Exhaust....ing. Installing headers and exhaust system.

I wasn't ready and it's not time, but my son Jason and I had access to a shop with a lift and a pipe bender for the week-end so, we took advantage of it and installed an exhaust system.

Unbelievably difficult because of all the unforeseen problems.  We started Friday morning and thought we would have been finished by late afternoon at the latest.  Wrong!  We ended up putting in 2, 10 hour days or so.

Here's what we started with...

Pay no attention to all the oil, tranny fluid, anti-freeze, power steering fluid, etc.  My plan was to have all the old dried out seals and gaskets replaced before I ever started this phase, but couldn't pass up the opportunity.

So, the first of the problems.  On the left side.  Sorry for the fuzzy picture it was hard to focus on everything.  On this side, after removing the old exhaust we couldn't get the new header past the starter and the brake lines.  I ended up removing the starter and  detaching the brake line bracket.  That gave us enough room to wiggle in.  I will have to reroute the brake lines before the car hits the road.  Right now, they are wedged against the header.  We also had to reroute the wires to the starter.  The old lines ran down a pipe along side the exhaust manifold.  There's no way they could have withstood the heat of running through the header pipes so we added wire and ran then down the firewall and back up over the top of the starter.  The old wires were nearly burned through anyway.

There was no wiggling in on the right hand side.  We first tried to get in by removing the oil filter.  It wasn't even close so we had to remove the oil filter adapter.  We were closer, but no dice.  We ended up detaching the motor mounts and raising the motor as far as we could.

The only way we could get the motor jacked up far enough was to tie the front of the car down to the lift with wire, then jack the motor off the mounts.

After raising the motor off the mounts about 3 inches, we were able to get the header in.  That's when I found we had to reroute the transmission cooling lines.  After installing the header and lowering the motor we found that the header would be resting on the cross member.  So, back up went the engine and we shimmed the right motor mount about 1/2 inch.

Left Side

 

Right Side

With the headers installed and the motor back on the mounts, even with the shims you can see that the right hand side of the motor is lower.  Anyway,  there they are, Flow-Tech ceramic headers from Summit Racing in all their glory.

Then came the pipe and Magna-Flow mufflers.  We had to do some jockeying around trying to get the pipe as high as possible.

 

The lowest part of the system is still the headers.  They might raise a little when I pull the engine and do some work on it and install new mounts.  That might be a problem too because too much rise and they will be touching the wheel control arm. They aren't as low as this picture shows because you are looking up at them on the hoist.

 

 

The tips were another problem.  The old pipe fit up a little tighter between the fender and the gas tank.  The 3 inch pipe had to run a little lower.  These pics are looking up at the tips while on the hoist so, they don't really hand as low as it looks.

 

Broomba - The Movie

 Well, all the challenges I've run into so far have to do with the fact that the 1970 LeMans was the only model and year that the chrome bumper ran all the way to the top of the grill like this...

All the other years of LeMans and GTOs had just the bumper along the bottom or similar configuration.  This makes it impossible to find reproduction parts for my car since most people with front end damage would make a GTO clone anyway.  So, today's project was repairing the mounting brackets for the grill inserts.  The inserts were plastic to begin with and the prior owner's minor collision had broken them.

 

 

So, off to the hardware store to buy a small sheet of 22 gauge steel.  Then I measured, cut, bent and drilled each piece to fit inside the molding and behind the broken tab.



After marking the holes, for screws (each tab was different) I drilled a pilot hole and then hit them with self etching primer.

 

 

 A couple of coats of black enamel...

 

And then in go the screws.  The screws going into the plastic molding pointed toward the grill, had to be started, backed out, cut off, and then put back in because they were too long and I was too cheap to drive to the store to buy short screws.  I don't know if I could have found them that short and as wide as I needed anyway.

 











 

Here's a view from the bottom showing how the new metal bracket will bear the stress...hopefully.  I really had no other choice.  I did a couple of test spots with fiberglass and it wouldn't grip the plastic even when it was roughed up.  Not to mention, when the temperature changes plastic and fiberglass, having different molecular makeup, expand and shrink at different rates so, it would never have stayed, especially after torqueing a fender screw on top of it.



 I may end up shaving some of the longer screws or doing something different at mounting time.  Without putting it all together its hard to estimate where the mounting bracket will sit in the bumper bracket.

I had a couple of projects today.  First, a salvage parts guy sold me a hood release rod for a GTO, he told me it was compatible when I questioned him.  It isn't.  He had just assumed I was making it into a GTO clone.  The big chrome grill on the LeMans sticks out further, so... yup.  I had to make my own.  Here's a pic of the GTO pull on the left, my creation in the center, and the prior owner's clothes hanger on the right.  Quarter inch steel rod bent with my patented hood pull rod bender (pipe wrench).  Hey, if I can do this with my limited skills and tools, anybody can.

I put a coat of sandable primer on the upper grill.  I'm not posting a pic of that.  It just needed another coat.  Then I started on today's real project.  You can see in this picture that the passenger side of my car is faster than the driver's side.  Well, at least it gets there first.

The prior owner's accident pushed the bumper up and kinked the fender which broke the upper grill I've been repairing, and pushed the fender back.  So, today I loosened all the fender bolts, pulled the fender up and out slightly with some shims, then aligned the hood a little and now it looks like this.

 

 

The hood still needs straightened.  GM was notorious for putting short hood braces on the hood hinges.  After a dozen or so closings, the hood bends at the end of the hinge.  Not just the cars.  I had a '70 GMC pickup with the same problem.  When I get a welder I'm going to put some angle iron bracing in the hood.

This project took a lot longer than I thought.  Every time I thought I had finished, I would get some more decay crumbling away from an unseen rock chip or something.  Anyway, 37 hours and a quart of fiberglass later...

Before.  Here's some pictures of the cracks and breaks.  These were caused by the prior owner running up on something like a parking barrier.  It pushed the bumper up, which pushed the grill up, which broke the upper grill.

I had to do the repair on this part.  I have not been able to find a replacement.  I think that's because whenever someone has damage to the front end of a LeMans, the turn it into a GTO clone.  The only differences between the LeMans and the GTO are the front end and the wing on the trunk.  So, most people turn their damaged car into a GTO clone for less than a restoration.

The repaired part stripped of paint.  I didn't bother to sand down the parts that will be covered by the bumper.  Partly because it won't show but mostly because I wanted all the strength and thickness possible wherever I could hide it.

And, the finished product primed and ready for a final sanding.

I straightened the front fender.  It still needs a little finesse, but it's back down where it should be.  Here's a before and after.

Jason got a good laugh and said, "When that hospital rig turns loose, I'll drive ya down."  Ya, I'm sure that you professional body shop guys have a special fender straightening tool thing.  I don't so, what you see is a come-along winch hooked to the tow hook from my old Jeep and hooked to the fender.  The other end of the cable is hooked to a pry bar that is wedged into the staircase going down into the basement, with a 2 x 4.  Well, it worked and I still have most of my fingers.

Spent the day dismantling the front end.  I was pretty worried about how I was going to straighten the one accident dent in the body which was where the driver ran up on something and bent the bumper up and kinked the driver side front fender.  The fender I think I can fix, but the bumper is pretty heavy steel.  Lucky for me, I found a rare replacement in Missouri at a really good price.  Probably such a good price because it is rare.  Not too many people are looking for this style of LeMans bumper.  Most of the time if it needs replaced they'll make a GTO clone out of it with a different front end setup.

I decided to start at the front with the body work.  The further back I go the more rust work there is and I don't have a mig welder yet.

I took the valance off at the very bottom.  Someone had fixed it before and had just ground and roughed up the dents, filled them with Bondo and painted it.

It had some dents, lots of rust so, I worked on it most of the week.  I stripped the paint to find body filler.  Sanded it off, pounded out the dents and took off most of the rust.  I've decided to let it sit until I start putting the front end back together because I'm not sure if it's perfectly straight (or even should be) and so I'll need to be able to mount it.

Here you can see the Bondo from the previous "repair".  I sanded it all off and pounded out the dents.

 

I found the vacuum advance on the tranny had come off so I reattached it with a clamp.  The problem was that, like the dipstick, it had not been bolted to the bell housing.  The bolt was there, it just hadn't been attached.  I had to take the dipstick off to get it in place and then reattach everything.  I degreased the engine and where the oil had sprayed.  Except for the main seal and possibly the steering box I think I have all the leaks plugged.

Replaced transmission filter and gasket because it was still leaking.  Very clean.  I was told it was a newly rebuilt tranny with not too many miles.  There were no shavings.  Clean filter too.  About the only thing was a couple of bugs that had crawled over the last decade while the tube was out.

 

 

Well, the new gasket didn't stop the leak.  In fact, it was a lot worse.  I looked around while tranny fluid was going every where and found that when they were replacing either the tranny or engine, they had crushed a tranny coolant line near the motor mount and had replaced it with rubber hose.  That hose had moved over and touched the exhaust manifold and got a hole melted in it.  It really sprayed when I found the hole.  I replaced the hosed and stopped the leak.

 

 

I flushed the power steering lines before connecting them.  I think there's a  leak in the steering box but it may be fluid still running off.  I know there's a leak in the rear main seal.  It will have to wait until we pull the engine.

Replaced power steering pump and put some more tranny fluid in.  She's still leaking.  I wanted to change the filter anyway.  Looks like now's the time.

Fired it up unloaded the car from the trailer and warmed the car up.  The power steering pump leaks like a sieve.  I had topped off the tranny but after it warmed up it still needed another quart.

Hooked up some jumper cables because I'm too cheap to buy a battery right now if we need to take the engine out and rebuild it later.  I decided to take the plugs out and turn the engine over a few times with the cylinders open to get oil pumped up through the system before it fires up under pressure.  I replaced them with new plugs.  Gassed up the car with 3 oz. of Mystery oil in the gas.  Primed the carb and started the car.  There was one valve lifter that clicked for a while and quit.  The engine sounds really good.

Replaced fuel lines and fuel filter.  Drained fuel tank.  There was about a gallon.  I washed it out with another couple gallons of gas with Mystery oil.  Took out the plugs, turned the engine over by hand a few more times and put the plugs in solid.

Changed the oil and scoped the cylinders.  They looked really good for an engine that's almost as old as me.  I checked the engine block numbers and verified '68 GTO 400 cid.  The block numbers are 9786133 which corresponds to an engine built in 1967, but more than likely it was put into a car the next year.  1968 was the year of GTO I was told that it came out of.  I removed the hood to make things a little easier.  Replaced the bolt missing from the bell housing.  Here's a picture of the radiator overflow.  Ya, that's a Downy fabric softener bottle.

Blew the dust and cobwebs out of the engine compartment.  We found that when they had installed the new engine or transmission, they had left a bolt out of the bell housing (or it had come out) where the tranny dipstick tube bolts on for support.  We assumed since the dipstick tube was out of the tranny, that's where the tranny fluid was coming from that caused the car to be parked.  So, Jason and I put it back in.

I pulled the plugs and squirted Marvel Mystery Oil into the cylinders then, with the plugs out, turned the engine over by hand.  Nothing seemed frozen so we let it set.

So, Jason and I hooked a chain on the old girl and pulled her out of the ragweed.  Billie the owner, with her Harley tattoo peeking out of her tank top, kept flirting with Jason while she smoked her Marlboros.  She called me "Dad" and him Jase.  I said he was my personal mechanic.  She looked at him and said, "I need me a mechanic."  She was probably older than me, not to mention, she had a lot of city miles, hard city miles.  We winched her (the car not the owner) up on the trailer, chained her down (the owner not the...ya ok the car) to the trailer and headed for home with our treasure.

Broomba (Parker's name for the car) was sitting behind a barn in Lindon, UT.  She had been there for the last 10 or so years.  The prior owner used to drive it from Lindon up to the State Prison each week-end to see her husband.  The engine "threw it's guts all over the interstate" on one of the trips.  Her Dad had a GTO 400 V8 that he put in it for her.  Her husband got out of the clink and shortly after passed away.  About that time the transmission went out.  She had a newly rebuilt one put in and it started leaking fluid really bad so, she parked it behind the barn.  She was going to Florida and didn't need it fixed.  When she came back it was to care for her elderly parents so she drove their vehicles and the LeMans just sat there ever since.