1978 Darth Vader Vette

Keep the winch and mount! Never know what you may need to drag along...Seriously, some real thinking there.
Good idea on the upload - the MODs handle all the details.
Nice progress, makes me wish I was in my garage. Just spent 10 days building and wiring an electrical panel in a space about the size of a Rottweiler's kennel. Oh yeah, 90+F.

Cheers - Jim

If I left the winch in there, I'd have to get a special window to run the cable out of!! LOL!!

I guess I'll leave the wiring to you - I can handle the cold - the 90+ F Kennel - not so much!

I checked on the upload yesterday and the file is now available to all. Thanks for pointing that out to me! DONE!!
 
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excellent work....now i can tell my wife that in my next garage there is a need for a gantry crane to be installed in the cieling.

now i am thinking i wasn't creative enough on this ..

Shouldn't we all have a gantry crane in our garage??? We take the cars apart enough!! :drink:

I think you made good use of the engine crane - you had the room to do so!!! I don't have the amount of room you do but we all improvise!!!

Stopped by Lowes this afternoon and picked up some pulleys that I can open to run the winch cable through!!

With the snow coming in tonight/tomorrow, I will have some quality garage time!!!

Have a great evening all. Be safe!!!!

John
 
Houston, we have lift off!!!

This is kind of like when George Peppard of A-Team says,
"I love it when a plan comes together"

It happened today!

I decided to "play" in the garage this evening and got the winch hooked up with the new pulleys I got at Lowes today. You all know this - curiosity killed the cat sorta thing. Well, I could not wait until tomorrow!!!!

So, here is the winch and pulleys hooked up
[URL=http://s99.photobucket.com/user/GovetteGo/media/2014-02-12162641.jpg.html][/URL]

Got to test it - Right!!! Got the cables tight
[URL=http://s99.photobucket.com/user/GovetteGo/media/2014-02-12183209.jpg.html][/URL]

We have lift off!!!! WOOHOO
[URL=http://s99.photobucket.com/user/GovetteGo/media/2014-02-12183320.jpg.html][/URL]

Half the way off
[URL=http://s99.photobucket.com/user/GovetteGo/media/2014-02-12183631.jpg.html][/URL]

The clip is "OUTTA HERE"!!!!
[URL=http://s99.photobucket.com/user/GovetteGo/media/2014-02-12184203.jpg.html][/URL]

View from the front.
[URL=http://s99.photobucket.com/user/GovetteGo/media/2014-02-12184411.jpg.html][/URL]

Can't tell you how tickled I am that this is finally happening. Now I have access to the rear frame area to complete work not possible with the clip on.

Damn this is fun stuff!!! :drink::drink:
 
OMG!!!! I haven't posted since FEBRUARY!!!! That's way too delinquent!! Guess there is just too much going on including the much anticipated arrival of our grandson!!

I will have to dig out the photos this weekend and get this thread up to date.

Here is what has been done:
The new Hurst TKO600 has been installed
The 3:73 differential and rear suspension is installed
The Smart struts were installed
Rack Attack installed
Engine stripped and painted
Intake powder coated gloss black and installed
New Fluidamper installed

I purchased a serpentine system from March Performance at Spring Carlisle. I wanted an all black system - AC, alternator, brackets - everything. March was the only vender that said they could do it for me.

All the wiring has been removed from the car. Last week, I discovered a clump of melted wires in the dash harness - a couple were bare. That was all I needed. With all the mods I am doing with this car - the old wiring methodologies just don't seem right. I have been looking into the ISIS Power 3 cell unit as a starting point. Being a geek, I like the idea of using my smart phone to trigger certain functions - raise and lower the hood maybe - maybe gull wing doors - that's kinda Star Wars like!!!!

No decision has been made yet but when you look at the fact that the dash harness alone is over $800, a few other harnesses were cut and taped or cut and spliced. Bubba had fun with this car.

I will get this thread up to date with pictures this weekend!

Have a terrific weekend.
 
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Got any of those new pics to load up? How goes your thinking of doing a gullwing setup? I'm nearing completion of mine - but I've been banished from doing bodywork in the garage, and being outside now its started to rain...so I am at a pause.

Cheers - Jim
 
Got any of those new pics to load up? How goes your thinking of doing a gullwing setup? I'm nearing completion of mine - but I've been banished from doing bodywork in the garage, and being outside now its started to rain...so I am at a pause.

Cheers - Jim

Can I get by with "Best laid plans of mice and men"??? AND, let me add NEVER, EVER have 2 restorations going on at the same time!!!!

Good news, Monday morning, my 69 Riverside Gold Vette left the house to be painted. It will not be back until next spring so I have time to get back to Darth.

I gave some very serious thought to the Gull Wing Doors but with the narrow garage I have, I wouldn't be able to get out of the car once I drove it inside!!!! OH NO!!!! Secondly, the amount of work that I felt necessary to reinforce the center bar to support the weight of the doors was more than I was willing to do. I guess I need to take a look at what you've done.

As you stated above, no body work or fiberglass work in the house. No progress was made this winter and work has kept me so busy that it was difficult to get the 69 ready!!!

It will be a couple weeks before i can get back to work on Darth. Heck, I think I need to re-read this thread to see where I left OFF!!!! ;)
 
Well my friends, it has been a year and a half since I have posted anything of substance. That will change in the near future. Finally getting a grip on things. Our grandson, work and my shop ceiling buckling has forced my attention away from Darth.

Poor car has been sitting alone in the garage for far too many months now. And the indignation it went through when I removed the 3:70 rear and the TKO600 and sold them to a good friend for the C3 Vintage Race car he is building. Going back to the ST10 and 3:36's.

I did purchase a Daytona front bumper that I will be modifying and I have a design on the rear tail light panel. Let's see if I can upload a picture here. DO I REMEMBER HOW????

sith02.JPG

Many thanks to Bats13 for his mocking this up for me.

I'll add a picture of the front bumper after I resize it - got an error that it was too big.

I plan on hitting this project hard in September. I have no customer projects this winter so Rock n Roll!

Oh, I also picked up a nice set of ZR1 black powder coated wheels - 19 x 10's for the back and 18 x 8.5" for the front. Now I have to make sure the 8.5 will fit under the stock front fenders.

Have a great day all!! More to come.
 
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I like! I need to post up some in my thread - been a busy body work summer for me. Now working between rain showers too - and the HEAT.

Cheers - Jim
 
Damn Time Flies!!!

Its like POOF and 3 months have gone by!! Well, finally got a little time to work on Darth today and to me, it is big progress. Darth has been up of jack stands for several months without a differential. Well, today Mr UPS delivered my newly, Bair's Corvette, rebuilt 3:36 differential. I had nothing better to do so I got busy getting the differential installed.

Here is a picture of the differential out of the box.
IMG_0478.jpg
Yes, it came all blacked out!! Told them what I was doing and they helped!! Great folks there at Bair's.

This is the differential before bolting the crossmember in.
IMG_0484.jpg
This tranny jack from Harbor Freight is worth its weight in gold!!! I used it to install the ST10 and figured why not use it on the rear. I have used a floor jack in the past and that is flaky!!

Last picture is with the differential bolted in - should have removed the jack!!
IMG_0485.jpg

Yes, really!!! It's bolted in!!! Trust me!!!

Tomorrow will be dedicated to getting the remaining items installed so I can get Darth back down on all 4 wheels!!!

John
 
With it being to darn cold to work in the garage - I have started working on my headlight assemblies - inside my warm family room!!!!

I am converting from vacuum to electric motors and from round lamps to rectangular lamps.

Is there any interest here on the rectangular lamp conversion? If there is, I will post the step by step procedures. There are already a couple great threads on the vacuum to electric conversion so no need to duplicate that.

Let me know!

John
 
Rectangular Headlight Conversion

I am going to try and detail the steps to convert from round headlight lamps to rectangular. I thought about fixed rectangular headlights but it looks too much like the Daytona body then the streamline look I was looking for with Darth.

The first step in the conversion is to cut the mounting post off on the headlight buckets.

Here is a picture of the headlight bucket before I started the modification. I had already marked the center round area that needed to be enlarged for the back side of the rectangular headlight lamp. The 6 posts that have to be cut down are circled in red. Cut down to same level as the mount holes.



This is a shot of the air drill with a disk. This cut the aluminum post off in seconds.



Here, I am half way through one post.



Here are 3 of the post cut down to size - this is for one lamp of the 2 lamps.



This is a shot of all 6 post cut on this one headlight bucket.


The next step is to test fit the brackets. The rectangular headlights have different locations for the adjusters. The cutting of the posts and the modified bracket allow installation of the posts and adjusting screws. This picture shows the location of the brackets. The brackets came with the kit I purchased. If you are interested in this installation, let me know. I am going to make a template of each of the 2 brackets to pass on.



More soon!
 
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Hey John-
Completely understand working in the family room!!! I've commandeered the dining room table to wrap my dash pieces!!!

I had to open up the hole for my headlight-I wanted it cleaner than a dremel could do.

Took a scrap piece of metal - drilled a pilot hole- then clamped it to the assembly- went to town w/ my hole saw- and had a nice clean hole.

16996244058_92056d84e9_b.jpgDSCN5140 by Richard Hayes, on Flickr

16563826523_b23ff95b81_b.jpgDSCN5144 by Richard Hayes, on Flickr
 
Nice job Richard!! Wish I had thought of that when I enlarged the holes!!! :rolleyes::rolleyes:

I used a rotary file and a sanding drum - probably took way longer then it took you!!
 
The next step after cutting down the 12 posts is to enlarge the 2 center holes. The stock round lamps fit these holes perfectly - the rectangular lamps - not so much!!

Here is a picture of one hole that has been marked using the template that came with the kit. Again, I will duplicate this for anyone's future use!



While a bit primitive compared to Richard454"s solution above, I used a rotary file to expand the hole.



After about 20 minutes of "filing away", I had the holes just about where I wanted them. I finished rounding off the holes with a sanding drum. Yeah, Richard's was was faster and cleaner! Thanks Richard!!!



Once I was sure everything was cut right and fit right, I powder coated the 2 headlight buckets. Here is one as an example.



Next step is to modify the housings for the electric motor conversion.

WOOHOO!! Progress.
 
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What are you planning, the older square bulbs like the old sugar scoops used or the later camaro bulb that is about 2.5x5 or so...???:thumbs:
 
I did the "rough" assembly of one unit this morning. Pictures coming soon that will show the whole assembly, brackets to "sugar" scoops to headlight lamps to the retainer trim piece.

A picture is worth a thousand words Gene!!! :clap::clap:
 
Another fine day in Eastern PA. Snow and too cold to work in the garage!

I decided to do a test fit of the rectangular lamps in my modified housing.

First picture is of the bare powder coated housing.



This picture is of the extension plates that came with the kit, the stock, black plastic adjuster with the adjuster screw. Notice how the plates relocate the adjuster screws.



Also worth noting if you plan on doing this modification, the stock screws are too long to use with these plates. I ran to Home Depot and purchased 40 - 8-32 X ⅜" long screws. They worked perfectly.

Once the plates and adjusters were in place, I mounted the lamp buckets. Gene, are these the "sugar scoops" you referred to???



NOTE: If you are using stock lamp buckets from a Firebird/Camaro, the buckets will have to be cut down about 1 inch.

Next step was to place the lamps in place. Low Beam goes to the outside, Hi Beam on the inside. I did not have the small springs available to install so the lamp is just laying there in place.



Here is the headlight trim held in place with just 2 screws. It all has to be taken apart so I can powder coat the new screws. Then I will put it back together for good.



The final picture of the assembly is the back of the assembly. Once the opening was enlarged in the housing, the lamps had plenty of room to fit correctly.



Good news. I showed the "finished" assembly to wife and got 2 thumbs up!! It must be good!!!:cool::cool:
 
I wanted to add one more picture. This is the template for enlarging the 2 holes in each housing. The outside diameter is 2 ¼" as shown. Easy to make.



I will add the adjuster relocation plates soon.
 
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