My 33 Hot Rod Build

Progress has been slow lately. I’m still waiting for parts from Factory Five, I was on vacation for a week, I had a setback with the powder coating, and I forgot to take some parts to be coated.

Before I left for a family ski vacation I dropped off 34 parts, including the control arms, to be powder coated. I decided to have every bare steel part powder coated (including ones which are completely concealed).

I returned to pick up the parts only to discover that stating that “the ball joints are already welded in the control arms” wasn’t enough information for the powder coater to do what was needed. Upon opening the bubble wrap, I noticed that they hadn’t masked off the ball joints when they sandblasted the control arms.

Depending on who you listen you, this problem ranges from a major inconvenience to a complete disaster. I had a well-respected senior forum member provide me with a procedure to clean them and a well-known powder coater tell me that the ball joints are now junk.

With nothing to lose, I decided to try to clean them out. The provided procedure is:

1. Spray a lot of brake cleaner through the hole for the grease fitting.
2. Follow up with flushing it with Simple Green.
3. Install the grease fitting.
4. Flush with grease until you don’t see any more sediment. You also need to “work” the joint and wipe out any sediment in-between flushing with more grease.

I chose to use “Green Grease” brand grease solely for its light green color. This made it easy to spot the black particles of sand and dust. It took several hours and two tubes of grease to clean each ball joint. Also, the brake cleaner attacks the powder coating, so it needed to be wiped off immediately after each spray.

As you can see in the pictures, the cleaning procedure worked, but it added a few days onto my build time.

This past weekend, I began assembly of the front suspension. My plan is to use string in place of the front shocks until they arrive (should be here in the next couple of weeks). I had to clean dust from the powder coating process out of the threads of the tubular parts using a brush on the end of my Dremel, but other than that most everything else went together fine. The only problem I had was that the mount for the rod eye had to be “spread” (with a breaker bar) in order to accommodate the rod eye.

I’d intended on finishing the front suspension assembly, but to my dismay, I discovered that somehow I missed having the bushing sleeves (used to mount the lower control arms to the chassis) powder coated.

I dropped them off today and hope to have them back my mid-week, at which point I’ll pick up assembly of the front suspension.

I’ve been concentrating on fitting the floorpans this week with good success. There’s a small panel which still needs to be addressed that’s mounted behind the seats and it ties into the floorpan. I also need to drill the front of the floorpans where they meet the firewall but I’m waiting until I receive my order of additional cleco fasteners; maybe tomorrow.

You may also notice that the transmission and driveshaft tunnel areas aren’t yet drilled. I want to wait until I’m further along with the car before I fit these pieces.

Going by the order laid out in the manual, I’m building the car in almost reverse order. But I can’t do anything else; I’m waiting for at least one backordered part from each of the main assemblies. Some things off the top of my head which I’m still waiting for are:

• All brake rotors
• Front shocks
• Hardtop
• Windshield
• Gas tank
• Steering wheel

I still need to order a rear axle. I keep going back-and-forth about the gearing though (3.55 or 3.73). I’m afraid that 6th gear may be too high if I use a 3.55. Before I order that though, it would be helpful to have a bunch of parts powdercoated. I need to find a dependable powdercoater in the Phoenix area. I won’t be able to work on the car the week of the 15th so it’d be nice to drop off some stuff to be powdercoated at the end of next week.

I may have found someone with a good reputation to supply me with an engine when I’m ready, too.

Yesterday, I ordered my ISIS Power system to use in place of the stock wiring harness. As a computer professional, I understand the concept of the ISIS system a lot better than a traditional “dumb” wiring harness.

Great progress was made this weekend. The firewall has been fitted (some minor grinding was necessary for a perfect fit) and drilled. The chassis has also been drilled to mate with the firewall.

Also, the trunk panels have all been drilled and fitted. They fit great and required no trimming so far. It’s possible that like the firewall, they may need some minor trimming when mounting the body.

A special thanks to my friend John for lending a HUGE amount of help today. Without his help we couldn’t have gotten the trunk finished (all except for the 3-link cover).