I had fun bolting on the True Turn kit and muscle bar in. It is always nice to work with clean parts. It was good to finally be able to mock up the brakes and wheels.
I started rolling the fender lip.
It was excited to see the body sitting lower over the front tires and all the Baer brakes parts installed as expected. I still have quite a bit of work to get the front fenders finished and the final ride height worked out. I need to set the camber and really dial in the front end. It is going to be close but I am pretty sure it will work out.
I started working the inner wheel tub by first cutting a donor piece out of an old fender laying around for spare parts.
The plan for the part I cut out is to flip that piece around and weld to the inner lip and make a connection with the inner tub. It made a great window to look through and see what all goes on in there.
I cut the part of the inner tub that is stamped down toward the wheel so I can make the whole tub as tall as possible. A good sheet metal person probably would be more clever but I decided to work with what it have. The idea was to figure out the left side and then copy it on the right.
You know how when things are going well something always happens. In this case I had to get a car running for my son to go to college. Some neighbors gave us a car several years previous and now I had procrastinated my time away and needed to get it running. I spent several weeks off-and-on getting the old Pontiac running and was a little distracted by the whole preparing my son (and myself) for college. It was hard to get anything done while the garage looked like this.
I finally got the Pontiac running and reliable for the school commuting. The Camaro had been sitting for a couple months and the Pontiac was in the way, but at the same time it sort of forced me out in the garage and got me accomplishing things again, which was good. Playing around with all the sensors, swapping parts, fixing harness issues and changing the tank mounted pump also got me thinking about how nice it would be to have an LS engine in the Camaro. Now I was thinking just two more cylinders and basically the same process, but I was committed to the big block for the short term !
I jumped back in planning to finish the front fenders and go for a victory cruise with Tru Turn installed. I pulled the old high compression big block that I first built in high school in 1978 to put on the shorter pan.
I had already purchased the pan and flipped the engine over to install it.
I did a quick fit check and was about to work some clearance issues with the oil windage screen when I noticed the crank scraper was bent. Looking around I found a piston skirt laying in the engine. Dang ! so much for reusing the old big block without a rebuild !
To say I was discouraged is pretty accurate. But I decided to set the engine aside and work out some of the sheet metal projects to keep me busy while I figured out what to do for an engine.