exactly what i was thinking
Thanks again guys. It’s been a long road & alot of work. I’m ready to do another project, but my wallet aint.
That’s a familiar refrain.
x3
but does the truck get any love anymore ? 
What truck? :burnout:
It got washed about a month ago. I have been driving it alot. Parts chaser.
:stick: poor truck
atleast its a stick :sex:
It’ll be ok, buddy. It is still much more fun to drive than the GTO 
Sweet GTO. Truck is awesome too. I had a buddy in highschool that had one. Bone stock and beat to death!!
we gonna cruise out to wexford again this year ?
Yeah, sometime. I don’t know if I’m gonna make the 1st one next week.
SWEET, let me know when buddy
I guess I was wrong. I owe you one for next year.
GTO has been running great & has been reliable. I still plan to make a few passes at PRP before they close. Maybe this Friday.
It’s been a few months since I have updated this thread…
I had big plans for my GTO this winter. I had full intention of pulling the motor/trans & freshening up all of it, maybe even building a different motor. As usual things don’t really go my way & I decided to leave the motor alone. Kinda running out of time if I want to drive it this summer. I really want to build a healthy motor for it, but it looks like that may be next winter’s project.
Now I have decided to just fix some of the things that have been bothering me since I put the car together. I’m kind of a perfectionist & I understand that these are old cars, but I want it to drive like a ‘new’ old car. The shifter felt wore out, the clutch chattered, the trans ground when going into 4th gear & the car always made some faint noises when backing up. Also the driver’s front power window just about quit working & the pass side is almost there.
So here are a few pics of some various elements of my car. I don’t see any of these as ‘large’ projects & should be driving the car when the weather really starts getting nice.
I pulled the door panel & want to do what I can to fix the power windows. The LF plug has been repaired & may be causing loss of voltage. When I can make more room in the garage to open the door all of the way, I will spend some more time with this. Also in this pic you can see the clutch pedal is removed. The part where the rod goes thru was egg shaped & causing the clutch pedal to have a ‘detent’ in it. I will weld the hole up & re drill it. Also weld up the linkage rod & grind it down to fit the plastic bushing properly.
Here is the trans, clutch, & flywheel. It’s tough to see in this picture, but it looks like fluid has been escaping the trans from every orifice. The clutch was pretty wet & the flywheel has some hot spots on it. When I was putting the car together, I really just left this stuff alone. The trans was cleaned up, so I thought it was rebuilt (it probably was as evidenced by some assembly lube found in some places in the trans - more on that later).
The underside of the car is pretty much covered with oil. The exhaust, floor, rearend, etc is all oily & will need cleaned again. Fortunately just some simple green & some elbow grease will get it looking good again. It really doesn’t look that bad in this picture, but it is messy.
I wanted to send the shifter out to be refurbished, but after looking into a high cost of a specialist, I decided to tackle it myself. I really just took it apart, cleaned everything up, regreased it all & reassembled it. It was an easy job & made a huge inprovement in the shifter’s performance.
Before…
As I was taking it apart…
A complete Hurst Competition Plus all in pieces…
All the parts cleaned up & ready to assemble…
Everything done & attached to the trans & adjusted…
It is amazing how much better it feels/shifts. If it feels this good in the car, this will probably be the biggest improvement since I got the car on the road. All of the linkage was loose & the rods wouldn’t stay put. The plastic bushings were all badly worn, etc. I replaced all of the bushings with brand new Hurst steel bushings & new clips (Hurst Pit Pak). Also installed new lock washers on everything.
Now onto the expensive part…
The transmission was leaking & 4th gear was noisy. My dad has built many muncies over the years & helped me tear it apart. This is a shot of the trans all apart. I still have to clean everything to get ready for re-assembly. The wooden stand is something that I made to rebuild my T56 that is in my truck. It works well for the Muncie too.
Here is why the car always made an odd noise when backing up…
That is the reverse gear cluster. There were pieces of it laying in the bottom of the trans & one of them was stuck in the holes in the input shaft (4th gear). Hard to believe they did not cause any real damage. That said, the trans needed an input shaft, both front & rear bearings, all brass syncro rings, the 3/4 slider & all new seals/bushings. The front bearing was badly worn, which caused the syncros to get badly gouged.
Here is a nice $575 box of parts to put it back together. All american made & some even NOS GM parts.
I ordered a Centerforce Dual Friction Clutch kit & had the flywheel resurfaced. I’m going to try to get the transmission reassembled this week & install everything in the car.
Back in January, I had removed the Front & Rear bumpers to send them out for rechroming. I also had a local shop rechrome the headlight bezels, but that is long story that I don’t care to go into detail about.
The bumpers came in last Wednesday. They look beautiful. I was a little worried because of the issues I experienced with rechroming my headlight bezels, but I am satisfied with the quality of the chrome work from Keystone Automotive (Keystone did not do the bezels). I took a few quick shots of the bumpers. It’ll be a few weeks before I get them installed, but I will post some better pics soon.
My front bumper was original to the car & had alot of dents as well as the whole backside was pretty rusty. The bumper fit the car pretty well and I figured nobody looks at the back side. They did a great job making it look as good as they could on the inside. There are some hammer marks, but again not a big issue with me. Once installed, the inside will never be looked at.
The rear bumper was one my father picked up years ago & it was clearly rechromed. It was very straight & in really nice condition (fit the car well too), so it looks even better than the front. The inside looks great and there are no hammer marks.
Thanks to the input received from guys on the Pontiac forums, Keystone Automotive was a great suggestion. I wish I would have known of better chromers for my Pot metal parts. I have since found out about a few chromers in Ohio that do great work. I may pick up another set of bezels & have them done. Reproductions are available, but they fit poorly and are made in Korea or Taiwan.
Front bumper before:
Front Bumper after:
Rear Bumper after:
I need to get the ball rolling on this project. The nice weather is around the corner & I can’t wait to drive this thing again.
wow tod chrome looks great…that is the only muncie I have ever seen without a busted ear
Looking good Tod, I’ll be looking forward to seeing it at shows this year. As I mentioned before, the best part of the whole car is the history and how original/factory spec it is, your attention to detail/OCD makes it that much better.
Looks good as always Tod, I can only imagine how scared you must of been putting it that close to the wall there.
Beautiful car…
Awesome, Tod. :bigok:
Really isn’t that tough to park it that close to the wall. I pulled it in the garage and used a Jack to move it against the wall.
With my truck, bike, & the GTO in a 2 car garage, I need all the space I can get.
Thanks everybody for the comments.