I know what I want to do with the wagon

Last night, mostly fueled by a roundtable discussion about how my friends have decided that the wagon is a beast (bless them) and too much rum I've settled on a plan for the 'Wag. Let me know what y'all think.

First, FIX THAT DAM ELECTRIC GREMLIN. Ok, now that thats out of my system...

-Rebuild the TBI. I have no idea if/when I'd ever get the parts car so I'm putting an LT1 on the back burner.

-Remove the emissions crap. Don't need it to get a sticker and less crap for the car to break

-Clean out/refinish the engine bay. Paint the inner fenders, clean out all the grease, grime, etc from the engine.

-Finish undercoating. That'll be done before winter, probably SEM and Rustoleum.

-Weld in new quarters, I should be getting some soon so those will go in eventually.

-Roadmaster seats. Tom offered me some Gray roadie seats. Soon as I get the cash I want to drop those in.

Sounds like a good plan. Start with the engine bay and move on from there. I always try to completely clean the engine bay when I get a new car. It makes me feel good to be able to touch stuff and not look like a grease ball afterwards.

I'm the opposite. I'd start with the patch work first so that it doesn't spread. If you go to patch a small spot and find that there's major areas that need work you may decide that the car isn't worth the effort and you'll have saved alot of time from cleaning.

GasTT wrote:

Sounds like a good plan. Start with the engine bay and move on from there. I always try to completely clean the engine bay when I get a new car. It makes me feel good to be able to touch stuff and not look like a grease ball afterwards.

I plan to do the engine bay when the engine is out during the rebuild. That reminds me, anyone know what color the TBI's were from the factory? Black? Chevy Orange?

bammax wrote:

I'm the opposite. I'd start with the patch work first so that it doesn't spread. If you go to patch a small spot and find that there's major areas that need work you may decide that the car isn't worth the effort and you'll have saved alot of time from cleaning.

First thing I did, even before I bought the car was check for rust in all the usual spots, even pulled the spare and the cargo panel over the left quarter and checked the rust, its there, but still fixable, Billy was helping me with it last mod day. I'm looking at shipping some quarters up from the south. D pillars are clean, floorboards are good, b pillars have surface rust but still solid, going to sand, prime, etc soon. Frame is solid, just flakey at this point. Car was garaged pretty much its whole life so that helped big time.

The TBI was bare metal. I think the intake and engine/heads were black.

GasTT wrote:

The TBI was bare metal. I think the intake and engine/heads were black.

That would explain the shade of brown it has since taken on

Hit it with some degreaser then glass cleaner and fine steel wool to clean it up some.

GasTT wrote:

Hit it with some degreaser then glass cleaner and fine steel wool to clean it up some.

Oh, I'm referring to the actual block, the actual TBI unit is really clean as it got cleaned out when I replaced the intake manifold gaskets.

Paint the engine to match the car. Color coordination is alot cooler than factory correct overspray

bammax wrote:

Paint the engine to match the car. Color coordination is alot cooler than factory correct overspray

Hmm... a white block would make leaks easier to spot

A nice white would really make things look clean and be eye catching.

Here ya go. Have fun picking just one.
duplicolor chart

Ew a white engine! I would NEVER. Go black or paint it silver and tell everyone it is one of those super rare prototype TBI SBC from the mid 90's.

I *kinda* like the idea of the white block. I'm thinking White block/valves and chevy orange valve covers, or Chevy orange block and valve and black covers.