almost done

Here's a few pictures for those who thought I'd never finish my project. All that's left is the carpeting and kick panels. I did 100% of the work on the car - nothing farmed out for someone else to do. All of the upholstery panels are .050 aluminum.

I put new side and back glass in the car, with a street legal grey tint. The power windows are running smoothly with all of the proper run channel and weatherstrips from Hagan.

The new grille fits perfectly and looks great. The ride was greatly improved reducing the spring rates to 350 front and 175 rear.

I'm really proud of the fiberglass headliner that I made, using 3/4" core foam as a base, bonded to the body with isothalic tooling resin and covered with fiberglass mat and more of the same resin. Total cost of materials was under $400.

All of the interior that's not aluminum is painted with flat black urethane, sprayed to look like faux leather.

I took the car to a small charity car show of only 250 cars, got an outstanding car award in my class and many positive comments from viewers.

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Congrats on sticking with it and now you're almost there.... the finish line!

You've done a lot to make it your own rather than look like another belly button. Good for you!

Looks great! Now for the fun.driving it!

Very nice work! Now on to the best part, driving it.

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Originally Posted by Msgt Luttrell

Very nice work! Now on to the best part, driving it.

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You know Sergeant, it's a funny thing with that. Some of us get all of our kicks from the engineering, purchasing of raw materials, cutting, welding, grinding and generally figuring out what the final product will be and how it will perform. Once the project is almost done, I begin to back off of it and usually there would be someone come along and offer me what I thought the project was worth and I'd start another project. For me, it's all in the building of the car.

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Congrats, looks great!

Rich

That's a very nice car.

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Originally Posted by techinspector1

You know Sergeant, it's a funny thing with that. Some of us get all of our kicks from the engineering, purchasing of raw materials, cutting, welding, grinding and generally figuring out what the final product will be and how it will perform. Once the project is almost done, I begin to back off of it and usually there would be someone come along and offer me what I thought the project was worth and I'd start another project. For me, it's all in the building of the car.

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I've done that a few times! I do like the engineering and building. Years ago, many shows would give a "Best Engineered" award. I won a couple and they meant more to me than some of the more supposedly prestigious awards.
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Beautiful!!

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It turned out very nice!

I also promised pictures of the grille, after it was on the car. I just got done making a new top plate for the grille from .050 aluminum and added a 1" flange at the back to cover the gap between the top plate and the radiator. The original top plate was polished, but I decided to go with a brushed finish, since I have more brushed parts than polished, and it's easier to repair the finish.

The edges of the fins are polished, but the rest is all brushed. That's the only way Alumicraft will make this type of grille, although they offer chrome for another $600. I can't imagine chroming over a brushed finish. Unless it's all polished before plating, it won't be very shiny afterward.

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No big ugly welds showing here and the fin spacing is near perfection.

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Very nice !
Car is looking great - congratulations on you perseverance.

Looks Great,
Can you tell me about the headlights are they 37? Indicator looks cool..
Thanks
Dave

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Originally Posted by Phantom37

Looks Great,
Can you tell me about the headlights are they 37? Indicator looks cool..
Thanks
Dave

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As I remember, I got parts from gear head and Julianos. I believe that the '37 trim rings were Vintique brand from gear head.

The indicator insert is from Julianos. They cost $100 a pair and they are a pain to put in, because you have to adjust the headlights first, then trim the plastic insert to fit closely to the front of the headlight bulb. There's a lot of trial and error to get a decent fit and if you cut too much off, there's no going back.

The glass cover lenses that I got from gear head would not fit the bucket well enough to fasten them down without breaking the glass, so I believe that the plastic lenses came from Julianos.

I may have got the entire kit, except the trim rings from Julianos. At the time, they did not offer trim rings.

Headlights - Gearhead Enterprises

Street Rod Parts ~ Replacement Seat Belts

Nicely done! I would be proud to have it sitting in my driveway!

Dave, just a comment on your intake.....not a criticism but just some info.....we did a similar 90degree turn just upstream from the MAF and had some flat spots in the power curve....it seems that the darned thing is sensitive to turbulence and GM suggests 12" of straight air flow before the MAF sensor. If you see a similar symptom, that info might help you. We tried baffles, etc and even a programmable MAF. Car is looking nice.....you have a lot of work in it, time to enjoy the ride.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by robot

Dave, just a comment on your intake.....not a criticism but just some info.....we did a similar 90degree turn just upstream from the MAF and had some flat spots in the power curve....it seems that the darned thing is sensitive to turbulence and GM suggests 12" of straight air flow before the MAF sensor. If you see a similar symptom, that info might help you. We tried baffles, etc and even a programmable MAF. Car is looking nice.....you have a lot of work in it, time to enjoy the ride.

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Actually, GM specifically states that the MAF sensor should be placed in the MIDDLE of a minimum 6" length of straight pipe, in the instructions included with the connect and cruise package. I have 7" of straight pipe. I also have a flipped throttle body, that makes the lower edge of the butterfly open backward toward the engine. In theory, you should get a fairly smooth flow, along the largest radius of the intake tube and right into to the lower side of the butterfly. The setup got a 1200 mile test, two years ago and worked fine. Throttle response is great and I got 20 mpg, in city driving.

I first made an intake snorkel that went down and around to the driver's side, with a smaller air cleaner, completely ignoring the instructions. A wasted quite a few days and bucks on an intake that would not work at all, since there was no straight pipe, anywhere. The engine wouldn't idle and surged a lot.

Assembling the car twice and test driving it added a lot of hours to the project, but it revealed a lot of suspension problems that needed major work to solve. A lot of changes were made that would have been impossible, once the car was painted and assembled. What I found is the Oze cars are designed to be trailer queens. Not much has to work well or be serviceable - as long as can you get the car off the trailer and parked, you're golden, providing it doesn't rain. I did a lot of extra work to make the car serviceable and not leak water inside.

Sounds like you have been thru the MAF shuffle....you are correct, the 6" upstream and downstream was in the instructions. We didn't have room for such so we had probably 20 hours on the chassis dyno to tune it out. Ours runs great now too.

Here's the last of the posts on my '37 Oze. In reviewing my many photos, the car was out of service for over a year, while the last of the extensive body work, suspension modifications and painting were done. A picture from 3-18-16 shows the main body being painted. By 6-29-16, the car was complete, except for the final floor insulation and carpet.

Here's a few photos of the carpet and interior panels, just finished a few days ago. I applied two layers of B-quiet sound proofing, followed by one layer of 1/4" closed cell neoprene foam, glued to the B-quiet. After that, a second layer of 1/4" foam was cut and laid down, but not glued. The black cut-pile boat carpet was glued to the last layer of foam, so it is removable. The carpet and foam made a big improvement in the interior noise level.

The underside of the body was sprayed with Lizard skin sound and heat control. The heat control was unimpressive. Even with a DEI muffler wrap kit and a lot of header wrap along the exhaust pipe, the floor was plenty hot before the foam was installed.


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Congrats. It looks very nice.

How a throny bush turns into a beautiful rose!!!!!!!!!