1972 Vega Pro Touring Project

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Re: 1972 Vega Pro Touring Project

Postby jeffro » Sun Feb 19, 2012 3:35 pm

Hi, Megavega, one quick question about the C.E. roll cage you installed in your project there,could you have run the front downtubes from the Halo bar to the floorboard further forward to match the windshield pillar? it's just a little too far back to suit me as it's a little to close to the steering wheel for my tastes. I was going to order the C.E. kit for my car.Do they leave enough materiel to run the bars further forward and possibly down through the floorboard ahead of the firewall at the bottom ?I realize your not building this car for the track so in adding the front bars did you decide that their present location is good enough?I don't want to order the kit and end up with a install where I have to compromise with the roll cage fit in this critical area.... thanks Jeff
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Re: 1972 Vega Pro Touring Project

Postby megavega » Sun Feb 19, 2012 6:37 pm

Hi Jeff, The windshield down tubes are where they are supposed to be as they come in the kit, not any extra length on the tops as they were also pre notched. Only took off maybe a 1 inch on the bottoms to fit my rockerpanel boxs/mounts I made. If you want them further forward/closer to the A pillar, youd need to custom bend some and then drill holes thru the dashpad to locate them further forward.
I dont really understand your second part of the question, but if your asking about the front frame supports that go out thru the firewall to the tops of each frame rail??...I have not made those yet along with a crossbar under the dash to keep the cage from expanding during a fontal impact. I wanted to get the headers all done and set before I put those tubes in to keep from having to work around them with the headers/turbo set ups. let me know if this helps.

my car isnt for racing so thats why it doesnt have the side door bars or crossbar for the main hoop, I am sure you have noted that. I just added this to tie the car together and keep it from flexing/bending so easily with what I am about to do to it....lol :dance:

ADD: I also fit this cage to clear all the stock interior parts, so you could get more room on the sides for steering wheel clearance and stuff if you dont have to clear the stock doorpanel.
1972 hatchback, 28,000 orig miles, 427BBC/twin T4 turbo's/T56 six speed/big wheels, lowered down pro touring style-work in progress....

1973 vega wagon-under the blue flame knife.
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Re: 1972 Vega Pro Touring Project

Postby megavega » Sat Apr 21, 2012 4:22 pm

I spent the morning relaxing and working on the car, my car for a change. I always wanted to section the firewall front edge and move the distributor clearance hole to the location for a v8, so I did. I just cut out a 7 inch section and then another 7 inch section then reversed them. You can easily take the ditributor with the cap still on it right out now. A liitle swipe of body filler and seam seal the edge again and it will look factory.

I also started peicing the tunnel back in, much like when you chop the top of a car, cut it into sections and raised it as I went forward. You might remember I had previously used a camaro tunnel but I was afraid it was too big and seats would be a problem so I removed it(was just tacked in) and am using the vega one sectioned with added metal. I am going to be wrapping it all with dynamat so I am not going to spend a bunch of time making it look pretty just make it functional and strong. The bottom side I will weld, grind then use brush on seam sealer to finish it out.I have to now make the large bell section and get that in, hopefully tonight after supper.

transfer my fancy..lol, cardboard firewall patch to the sheetmetal, beadroll it and weld that in and I am done on sheetmetal work!

Turbo headers are next!
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1972 hatchback, 28,000 orig miles, 427BBC/twin T4 turbo's/T56 six speed/big wheels, lowered down pro touring style-work in progress....

1973 vega wagon-under the blue flame knife.
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Re: 1972 Vega Pro Touring Project

Postby megavega » Thu Apr 26, 2012 3:27 am

Got the tunnel all tacked up and semi finished, I will need to dolly out the inside and stitch weld it also from the inside to know its all back together good, will need to pull the engine and trans to do so . Had to move the gas pedal 1 inch from its original mounting spot because of the increased trans tunnel, I dont think it will hurt anything.
Ran into another problem as usual, since the shifter is alot further back on this 6 speed, I sectioned the the top of the tunnel behind where the shifter goes so the emergency brake handle will still fit, as it was way to close to the shifter(interfered) so I removed a 3 inch section and then welded it back up, it now clears and I dont have to shorten the handle and make it harder to pull.


Started on the turbo headers tonight as well, I will start a seperate post with pics on that next.
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1972 hatchback, 28,000 orig miles, 427BBC/twin T4 turbo's/T56 six speed/big wheels, lowered down pro touring style-work in progress....

1973 vega wagon-under the blue flame knife.
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Re: 1972 Vega Pro Touring Project

Postby TimMcCabe » Thu Apr 26, 2012 11:38 pm

Looking good so far
I did exactly the same thing for my e-brake handle when I did the T56 install. I ended up using small bolt on clamps to shorten the brake cable so it would fit.
Is your trans sitting a little high in the tunnel? Your shifter housing looks like it's touching at the top..
PS I hope your keeping the Oasis green color (I'm just a little biased towards it :D )

Cheers,
Tim
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Re: 1972 Vega Pro Touring Project

Postby megavega » Fri Apr 27, 2012 11:27 am

Hi Tim, yes its sitting 3/8" high right now, as the trans mount was junk so I used a high tech chunk of wood that was 3/8" thicker, but figured that would be good to use so everything would fit perfect when done.....good eye!

Oh ya, keeping the Oasis green paint, I like the color, outside it reminds me of sour apple green. just going to have it all redone when I finish fabbing the car up.


BTW- question for you, when you used that roofing patch material for sound deadner, did it stick right over top the factory spray on sound deadner /undercoating type stuff that the factory sprayed onto the floor or did you scrape off the old stuff first?
1972 hatchback, 28,000 orig miles, 427BBC/twin T4 turbo's/T56 six speed/big wheels, lowered down pro touring style-work in progress....

1973 vega wagon-under the blue flame knife.
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Re: 1972 Vega Pro Touring Project

Postby TimMcCabe » Fri Apr 27, 2012 11:37 am

I removed as much of the original sound deadening material as I could. It came out pretty easily using a heavy duty scraper and a hammer (stuff was super brittle after 40 years). I just wiped everything down with grease and wax remover and let it air dry after I scraped it out. I used a heat gun and a wallpaper roller to make sure the peel and stick was making maximum contact.

Keep the updates coming.

Tim
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Re: 1972 Vega Pro Touring Project

Postby megavega » Mon Apr 30, 2012 5:17 pm

:D Turbo Time!!

I got the headers on the pass side done as far as I can go for right now. I just figured out where I wanted the collector and tack welded a small scrap of angle iron to it, bolted it to the head to hold it there. Then started to figure out what cyl./tubes I wanted to go where in the collector. Once that was done it was pretty easy to make the header tubes. If you keep the cuts square its pretty easy.
I now will take them back apart from the flange and tig weld each tube. Place it back in the flange and mig weld the tubes to the flange then dust off the entire assembly on the bridgeport to make sure its flat from all the welding. I also need to remove 2 inchs from the collector end of the tubes to put my collector where it needs to be for the 90 degree elbow and turbo flange to hook up to. I am using a taper reducer to go from 3 1/2" to 3 inch,smooth 90 degree elbow and the turbo flange attached to that.

Also plan on fabbing up small triangle flat stock braces to bolt to the front of each head to help support the weight of the turbo so all the stress isnt on the header holding all the weight. I also turned the front wheel as far as it can go (against the swaybar) so when I made the tubes, none would touch the tire on full lock.

more to come yet...........
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1972 hatchback, 28,000 orig miles, 427BBC/twin T4 turbo's/T56 six speed/big wheels, lowered down pro touring style-work in progress....

1973 vega wagon-under the blue flame knife.
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Re: 1972 Vega Pro Touring Project

Postby megavega » Wed May 02, 2012 11:54 pm

Ok, heres a little more break down for the guys asking how to build headers. Dont be intimidated, anyone can build headers for anything with a little patience and basic tools. I first tell people that the biggest rule of thumb is to make square cuts and keep your cuts matching up, by doing this it allows to to simply spin the tube either way to get your desired result. Angles are a bit more tricky as youll cut the tube more like a "v" cut on each side but you can only go so far or the profile of the tube gets bigger then the diameter and they wont mate up. I cut mine on a bandsaw but it can just as well be done with a hand hacksaw,sharp blade and something to slip over the tube to keep you square, a guide if you want to call it that. In the past I have used pcv pipe fittings that will just slide over the pipe your using, keep your blade up tight against it on your cuts. For instance if you need to make a 45 degree bend and dont have a 45 degree bend of tubing you can make smaller peices for half the bend, like 22.5 degrees, 2 of those will make a 45 degree bend and the profile of the tube remains what the diameter is. its very much the same as doing wood trim in a house,same principal.

Heres a couple pics of what happend when you simply rotate the tubes you have cut, you can see how by spinning the tubes at intersections you can change your angle as needed(sorry my fat fingers are in the way,tough to take pics and hold something with 1 hand...lol)

what you can see is I use letter marks and lines to set up my tubes, draw a line and label it, this will let you tack it with welder and then test fit it. i tried to show what just spinng it will do, how it changes the angle. I will also post with pics what it does on the car.
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1972 hatchback, 28,000 orig miles, 427BBC/twin T4 turbo's/T56 six speed/big wheels, lowered down pro touring style-work in progress....

1973 vega wagon-under the blue flame knife.
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Re: 1972 Vega Pro Touring Project

Postby megavega » Thu May 03, 2012 12:03 am

heres more. Before I forget, when you cut the tubes, the edges will have burrs and you want to remove those. I use my porting tool but you can just use a sanding roll arbor in a cordless drill to get the same thing, clean up the inside of the tube and the outside edge, sometimes i also will hold the tube flat on a peice of sandpaper sitting on a bench top to get the exact fit if i am off a tad bit on my cut, just keep checking your fit and draw referance lines to refer back after fine tuning your trims.

second set of pics will show you what happens when you turn your cuts and how it changes the angle in which the tube will follow, by spinning them watch the distance and the outlet angle as marked in the pic. I showed how I just figure out where I want my collector, weld some scrap to it and then start fitting your tubes to the desired hole in the collector where you want it to go. ( I removed the exh flange just to show how you want to keep the tube up flush to the exh pot on the head), so later when your ready to weld tubes to flanges youll make it easy on yourself. Some engine have a square exh port and round tube , so youll heat up the tubes and form them to the square hole via a drift pin and tapping it, then welded to flange to seal it up.

I dont build headers for a living , I am no expert but this has whats worked for me with good results. Have built a few sets for all kinds of cars and engine combo's, hopefully some of you guys will dive in and try it, just take your time and you can do it, heck, I have so I am sure you can.
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Last edited by megavega on Thu May 03, 2012 8:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.
1972 hatchback, 28,000 orig miles, 427BBC/twin T4 turbo's/T56 six speed/big wheels, lowered down pro touring style-work in progress....

1973 vega wagon-under the blue flame knife.
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Re: 1972 Vega Pro Touring Project

Postby megavega » Thu May 03, 2012 12:05 am

heres the pic showing how the angle changes to the head by simply spinnging the cuts to get the desired angle.

add heres the one before so you can see how it changes, only allowed to add 5 pics at a time)
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1972 hatchback, 28,000 orig miles, 427BBC/twin T4 turbo's/T56 six speed/big wheels, lowered down pro touring style-work in progress....

1973 vega wagon-under the blue flame knife.
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Re: 1972 Vega Pro Touring Project

Postby megavega » Thu May 03, 2012 12:16 am

I also am moving my fuse box, got the idea from " Badbowtie", he did a great job and it was something I had not thought of, so I used his work as my guide( good job badbowtie!), here you can see I cut out the part and will first weld in a thin metal to plug hole, then a thicker outside plate to beef it up like the factory is. White template will be what I add to the outside to beef up firewall. using .065" steel plate, will weld to original firewall brace by master cylinder and prerimeter weld all around. The roll cage tube for the front frame will also pass thru this plate and get welded, so it should be pretty stout.
I will also be using the wilwood clutch master cylinder , like bad bowtie did but using the small 1pc one because it has a rear outlet to let me use a braided line run over the brake master cylinder and down to the slave cylinder, hoping to keep some distance from the " hot" down pipe!. It bolts on right close to master cylinder and will allow me room to get my down pipe and the extra rollcage tube to the front fame horns.

Question, there is 3-4 bore sizes, what size does a guy need to just operate the slave cylinder on a 93-95 camaro?, I was going to get the 3/4" bore??? ))

Your idea saved me big time badbowtie!

I run out of room very quickly in this set up, this gives me a couple inches which is feet with a big block vega, the turbos are just that much more trouble but going to be worth the extra planning/time.
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1972 hatchback, 28,000 orig miles, 427BBC/twin T4 turbo's/T56 six speed/big wheels, lowered down pro touring style-work in progress....

1973 vega wagon-under the blue flame knife.
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Re: 1972 Vega Pro Touring Project

Postby monzajer » Thu May 03, 2012 7:58 am

Cool build!!! :th: :th: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
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Re: 1972 Vega Pro Touring Project

Postby TimMcCabe » Thu May 03, 2012 9:31 am

I moved my fuse box (C100 bulkhead connector) to make room for my hydraulic clutch back when I did the TPI install, the only down side is I put it a little too far over and up, so the fuse box would not mount correctly on the dash side. My fuse box had to be mounted slightly off the bulkhead connector. It sure frees up a lot of real estate on the firewall :D
Image
Cheers,
Tim
Last edited by TimMcCabe on Thu May 03, 2012 11:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 1972 Vega Pro Touring Project

Postby BadBowtie » Thu May 03, 2012 10:12 am

Great build, its great seeing the progression and modifications, cant wait to see this car rolling! Glad i could be of some assistance in such a monumental build. 8)
James

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