Project Insanity

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Project Insanity

Postby Jammin » Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:17 am

Last summer I saw an add on craigslist for a 1975 Vega. Had this car when I was a teenager and loved it. Went to go look at it expecting to see a complete rust bucket. To my surprise I found a very good car. This car was a South Carolina car, was purchased 12 years ago and moved to Ma and put into storage in a barn for 12 years. The car was in very good shape. There was some surface rust and a couple of badly rust areas. looked like it even had the original paint on it! Heres what I started with
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So the plan for the build is to put a 454 efi into it, one piece fiberglass 1971 nose with a tilt front end, full cage, backhalf and tub in back end. Car is getting full restoration with media blasting inside, outside, and underneath, 2 tone paint black with charcoal stripes, custom interior, ect. This car will be more show, but will be built to perform on the drag strip.

Over the winter I started media blasting the car so I can get it into epoxy primer. I know most people cut up the car and do there mods first, but I wanted to see what I really had to work with. Plus it is nice to go down and work on a car with no rust and all one color. What i found was one small dent or rear quarter panel. Other than that the car has never been hit. Unbelievable for a 38 year old car. I did find a badly rusted drivers door on the inner skin. Not sure what to do about that. Fabing up metal for that inner skin would not be easy. I built a rotisserie to roll the car over onto its side. Cost was about $75 to make and was worth every cent for blasting the underside of the car. Heres a link to see the rotisserie in action https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70ggHl6GGZA



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Re: Project Insanity

Postby waybad » Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:20 am

good job :th:
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Re: Project Insanity

Postby Vegavulture » Sun Apr 14, 2013 12:15 pm

:th: nice start and ingenious rack you built there.
1977 Pontiac Astre Safari V6
1978 Pontiac Sunbird Formula V8
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Re: Project Insanity

Postby 77Astre455 » Thu Apr 18, 2013 9:22 pm

Looks like Project SANE to me. I like the dream and nice work. :th:
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Re: Project Insanity

Postby 74Sleeper » Mon Apr 29, 2013 12:21 pm

Great progress!!

Could you post a few more pictures and tell us how/where you attached the rotisserie to the car? I would love to replicate this in my garage so that I can easily access the underside of the car. Also, what is the radius of the arc you are rolling the car on?
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Re: Project Insanity

Postby 7t7wagin » Tue May 21, 2013 12:49 pm

Damn, I wish I`d seen your rotisserie 5 yrs. ago. I did all my cleaning and scraping with the car on jack stands. :rolleyes:


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Re: Project Insanity

Postby Jammin » Thu Dec 24, 2015 8:20 pm

So I have been off this forum for a few years, but I have been building this Vega off and on over the years. I have ton of photos and updates and will start posting them over the next couple of weeks. Since building the rotissorie I media blasted the under side and the exterior of the car. Put it into expoxy primer and started fixing some areas of rot

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Last edited by Jammin on Thu Dec 24, 2015 8:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Project Insanity

Postby Jammin » Thu Dec 24, 2015 8:30 pm

Then ordered a 1 piece fiberglass nose from Glasstek. Its perfect and highly recordmend them
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Re: Project Insanity

Postby Jammin » Thu Dec 24, 2015 8:36 pm

Now onto the body mods. First was to repair the taillight sheet metal. It was toast. Always liked the 1972 Camaro tail light so....
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How do I get this to fit into a Vega. Measure, measure, measure, cardboard templetes but it worked and looks great
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Re: Project Insanity

Postby Jammin » Thu Dec 24, 2015 8:41 pm

Now to make the bumper fit. Had to cut and section the bumper also add additional metal to the ends and reshape it to make it look correct. Think it turned out nice
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Re: Project Insanity

Postby Jammin » Thu Dec 24, 2015 8:45 pm

If anyone would like details on how these mods were done just ask. I have many more mods to post some of which include cramming these into the car
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Re: Project Insanity

Postby avewhtboy » Thu Dec 24, 2015 9:54 pm

Jammin wrote:If anyone would like details on how these mods were done just ask. I have many more mods to post some of which include cramming these into the car
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Thats going to leave a mark on all that clean sheet metal
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Re: Project Insanity

Postby waybad » Thu Dec 24, 2015 10:34 pm

wicked,wicked,wicked :th: :th: :th: :dance: :dance: :dance:
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Re: Project Insanity

Postby Jammin » Sat Dec 26, 2015 11:15 am

So I tried to fit the 29" tires inside the wheelwell. Not happy with how close the tire was to the sheet metal. Guess I need to stretch the wheel well. This mod was much eaiser than I thought it would be. Trick is to make sure your cuts are level and plumb.
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Re: Project Insanity

Postby b_pappy » Sat Dec 26, 2015 12:51 pm

Some great progress, and beautiful workmanship. I will probably need to stretch my rear fenderwells before I'm done too, yours look great.
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