Mine has been in the family since '74, the worst rusty parts were the trunk and rear floor pans that I had to replace. But the top goes down and it has 3 pedals
Made some final changes and fittings with the driver side running board so i could make the template to make a copy of for the passenger side. Pretty happy with the fit, so i started and finished the sheet metal of the pass side, alot easier the second time around and didnt have to guess as much, still took awhile without a brake or anything, and the big pieces of my scrap pile were a little short so i had to add a few pieces together for the 5.5 feet of board. still a little adjusting that will have to wait until i put some rubber body shims/mounts in and straighten out the body as it is off center of the frame by about 3/4". Also pulled the passenger side door off so i can start making the new lower skin for that. The outer looks worse than the other one, but i might be able to get away with using the inner section that i had to make on the driver side. Doesnt seem to be any holes or rot in it, but i'll see when i get th outer cut out, but it should save quite a bit of work if i can use it. The passenger side sticks out a little more thn the driver side, but after the body is aligned on the frame, they will match and are the same distances from the frame right now. And cleaned up some of the heavy crust and paint to make it easir to reference mark for making the new panel 45" x 6.5" piece cut for the new piece, started adding a little shape but didnt get far today. Off topic, got the interior of the gto stripped out of the seats, console and carpets to figure out whas needed for new floor pans. Someone previously did a poor job on repairing them and just stacked the new over the old rotten ones and covered it in bedliner so im anticipating being pretty miserable soon. Also pretty close to finishing fixing the absolutely rotten and hacked together front windshield frame/cowl that was held together with JB weld, pop rivets and gobs of brazing.
Baby steps on the door last night, Shades of the Past 2019 in Tennessee is creeping up, so I gotta get my ass in gear if I want to drive this thing 1000 miles each way. After the doors are done, I can start on fixing the floor areas and start body work Starting to add some shape to it, I cut it longer than I needed as the sides will get trimmed but also folded over and crimped to the door structure as they are from the factory, so there is some unshaped edge that gives off a bad profile, but that is just the last inch or so on either side. the outer skin of the door was in worse shape on the passenger side than the driver's side, but the inner sill structure was in much better shape on the passenger side. I'm going to just try and repair the offending areas rather than make a whole new piece like I did on the driver side. even with having to repair it, it will still be a lot less work and a lot less risk of it losing some shape or having a fitment issue with the body. Pretty happy with the shape of the new panel, a little massaging here and there but not a million miles off
Nice work, I am also a fan of the late 30's GM cars. The Buicks with their long hoods always look great. Very nice you are running the big straight 8, and with your planned header and multi-carb intake it should look great. I would try to make balance tube between the runners, it will make it run better and easier to tune.
Thanks! im glad I went with the straight 8 rather than throwing a nailhead and a Muncie in like I was tempted to at first. Trying to keep an eye on Stromberg 97's for sale that have been/ can be rebuilt, although I did procrastinate a few hrs the other night and missed out on 3 basically new ones here in the classifieds that were going for $450 for the 3 of them, somebody got a great deal! adding an equalizer balance tube between the runners makes sense to me, but I've heard some conflicting ideas behind the pros and cons of it. the few set ups like this that I've seen with individual runners, seemed to have a small tube connecting them. The thing I'm trying to figure out now is how to get from the 1 5/8 intake bore flange, to the larger rectangular/ oval shape that I need to fit the 2 barrel Stromberg flange , flowing nicely and without having it look too hacked together and cheesy. I have a sort of idea, but I need to bite the bullet and buy some parts to test out the idea, but so far its this, (forgive the chicken scratch maths paper!). Hell's gate hot rods intake flanges for 1 5/8 bore tube, (complete 4 piece intake flange set, $35), and their Stromberg 2 barrel carb flange that they sell ($7 a piece), they also sell the exhaust flange that i'll end up buying , and 1 5/8 mandrel bent 90* 11ga tube from Columbia river mandrel ($14), 1.5"-5" transition cone from a race car parts vendor ($10 a piece), open up the small inlet side to 1 5/8 to fit the mandrel bent intake runner and press/ flatten/ trim back the larger open end to make at minimum the 2.5203" x 1.1875". i'll probably make some sort of little form/ box and maybe a wooden insert for the correct dimension to make pressing it easier, then weld all the pieces together. thoughts? better ideas? much easier would just be threading the flange holes and making the flange end of the runner round so it doesn't matter where the bolt holes end up rather than trying to squeeze a rectangular opening onto the flange and welding that together, but im not a big fan of that idea. carb flange bore measurements the picture from the flange vendor is slightly off center, but there may be small corners that overhang but im not worried about closing those up as they will be minimal. Edit; And what I am aiming towards
A picture of what you're trying to adapt the Stromberg pattern to would help a lot. Your parts list seems a bit big, specific, and expensive without that context. I'd hit up the annual Fitchburg Swap Meet on April 22nd and then the monthly swaps at New England Dragway (starting on the 29th) to look for carb cores and other bits. I have noticed 97 cores seem to finally be coming down in price a bit, perhaps since the market has caught on to being able to buy a brand new one for about $450.
Whoops, this hs sort of what im aiming for, but with a different fuel routing, equalizer, etc. I am planning on going to the Fitchburg swap meet, and it sounds like they are starting the Great Woods swap meet again since the trading bee one by the SSAAC group is no longer going on.
What does the stock intake look like? Are you trying to use it? I'm confused about where and how this rectangular hole fits into the problem. Yeah, that fuel setup looks clean but perhaps not ideal under hard running conditions.
The stock intake is gone, as I was planning on going multi-carb from the start, but had to have been pretty restrictive in stock form. I might have made that big parts post a little convoluted , but with the stock intake bores being 1 5/8 round, I need a way to convert a 1 5/8 tube to a pattern that will fit around the Stromberg flange, so essentially a rectangle that will cover the 2 flange bores, but the pattern ends up being relatively larger than the tube, so I cant really just stretch the 1 5/8 tube to fit. Plans for new fuel line will be a distribution block, ( I think Mooneyes or offenhauser makes one with enough ports) mounted at some mid point between the carbs on the head, and hard lined individually.
Have you consider using two 90* elbows under the carb base with them blended into one outlet....much the same idea as seen on headers when individual runners are tapered into the collector. Ray
Actually that hadn't even crossed my mind, interesting idea though! Maybe cutouts the entire length of the elbows and weld them together, or separate and at a little bit of an angle so they can be merged into the single 1 5/8 intake flange.
Not sure about that yet, I am planning on making a swept/ log style header, and probably having it powdercoated, as I am the intake runners. Not sure what the tape sort of trapping heat would do to the longevity of the powdercoat, but nothing is definite yet.
Have you considered building a log intake out of box tubing? It would simplify things quite a bit. You just drill the rectangular tubing to take however many carbs you want wherever you want them and run tubes out the side to the ports.
I had sort of thought about it after seeing the Howard 6 carb intake for a straight 8, but aesthetically I just like the idea of having the individual runners. it's fine if it takes awhile longer to figure out how to make it work, im not in any rush!
Well, I think they make adapters for St4romberg to 1bbl that might be the ticket to making a rig like you have pictured with much easier fab work than you're heading for with the cones. The one in the picture has the strombergs sitting on what looks like 4 bolt 1bbl adapters from what I can tell. The Trans Dapt 2025 appears to be the place to start. Also look for Offenhauser 3858 and 3859 adapters, as well as the Thickstun Carburetor Adapter which might be correct. Also, can you step uo to 1.75" tube and grind a smooth transition into the head?
Geeze, Im an idiot! that had never even crossed my mind and I had actually looked up a carb adapter for someone else a week or 2 ago! the Offenhauser 3858 or 3859 look to be the ticket! that's going to be a hell of a lot easier and cleaner than trying to mickey mouse something together with flattening out a cone piece. Hard to decipher the old offenhauser catalog, but looks to be the the 3858 is for a 2 3/8 bolt spacing and the 3859 is for a 2 15/16 spacing, although i am not sure of the bore size. I don't see why I wouldn't be able to massage an 1/8 of an inch out of the intake ports in the head/ intake flange if need be as I am pulled the heads off anyways to fit a 1.75" tube . I haven't taken calipers to them yet, and i might be thinking of just the exhaust ports, but there were alignment sleeves in the head in place of a gasket that i may be able to just pull out and gain the 1/8 there. thanks again!
I think if you can figure out what they were meant to put a Stromberg in, you'll find your answer. I think at least some of them are for Jeeps to replace the 1bbl carbs. So however big the bore on their stock carbs base would be the answer. Hopefully someone who knows will chime in.
Also, Offenhauser's original site seems to have been domain-hijacked and it looks like they're using offenhauser.co now (NOT .com, which goes to some architectural company and NOT that "offyparts" site, which has been hijacked, likely when someone forgot to renew the domain) http://offenhauser.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Offenhauser-Catalog-1987.pdf
About as much as i can get done on the doors and running boards until i align the body/get some rubber body mounts in there and find some brackets for the runing board mounts. This was cleaed up more after this but i didnt take many pictures. Along with the corner puece, i made a new lip piece to replace the rotted one. Rust treated and a quick spray bomb Few areas to tidy up, but most of its welded up and the edges are all spot welded, folded and "crimped" And atarted planning out the panels to fix the swiss cheese floor sections. Its worse than i was imagining so its going to be more involved aroubd the area where it meets the door sills but ill figure something out And my go-to grinder broke because it had all these extra bits in it, so that hindered more progress. I'll need to pick up some tubing this week to brace the inside of the body before i start cutting the floor out so it doesnt distort too much.
Making good progress on the door skins and now you have to fabricate the New floor sections.Good move painting the door sub structure before adding the skins.
thanks, I figure it would be a lot easier to get into the crevices with some rust treater and paint before it gets sealed up and I never seem to have much luck with those weld through primers when there are overlapping pieces like the edges of the doors. I was looking for some cheater patch panel pieces to use for the floor from maybe a similar year chevy but doesn't look like there's much that makes sense to bother with so im just going to try and figure it out while I go. shouldn't be too bad, just the areas around the door sills are what Im looking forward to the least
Regarding adapting the carbs ... how about starting with tubing the size that you need for the port, split it on the carb end and much of the length, and splay it open to the width you need for the carb. Fill the opening with a pie-shaped piece of metal, so the whole thing transitions from oval under the carb flange to round at the port? A friend did just this to eliminate the catalytic converter from his Buick Grand National.
that was originally one of the ideas I had about trying to adapt right to the Stromberg flange, which eventually led into the idea of putting the cone on the end of the tube and pressing that into the usable shape, as it would have looked a little cleaner and been a little less work than pie cutting the end of a tube. The plan right now is to go with one of the offenhauser carb adapters that go from a 1 barrel port to the 2 barrel Stromberg style opening. there are 2 different sized ones, 3858 and 3859 that should work, I just need to figure out what the bore opening of them are before buying them.
Hey, @Stooge, what products are you using on the rust inside those doors? I've got some crevices I'm going to have to do that to on my car.
something a buddy gave me a while back, who's long time body and paint guy, called Auto Tech Rust Prep. its in a spray bottle, but you can buy it by the jug and brush it on. Spray it on, produces an ashy residue on the surface after about 20 minutes along with a sulfur/rotten egg smell, (not really strong, but noticeable), then just wipe the residue off and your good to go. I try and wire wheel the areas first, but that's not always possible. i'll probably be buying the bigger container to do a lot of the inside of the body.
Good to know. I have a small collection of rust treatments I've been trying. Next on my list is Corroseal. I've added this one too.
If I understand your posts properly, you have a size 3 SINGLE BARREL intake ( 1 5/8 round) that you are trying to adapt to a size 1 TWO-BARREL (the Stromberg EE-1 97). Just in the for what its worth category, the size 3 single barrel will outperform the size 1 2-barrel with the adapter by quite a bit. You might be interested to know that when Buick was first experimenting with compound carburetion around 1935, it was with two size 2 single barrel carbs. The production version in 1941 turned out to be a progressive two size 1 two-barrels. Just food for thought. Jon.
@carbking In no way am I an expert on this so this is a legitimate question, but the size 3 single barrel will outperform four non progressively linked size 1- 2 barrel Strombergs each feeding an intake port with some sort of equalizer tube across the individual runners tying them together? The 4 carb set up was mostly after aesthetics, but also because looking at the stock intake manifold, the sharp turns and shape of the intake seemed as it would be fairly restrictive.
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