1978 Pontiac Firebird Week 2009 03 01

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Due to he great turn out on two day this week of Lenny Ball, George Nick, Ken Long,  Frank Serafine, Jerry Croston,  Ray Schmitt, Dave Dailey, Don Goodman, and  Thomas Deyle (the Photographer forgot to get a group picture)   We:
               Installed rotors, calipers, brake hoes & lines.                                  Painted the steering gear box
              Cleaned primed and painted the firewall                                          Made patch panels for holes in the firewall
              Glass beaded headers, pained and backed Headers                      Painted the transmission
              Installed the flex plate                                                                      Bolted the transmission to the motor
              Installed the motor (does not do justice to this task! Eight guys worked 5 Hours and the engine is just setting in place. This thing fought us all the way.  I was ready to sell the car!) and then Installed the headers

 P2230013_small  Look the car now has rotors, calipers and brake hoses. We are putting parts on instead of taking them off. What a different process. I am not sure I know how to do this, I better get a bunch of people over to help me.
 P2230014_small  Pretty, the steering gear box has been painted.
 P2240016_small  We have brake lines, now all we need is a master and the car will have brakes again.
 P2250020_small  George Nick hard at work cleaning the firewall.
 P2250021_small  Thomas Deyle creating the patch panels to cover the holes in the firewall
 P2250022_small  Don Goodman standing by with the wire wheel to complete the cleaning of the firewall
P2250023_small P2250026_small
 P2250027_small  The firewall painted but no patch panels installed yet.
 P2250031_small  The headers have been glass beaded and painted with VHT paint, then baked in the oven.
 P2250035_small  All this work was done on a Wednesday in four hours!
 P2270041_small  Ready for the engine.
 P2270044_small  Transmission is painted a nice dull aluminum. Normally I do not like to paint transmissions because they give off heat better when they are not. This one cam back painted black so I went ahead and painted it again.
 P2280045_small  Now this task should have been easy. I have done it a dozen times. It was to set the tone for the rest of the day on Saturday. The torque converter would not go into the transmission. we fought this task for half an hour. Jerry Croston was finially successful!
 P2280048_small The new mini starter had to be clocked to be bolted onto the block. It turned out that once the headers were installed it was resting right against the header tube. We had to remove it again after the engine was installed in the car. I will have to look for a different starter.
 P2280049_small  This flex plate installed ok, but there was a lot of background struggle over it. It turns out that this engine has a neutral balance harmonic balancer, but that flex plate is externally balanced. The first FSI certified flex plate I got was neutrally balance. This on was shipped overnight, arrived 10 AM Friday, was shipped over to a machine shop and match balanced to the original and was finished a 4:00 PM and really to install 9:AM Saturday.
 P2280054_small  This should have been the easy part. We worked three hours getting the engine from this point to sitting on the motor mounts, and transmission mount loosely bolted in place. There were several words that lased my lips that generally do not. There was a sign written on the window in the dust  “car for sale $25.00 or Best Offer
In the picture are Lenny Ball,  Ken Long,  Frank Serafine (behind the engine), Jerry Croston,  Ray Schmitt, and Dave Dailey
 P2280068_small  Who ever designed the exhaust/header configuration for Pontiac 400’s should be shot. The rear bolt on the center port had to be tighten in with a set of needle nose vise grips an eight of a turn at a time.
 P2280069_small  Well it is loosely bolted in place. Time to take a break.