1971 Vega LS1 Project

[grandam75]

I think it's about time to start a project thread. I have been working on my 71 vega project for a couple of months.

The car was bought about a year ago. It has about 75000 km (47000 miles) and had the same owner since 1978. It was put in a garage by 1981 and sat there since. Even though it only had 10 years on the road it still has rust that needs to be taken care of (nothing severe).. No problem as I am used to it! I live in south Sweden with salted winter roads.

The plan is to build a light (and fast!) street car with good handling. The engine and T56 trans is on the way from phoenix along with a 8.5" 10 bolt rear and a lot of other goodies!

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[grandam75]

I started with disassembling and rebuilding of the front end.

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Welding seams and rust repair

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Hidden VIN number next to LCA mount driver side:

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[waybad]

please keep taking pictures and log all the stuff you do, PLEASE,, I have put my ls1 on hold for now because I don't have the money to do it like I want .. I am going to install the sbc in it for now and keep buying parts for my ls1
I had John at Speartech do my ls1harness and it is sweet Keep us posted! TC

[grandam75]

I built a temporary paint booth to paint the engine compartment. 2 coats of POR 15 and 2 coats of semi flat black.

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[grandam75]

please keep taking pictures and log all the stuff you do, PLEASE,, I have put my ls1 on hold for now because I don't have the money to do it like I want .. I am going to install the sbc in it for now and keep buying parts for my ls1
I had John at Speartech do my ls1harness and it is sweet Keep us posted! TC

I will, I have more pictures coming! Here the engine compartment is finished.

[grandam75]

I rewelded the heater cover to gain some space in the enging compartment..

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[grandam75]

Upper and lower control arms were modified to fit S10 ball joints. The uppers were fitted as far back and outward as possible and the lowers about 1/4" inward. Hopefully this will work for alignment.

Parts used:
S10 2" lowering spindles
S10 upper and lower ball joints
urethane bushings
V6 front springs
wilwood brake kit

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[grandam75]

Painted and ready to install.

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I sent a bunch of bolts and nuts for zink plating. Really a cheap way to make small parts look like new.

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[grandam75]

The spindles had to be modified to fit the wilwood brakes. Supprisingly the caliper bracket actually fit without too much grinding eventhough I used lowering spindles.

I dont know if anyone considered the difference in spindle height when using S10 ball joints. Yes the stock spindle is about 1/4" taller than the S10 but if you measure the height with the ball joints attached you find that the S10 spindle with S10 ball joints is about 15mm, 1/2" taller. This should help camber gain.

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[spyder_xlch]

Nice work so far. I love the heater box mod, very creative. Keep the pic coming.

[waybad]

Yes, thanks for all your time,, is there any reason that you didn't weld all the seams on the inner fender?
now I got to get to a printer,, great work

[Kenova]

Upper and lower control arms were modified to fit S10 ball joints. The uppers were fitted as far back and outward as possible and the lowers about 1/4" inward. Hopefully this will work for alignment.

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Did you fab up the rings for the lower control arms, or are they a service item available over the counter?

Ken

[73astregt]

Did you fab up the rings for the lower control arms, or are they a service item available over the counter?

Ken[/quote]
i found the ball joint sleeves at bicknell racing .they are in the st cathrines area look them up on line.

[v8astregt]

Awesome work! And you're doing all this... in Sweden??? Pretty cool!

And I didn't know about the balljoint sleeves being available! If I would've known that before, I would have fabbed those up, and make all my front end S10! Good deal.

[grandam75]

Yes, thanks for all your time,, is there any reason that you didn't weld all the seams on the inner fender?
now I got to get to a printer,, great work

I heard that you were supposed to leave some gaps to avoid tension in the metal. Dont know if its true though..

Did you fab up the rings for the lower control arms, or are they a service item available over the counter?

Ken

A friend of mine fabbed them up. I think several places have them, but I needed them fast.