'75 o2 project (updated 3.29.07)

[albawhore]

In the fall of 2000 I bought an 1975 o2 (minted 10/74). I got it from a good buddy for $700 with a blown head and a questionable radiator. I got it with the intention of fixing it and giving it to my oldest step son for his 16th birthday. I get it home and we start wrenching on it and fixing stuff as we find it. We take the head to the local high quality machine shop and find out that it has already been resurfaced and is actually different heights at each end.

So we go home with the aluminum paper weight and start to weigh our options. Money was tight back the and I could not afford to throw another $700 at it. We talked about getting a rebuilt high performance engine from the guys in Rancho Cordova and started saving. After about 6 months the new paint job the car came with started flying off in fingernail sized pieces, so we decide to take it to bare metal. We worked our asses of and got about 3/4's of the way around the car. We found some rust under the bumper rubber on the passenger rear. We found a lot of bondo on the front right fender and then we started to look more closely. It had a "new" nose that had been stick welded in and poorly at that.

The car sat for a long time.

I found some money and a '76 Chamonix that had been sitting literally across the street from the ocean in Santa Cruz for four years. The engine had 3000 miles on a rebuild when it was parked, family health issues caused it to be parked. I bought the car. It was melting but the running gear looked good. I made a temporary gas tank out of a gas can, put our battery in it and turned the key. It started right up, it ran for about 5 minutes and the oil filter was so rusted that it sprang a leak and sprayed oil across half the neighborhood. I ran to Kragens fixed the filter and drove it away. We pulled the running gear and transplanted it to the '75. We now have a runner.

We started putting everthing back together, we had pulled the rear suspension and gone through it replaced all of the fasteners painted it etc..

I get the car all legal so that my boy can take it to Wyoming for school at Wyotech and his Dad gives him a 4runner (used 95 limited) so the car sits some more.

He comes home from school, we charge the battery, it starts right up and we head off to make some friends in the mountain community that we live in (SLOW DOWN YOU ASSHOLES, you know friends).

He and his brother are out dicking around in the car and it has a tragic loss of power. I pull up on the way home from work and say "what happened guys". My younger step son says "Dylan told me to stall it on purpose so I would know what it feels like and we heard something pop and it will not move anymore". Jordan was learning the stick so I figured they had tossed the clutch lining. The car sat some more.

We moved I now have a garage, I get the car over here put it in the garage and we decide that we are going to finish going through it. Dylan is now a diesel mechanic and making good money so he wants to make it special.

I get it up on the stands and figure out that the drivers half shaft had come loose from the diff, hence the pop and tragic los of go.

I am now taking the car all the way down. I am going to send it out for media blasting, fix the stick welded nose job. I just found rust in the passengers floor boards today so we will be fixing that. All new steering, all new bushings, all new suspension, 130+ hp, new seats etc. etc. etc..

We are going for hot street/auto X (I sent him to Skip Barber for his 16th birthday).

I will get some photos up soon I have been meaning to get a digital camera but have been lagging.

There you have it and I will keep you folks posted.

[Dirt]

Great project! I came in tonight to start my own project blog for my '75 02 and yours was the first post up here. You're much further along than I am. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for the inspiration.

Pete

[albawhore]

Stripping the interior and beginning the search for rust

Stripping the engine bay

Under the 1/4" thick welds

After sand blasting

pedal bucket before

We are planning to seal all of this up and pull all of the unneccessary brackets and keepers.

Not bad

Better

Suface only

DAMMIT I knew it had to be some where, It does not apper to have gotten to structure but we are still searching.

I'll get some more up later.

[esty]

mr whore...at your photobucket site, below each image you upload, you'll see the image tag ready to use...simply right click on it and select copy then paste that into the post here, wherever you want that image to appear....

this is what you image tag should look like...no more, no less...

and...if you want to eliminate all those errors that appear in the above post, PREVIEW what you are going to post before you submit it...it it ain't right, fix it there and keep previewing it til it's what you want it to look like...then click the SUBMIT button

[albawhore]

Esty,

I was at home on the Mac where right clicking is not an option, I got back on this morning and fixed it up.

I am extremely unwired and have learnerd more about computers than I have ever known just because of this board.

Thank you for your support and I appologize for last nights error filled attempt.

Justin

[Dirt]

You've been busy. It is great to see the work moving along. I can't tear mine down like that until after the worst of the winter.

Your floors look better than mine do. Sorry that you had to find the rust there though. It would have been nice if there hadn't been any at all.

Keep up the good work.

Pete

[albawhore]

Finally some forward motion.

I finished the control arms tonight, they are epoxied, new Moog ball joints and Ireland urethane.

With a little help from the canine garage assistant.

I spent about 30 minutes with the heat gun / propane torch method on the pan and wound up with this.

20 minutes with a painters 6-in-1 tool and a dead-blow hammer got me this.

30 minutes on the drivers side with the hammer/tool.

It was a cool California day (50-60 degrees) and it seemed like the cooler it was the easier it went. Even a 5 degree change was noticable.

As for the steering box. The gears look great. I am a little worried about the rings from the seals, I am going to try a little emory cloth action. They are pretty shiny but I cannot feel or measure any real void.

I will update as soon as I have more. Right now I am off to find new hardware for the front suspension so that maybe mine will look 1/10th as good as Bill Williams incredible project.

Happy Holidays and Stay Safe.

JB

[albawhore]

I got outside today and got a little bit done.

It is 80% ready for blasting still chasing the little shit.

See you soon

JB

[albawhore]

We have made some decisions.

1. m20 with possible/probable turbo

2. Fuel cell

3. Eliminate spare tire well

4. Shave filler neck

5. Fiberglass bonnet and boot lids

6. Turbo trim all around

7. Rear seat elimination with diamond plate build out

8. Diamond plate trunk

I'll be back soon

JB

[albawhore]

A little more progress, the inside is starting to look a little better along with the engine bay.

And the DA work begins:

I will update again soon, we are getting close to media blast of the underside and welding up ALL of the holes and patches.

Justin

[BLUNT]

wow, a lot of hard work. i really love seeing you taking it this far. nice job

[albawhore]

Steve,

Coming from you that means the world.

Justin

[albawhore]

I thought I should update.

We are saving for a welder right now, so we are kind of at a stand still. We need to fab a frame with wheels so that we can send the shell off to media blasting.

We have Deloreanesque doors with not as many defects as I expected.

We have Rust to the point of the looking glass at both rear bumper tie points.

We have the rabid chicken syndrom on the rear panel.

We are shopping the local pick-and-pulls for the M20 donor.

The pix from tonight came out like crap so I will take some tomorow in full light and post them.

Cheers

JB

[TMK-001]

Top effort mate... this is going to be one interesting project. I look forward to the future posts!

Todd

[albawhore]

Here are some new pix.

Rabid Chicken syndrome

Delorean?

Pix do not do them justice.

Before

After

Cheers

JB