to be under a car being help up by a cherry picker.

[bgdowski]

Haha wrench, that was one of my reasons for pulling the motor... The AMAZING PO stripped the rearmost-passanger side head bolt (he rounded the star pattern) when he owned the car... So there was nooooo way of getting the bolt, and thus the head off without the motor out. Once the motor was out, getting that bolt out was cake... I cant even count the hours i attemped to take it out with the motor in the car... Did i mention that i HATE POs?!

[namba209]

Not to beat a dead horse JB, but not shown in the pic, was a come-a-long that I had hooked up to the engine subframe after the car was off the ground. Didn't have to get under the car for that. After I had the car high enuff I just ratcheted the engine/tranny out from under it. I'm with you, I never got under the car without it being on jackstands and anchored with the come-a-long to a steel post sunk in concrete, because of the angle of the driveway. To my knowledge the front suspension crossmember was not removed at the body shop, and I was there everyday, taking pics of their progress.