Third time's a charm...right :facepalm:

just found the reference guide on ebay and had to buy them.

I went to put on the diff cover and forgot I needed to buy the silicone gasket sealer. The stuff I have isn't the special stuff needed for gear oil :-( . I also had to get bolts for the Hendrix Engineering bracket (4) four M8's and (2) two M10's w/ washers and whiz nuts.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to a Fastenal, so I have to get my 8.8 bolts at Ace Hardware.

Rich-Tripower said:

We should start a club.

Click to expand...

OMG! I bet we could! I have a LOT of stuff I haven't even hinted about on here. Eventually, I'll post a thread on all the stuff I've accumulated. I just have to get it all organized and displayed.

Here, this is kind of cool. I found a press release pin that was, given to an automotive journalist (Jon Rosner) at the unveiling of the 2004 GTO. It is a fairly large pin. As far as I know, this was a promotional / give away item, which was something made for the "official unveiling" of the finalized GTO in 2003.




I got a shadow box for it and started making the display. I wasn't happy with the foam, so I opted to get something a little different. This was my first attempt at the display (which I hated)..






Other than this posting, which I'm going to be VERY elusive about this...BUT....I'm sure you've seen this advertisement:









I'm planning on framing this ad (which I got last year), and will put that frame inside of a shadow box.... (I've got a TON of time invested and am not going to delve into this, other than show the ad).

It only took a few weeks to get this installed all proper-like. The HARROP cover is on and bolted down. I had to get some specialty gear oil gasket sealant for the cover, get all new bolts and hone the bolt holes for H/E Harrop cover (the M10 bolts were a snug fit for the bushing sleeve). The powder coating did closed in on the opening a little, but the actual drilled hole wasn't quite large enough. Once I drilled it out, I had to use a small file to get it perfect.










I would rather take my time and do this the long and hard way one time, than have to have to fix or redo the part because I hurried. Opening these holes took roughly an hour. When I finally lined up the bracket and the holes, it was SPOT ON! The bolt did need some slight motivation to push through the bracket and sleeve. I mean, I used the back side of a screwdriver and within 2 taps, it pushed through. This was VERY snug; meaning there is ZERO play.
...and the Harrop cover with the Hendrix Engineering bracket were joined to become one gorgeous piece!







The surfaces were cleaned off 2X, the sealant gasket was applied andthe diff is looking....well, you be the judge!
(Sorry about the lighting. I was only using a small automotive hand light)








It's hard to convey why I absolutely loove the way these parts look. It's clean and crisp, the colors are gelling real nicely. The kid from the 90's in me is, like, "WA-A-A-A-AAY STOKED, like beyond belief ....Yo!"



So, this is the good part of my weekend ☝ . Well, it was actually completed yesterday after work. It was like a short, but sweet Zen moment, which I was able to complete at 9:52 pm!

I was planning on having this all back together (with the DSS 1400 hp axles) on Friday and I was going to start on the fuel system. I need to figure out where to put the filter and how I want it all to go together for future ease of use....YEAH...

.
...how many of you remember the Brady Bunch? Ya, know the epoisode where they went to Hawaii and Bobby found the cursed Tiki? Well, this is my version of that Tiki...





If you go to my first post on this thread, I have links to the other builds / problems I've had with my BOM '06 GTO. I used this ☝ car to rebuild mine. This 👇 is wat the car looked like when I got it.





Back on March 17th, 2016, I was involved in an accident with my GTO. I wound up rebuilding my car with this donor vehicle from e-reparables. What I didn't know, when I got this particular car, was how it would have become a MAJOR point of contention between myself and my father.

I had looked at (possibly) buying another Brazen GTO in Sun Prarie, Wisconsin. It was a nice car, but there would have been a few issues. I would have had to come up with a few grand to buy it (after the insurance payout). The other car did have fewer miles, but need nicer tail lights, interior parts, new seat covers and some paint work. The car wasn't bad looking, but it wasn't as nice as mine with more miles. Plus, it had a stupid stereo in it with all kinds of LED's in the trunk....

Stuff I didn't want to pay for and tear out.

After looking at that car with my father and deciding to rebuild my Brazen GTO, my father thought I should have done other things. Such as, using MY orange GTO with an original title, to rebuild an Impulse GTO w/ a salvage title.

Anyway, that isn't the point of this particular post. The point is, I had set some time aside on Friday March 3rd, 2023, so I could work on my GTO. I took the day off and had at least 8 hours I could devote to the car on that day alone!

However, this ☝ ☝ ☝ car...UGH!!!


...


I had sold this to a buddy of mine in Southern Wisco-Land, who needed some parts, but had the intent on making this a tribute drag car to a fairly well known racer from the 60's who had a GTO. In fact, this friend of mine, used to work on this gentleman's pit crew. My buddy is a GREAT guy, he has been a friend for years and I have ZERO ill feelings toward him!

Well, this friend of mine decided he was going to be moving south and was starting to liquidate some of the things he accululated.

Then another (mutual) friend of ours, was looking for parts, so he could finish converting he right hand drive UTE to left hand drive. He needed a good title, parts and a bunch of other stuff. I reached out to both friends and put a thought in their heads...that mabe this could be a good venture for the both of them. One gets rid of a car he hasn't seen in 3+ years and the other gets the parts he needs to work on his Crewman.

WIN / WIN & everyone is happy.

Well, when I sold the GTO to the said friend who LIVES in Southern Wisco-Land, I had to DELIVER it to a town in Northern Illlinois. The friend didn't have the room for the car, and this was a closer drive for me to drop the car off and get rid of it.

Fast Forward to last Friday (March 3rd, 2023)...

The friend who bought the car, never re-titled the GTO. Instead, he left it in my name. When the other friend from N. Wisco-Land came to look at the car, they noticed the VIN on the title was different than the one on the car -- YEAH....big OOPS!!!

Is this my problem? . . Definitely not.

When I was told about this (Late February) I contacted the website where I bought the car. However, almost 8 years have passed. They couldn't help me. I wans't sure the next steps, but I did a Google search and came up with a simple solution. I just needed to get a "law enforcement certification" form and have the police fill it out. Then, I send in $50 and get a new "corrected" title...GREAT!

...

Until the owner of the shop, where I dropped the GTO off at 4 years ago, didn't want the police snooping around his shop. Apparently, he was holding a few cars in the back of his lot for friends...and MAYBE, those cars weren't stored correctly. So, if the Po-Po were snooping around, they could have been 🍆 causing this other guy to have some problems. The last thing I wanted to do was cause any issues - especially if it meant closing down a guy's body shop for a day or two.

Being a fellow business owner, I could understand his concern. Plus, all these officershave body cams. If they see ANYTHING amuck, they HAVE to report it. There isn't anymore 'letting it slide' sort-ofstuff going on anymore. There is no police discretion anymore. It'a ll black and white. So, I understand completely. Some of the local police aren't the freindliest around there and he WOULD have had some sort of an issue. To avoid this, here are some potential options.

1). Tell both friends to EFF OFF and they could deal with it....(but I would feel bad, being I could help them both, it would be easier if I did help AND I did instigate this deal in the first place)

2). have the first friend get a new title and then get a corrected title (which could potentially take a few months) leaving the second friend waiting in the wings...which he didn't want and doesn't have the time for.

3). Bring the GTO to wisconsin and see if an officer would drive 30 minutes over the border to inspect the car, all while trying to explan why he hadn't done anything with the title and why it took almost 8 years to notice the title was wrong...

---- OR ----

4). I could pick up the car and bring it back to my place and have the police come there. The address is the same, the area I live in real nice and there would be fewer problems.


I chose option #4.

All I had to do was get my fathers truck, trailer and go get the car out from behind that shop. Problem is, when I go to get the truck from my parents house, the front tires are FLAT. As in, the bead is broken and the sidewalls are cracked. Since my fathers death, the truck had been sitting in the garage and my mother forgot about it. She didn't notice the truck was sitting funny in her garage.

I had to remove the tires and have new tires put on. Cool! $700 and 90 minutes later and I was picking the wheels up to get the truck back together. I got them on, bolted down and torqued. Then the truck wouldn't start. I then had to hook up a charger/jumper and let that sit for a fw minutes. I decided to have some lunch and let the battery drink it up for a few minutes.

After lunch, I started the truck, hooked up the trailer, got the tie down straps, come-"a"-long, spare tire and tire chocks. I left around 12:30 to go to get the GTO. I arrive at this guy's shop and some douchebag parked their car in front of the GTO. Not to the side, not sorta in the way...RIGHT the EFF where I needed to put the trailer to get the GTO out from behind the shop! REALLY?!?

No joke, it took the them 20 minutes to find the guy to have him come move his SUV. I was right about to get my tow rope and drag the darn thing away. The owner finally walked over and was all talkative. The friggin guy wanted to have a conversation with me...
"What kind of car is that?"
"What do you need that P.O.S. for?"
"What did you pay for that thing?"

I was like, "hey, why don't you move your P.O.S., so I can get that P.O.S. out of here! Chop - chop dude, time's a tickin' "




I mean, I started my day at 7:30 a.m. I got up a little later than normal and was planning on working on some part for my 4-year project at some point today. It was now, some . . 6 hours later and I had yet to even TOUCH my car. I was a little perturbed by his line of questioning and felt like he needed to get into his fancy-schmancy Lincoln SUV and get the EFF out of my EFFEN way so I could get the EFF out of this EFFEN situation. Plus, it was 34 degrees outside...not the time or place to have a conversation about a junked car!

Anyway, around 1:50 I had the GTO dragged out from the corner of the lot / into the open. It was around 3 pm by the time I got it onto the trailer and strapped down. I was back home by 3:30 and at 4 p.m., the local municipality had sent out an officer to look at the car for the paperwork Once he left, I called it a day. I had plans with the girlfriend and got out of there by 5 p.m.





On Sunday morning, I delivered the GTO to friend #1 in S. Wisco-Land and friend #2 from N. Wisco-Land came out. Here's a pic of the car after we loaded my tiki onto his trailer. Hopefully, it will be leaving my life for the last time!






Now, some of you may even know who the second friend is. Even if you're sorta keen to the GTO world, you're probably are familiar with the second friend. If you're a follower of his, you will be seeing this parts car again. He has some REALLY cool things coming for a couple different projects on both his UTE and GTO. I vowed I wouldn't say anything to that fact, but I'm excited to see what's coming on his future shows.

I jokingly say this car is a tiki. The truth is, without it, my car and 4 others wouldn't be on the road today. There are parts of this blue GTO in 8 others people's cars...of which I can name off 7 of those people by name. Though it will forever be a tiki, it wasn't a cursed one. In reality it was a good car, in that it has been sacrificed, rather than be scavenged and discarded.

Lastly, I had to snap this pic, when I was delivering the parts car to my first friend in S. Wisco-Land!




It's not very often that you'e trailering a totalled out donor GTO, to help restore and save 2 additional cars, and happen across ANOTHER GTO, parked in a lot...
How cool is that.

I had a talk with my girlfriend (actually, she had a talk with me). Because I haven't been able to work on the car as much as I would like on the weekends, she thought she would (practically) make me go work on my GTO. She is going to be hanging out with her daughter and grandpup on those nights.

Yesterday was the first Wednesday I did this. This is the result (I installed the DSS axles).


How cool is it that I not only have someone who likes my hobby, but encourages me to do it? I feel very fortunate to have her in my life!








I really love the way the differential cover turned out!

First, if you look back to my post in this thread (#129), you might recognize the pic at 11:10 in this vid:
👇 👇 👇



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I hate to rant, but this car, this build and practically EVERYTHING associated with it has been an exercise in patience. I hate to say it, but I'm almost out of it, to the point I'm about to lose my

After (pretty much) spending my entire Friday doing most of the leg work for what needed to be done for Josh, my buddy Rich and stuff in post #129, I tried to work on my car. I figured, by this time, I would havegotten the axles in, buttoned up the whole rear end and been finished with figuring out where to put the fuel filter and either been making the bracket for it, or almost done with said bracket.

Instead, I'm back to this.......




I couldn't get 2 of the bolts tightened up on the Hendrix Engineering Harrop bracket. I tried to lower the diff, and pull the Harrop cpver down a little, so I had more room to get a wrench in the small window to tighten it all up. Unfortunately, I couldn't get anything on the bolts. I could sorta get an open ended wrench on the bolt, but I couldn't turn the bolt in at ALL! After removing the exhaust and D/S, so I could access the diff bolts and drop it down a little, I came to the realization, I needed to remove the cover and bracket completely and start over again.

Currently, I'm in the process of stripping off the powder coating off the bracket because I opened up the access windows.

ORIGINAL ACCESS WINDOW:








I traced the inside dimension of the window, cut it out
Then I flipped the cutout (reversed), colored it and put that on the other side I opened up slightly:





Believe it or not, I can now get a ratcheting box wrench inthe wondow and I can get 5 clicks in the new opened space, compared to, where I couln't even get one click of the ratcheting box wrench originally. After I took this photo, I put the bracket back on and was able to tighten it up with the box wrench and an open ended wrench.



.....but that's not all !!

See, I also only had the axles and most of the bolts in place. I wanted to mock this all up, so I could get a beter idea of where the fuel filter location should be. I had 16 of the 24 axle bolts in and sorta tight (merely turned a few times with a wrench) but no thread lock, nor were they torqued down. I did this so I could go in and systematically put all the bolts in place with the thread lock and torque them down all at once. Rather than go back and forth from one side to the other...this just made more sense to me.

Prior to all of this, I took the BRAND NEW DSS 1400 HP axles out of their box. They were all pretty and gorgeous...sitting there with their tags still attached:






In fact, they looked just like this ☝☝☝ !!!

It took 6 MONTHS to get these delivered!!!
I also had the diff rebuilt, with ALL NEW parts.
I have a literal F__K - TON of $$$ invested in every aspect of this car

I started pulling the bolts, adding thread lock and then putting the bolts back in one at a time. I got the top and bottom ones in, figuring, I would put opposite sides in and then tighten the bolts down to 15 Ft/Lb's to help keep everything kosher. I did the outer stub first, with 2 bolts, then did the inner stub with 2 bolts. I went back and forth systematically, on the drivers side axle, to get it all put back in. I didn't want anything to be off kilter. Again, I didn't have all the bolts in iitially, because I wanted to line it all up first...

Then I got to the VERY LAST BOLT on the drivers side outer stub, and the blasted thing wouldn't go in. I pulled the bolt out, wiped it off and tried again, thinking mayeb there was debris on the bolt. I put it in the hole and NOTHING! I couldn't even get the bolt started, by putting some pressure on the bolt, to push it into the stub.

So, I pulled the axle out to see what I did wrong...because OBVIOSLY something was awry.


YEP Something was definitely awry! Here's what I saw when I yanked out the axle:






In case you can't make out what that is in the bolt hole. It's a piece of zip tie. See, when these axles were shipped out, there were zip ties helping to hold the metal end caps in place during shipping. Before I installed them, I cut them off with a side cutter. One of the zip ties broke and flew off...to which I paid NO ATTENTION to because I want concerned about a small pice of plastic zip tie...
...that is, until it flies off and lands perfectly into a BOLT HOLE IN MY OUTER STUB!!!

I swear, if there were 10 of me 👉👉 TRYING 👈👈 to duplicate this over and over again for 100 years, I couldn't get a piece to fly off and go in that hole...
...LET ALONE, have it happen; only to discover it when you are PUTTING IN THE VERY LAST BOLT!!!

I figure the odds of this happening are around 1 in 100 BILLION...maybe. It might even be rarer than that....



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If you were to go back and read what I went through with this car in my first and second thread, it's a wonder I haven't either junked this car or given up any hope with it...


On St. Patrick's Day, I was tightening up the third to last bolt, with only 30 Ft/Lb's of tirque, when the torque wrench (all of the sudden) jerked and pulled like I stripped the inner stubs. It honestly felt like it stripped, but the bolt was able to back out. Luckily, it was only the lock washer that failed. It did some damage, but I feel I was pretty lucky, given the alternative




I kinda slipped on this other bolt, so I had to order 2 new ones. Those (grade 12.9) new bolts wil arrivebymid April :-(

I had a few set backs on the car. I tried to tighten up the diff cover bracket, but it was getting kind of annoying with the ratcheting box wrench I have. I ended up banging the sides of the access hole and chipping some of the powder coating off. I wound up removing a few things to get things back on the car...it was kind of a nightmare. On the Hendrix bracket, I ended up removing some of the material on the sides of the access hole. In doing so, I kinda messed up the powder coating; so I stripped it off. Once I was happy with the hole, I test fit it. Here's my mock up:




Then I did a side comparison of the two brackets (HENDRIX ENGINEERINGS vs. HARROP






When I checked the thickness, the metal used for the Hendrix Engineering was much thicker than that used on the Harrop. These are the actual pics I took while mic'ing them.

HARROP =========== .164 inches thick
HENDRIX ENGINEERING = .179 inches thick

The difference is 15 thousandths of an inch.












...and the bracket mount (where it attaches to the car).

HARROP =========== .200 inches thick
HENDRIX ENGINEERING = .252 inches thick

The difference is 52 thousandths of an inch.

Here's that hole again (for refrence)

Quick update:


Rather than powder coat the Hendrix Engineering diff. cover bracket, I opted to paint it.









Since I am doing a whiole new fuel system, I decided to add a fuel filter....but where should I mount it. I looked under th car and there isn't a whole heck of a lot of places, which are convenient put it. I was going to try by the evap canister, but there is too much going on in that area. Plus, if I wanted to service it, it would have been difficult to get to.

After circling the car, I decided to attach it to that tank brace in the trunk. Since it is pretty sturdy, I figured this would be as good of a place as any. Plus, I could hide the extra lines and it would be fairly well protected in case of an accident. Here's the initial mock up in cardboard and possible location:






The problem I found was, there are the radio wires right by this area. There is also a lot of "goings on" with all the fuel lines, filler tube and other stuff mounted in this area.

I HAND made a bracket and I wasn't happy with it AT ALL! It looked wrong, it for sorta meh and to mount it onto the brace, I'd probably have to weld it in place.

Then I remade the bracket. Version 2.01 turned out a LOT better!!!





☝ ☝ ☝

Top of pic is the cardboard rendering.
Middle is what isleft of the bracket. When I pieced / welded it together, the part was too heavy and didn't sit correctly. I ended up removing the piece I use to secure the right and left aspect of the brace and welded it into the...
Bottom bracket, is still in the rough stages. I'll clean it up a little and finsh some of the welds.


👇 👇 👇
Using a hacksaw, my Dremel (which broke as I was working on this piece) and some needle files, I worked the metal by hand. The openings for the fuel filter housing are as close to perfect as I intend on getting. I'll probably open up the arms slightly and use some rubber to stop the filter housing from getting marred on the bracket arms.

I am so much happier with the second rendition of the bracket. If I need to change out the filter, I can unscrew the one side to remove the filter housing - OR - I can remove the bracket entirely. I was going to leave a few extra feet worth of fuel line, so if I need to remove it, I can get it out of the trunk completely.

The new location (middle of the tank brace) also works well for me. I took out one of the supports to have a friend weld in his shop's logo, but they never made the piece to go in. Instead this is the newhome for my filter. Unfortunately, it wont completely clear the carcoal grey trunk lining that goes over this brace. Instead, I was going to make all new stuff for my trunk, to make it look better.








Here is the bracket set onto the piece I cut out of the fuel tank brace. Without the filter, it is fairly well balanced. I probably could have rolled the arms backward, but I didn't want to get too close to the plastic fuel tank cover. This clears it by a good inch or so!

Squag27 said:

I've somehow missed this entire thread over the last couple years so this was definitely a good read this morning! I'm curious, what fitting did you go with to block off the factory feed line? I have the same fuel pump assembly setup but with a pair of hydramats on the bottoms of the 450s so I can run the tank a little lower. Currently I use the factory feed as a return but it wouldn't hurt to bypass the feed line inside the tank like you did. My '06 has been on jackstands since January waiting for me to get around putting the engine together for it. I kind of worry it's going to end up sitting for several years too while I get around to ordering all the "while it's apart" parts though. The project has already cascaded at this point what with ordering a cowl hood to better clear the LSA plus the addition of a Magnum F.

Click to expand...

I don't have any hydramats on mine. 😟 I was thinking of getting and installing some, but haven't...for what ever reason. I probbaly should get them, but this car is getting expensive. What sort of hydromats did you go with?

I have a -8an braided (black) PTFE line outgoing and a return -6an braided (stainless) PTFE line return. I did the different colors on puropse, in case I have to work on the car in the future. I figured, the different colors will help keep things sorted out a little better. Until I can figure out how to mount them more perminently, I have them zip tied to the old fuel line.

Be careful with all the "while it's apart" stuff. There are a TON of things you can upgrade, modify and change when the car is apart. Also, make sure you label everything you took off. It helps if you also took a bunch of pictures. When you are trying to reassemble it, these refrences will help a LOT!!!


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After a weekend of work, I'm back to where I should have been 1 month ago!






There was atht issue with the bolt that was damaged. I wound up getting 2 new grade 12.9 bolts and installed them on opposing sides. I figured, I needed something to go over the marred surface on the axle. I opted to use a thin spring washer, in conjunction with the locking washer. To help reduce any possibility of vibration from the rear end, I offset the new bolts from one another andused the same washer combination.






I also replaced the one bolt that had some marring to the alan opening. I must have slipped a little or not gotten the alan socket in correctly.

BEFORE:



AFTER:




So now they are O.K.!

I'll get the exhaust back on and start to button up the fuel system in a bit in the next week or so (Lord willing). I used a coupler and welded that inside of the Fuel Tank brace. I figured that would work the best and it would be threaded down, into the brace quite a bit. Here's after I welded the coupler in place.




...and after a little grinding. It wasn't perfect, but I wanted to make sure it went on O.K. It did. I'll have to do some rust removal and get this painted.




It will be nice when I can get this thing back on the ground. I'm getting tired of having to crawl all up under it a billion times.

Allen head socket bolts were not GM's best idea. I understand there is limited room around the head of the bolt so a typical hex head bolt and a socket or wrench would not do the trick, but they coulda/shoulda designed the whole mounting area better and/or used a better fastener design. Maybe one of those star drive heads would have been better but I've never seen those made in bolts this large.

One issue I found with these bolts is that getting the inside of the socket hole completely cleaned out as much as humanly possible so the driver can sink into the hex hole as deep as possible. I also ground off the tip of the driver to eliminate the chamfered end of the driver thus allowing it to completely bottom out in the hole and get as much tool to bolt contact as possible. Also, a cheap driver like from HF will wear out soon and cause further stripping as these bolts are made of really tough stuff. I bought one high priced driver (actually two) so I would not end up with a rounded off tool that will eventually fail and strip bolt heads. Also, turning the axle repeatedly to get a straight shot at the bolt without the boots getting in the way is also key to success. But doing so creates a lot of up and down off the floor as you are often changing from neutral to in gear to get at all the bolts. But better that than stripped bolt heads. I've no idea how you'd get one out if the head were completely stripped.