3800 Supercharged Astre

[vegastre]

Legal Eagle

I went ahead and insured and tagged the SJ even though it has no muffler and is not driven. The weather has been just too darn cold ever since I got the H-Body off the dirt. Over a hundred hours below freezing and mostly highs just in the teens. Let me tell you that is cold for Texas. Not like the eastern seaboard is experiencing but cold for my whiny butt.

I went with Hagerty on my classic insurance. In Texas its $50 bucks for antique tags for five years and no state inspection sticker required. Oh, and the bonus you only run one tag in the back, very cool for me. Hagerty wasn't the cheapest but seemed to be the most comprehensive. Back in the day I used Hagerty and my full coverage for my Trans Am was like $60 for the year.

The other motive for tagging the SJ is I can park and work on the car in my driveway without Code Enforcement all up in my S**t. Nothing more to report other than just these ramblings. It's good to ramble after not posting a word for over a year on the SJ.

[vegastre]

Hood Hinge Fabrication

Let me start with a disclaimer:
Having owned H-Body cars for more years than I can count the one thing that has bugged me or I should just say I out and out dislike is the "Front" opening hood of the early GM H-Body cars. Its a poorly designed and executed feature wrapped around an absolute horrible pin setup. The cheap approach GM went to with these early offerings is never more evident when you want to remove or replace your hood. For the longest I thought it was e bad joke that some pissed off GM designer was playing. I downloaded a video to my YouTube channel which sort of explains the Disclaimer. BTW, in this video I mistakenly called the Header panel the Cowl, Excuse the brain fart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecI6xo3iLSg

Dateline: Saturday the tenth of February, a cold gray overcast winter day that begins close to 60 F degrees early morning day break and dropping rapidly. The hood hinge setup GM designed completely wore out and in need of attention immediately because opening and closing the hood was impossible. The original pin design had to go. I started by removing the welded pins from the hood hinge arms. I then machined up a couple of stainless steel bushings which fit a 3/8 inch threaded shank bolt. I then machined out the SJ hinge plates on the core support or what was left of them to accept the new bushings. Couple of welds later the hinge plates and new bushings are ready to accept the 3/8 bolt which is almost the exact size of the original GM pins. So... the hinge arm is held in place to the bushing by the 3/8 bolt sandwiched between two stainless washers with a self locking stainless nut to hold it all tightly together. A bit of heavy grease on the parts and the hood opens and shuts with almost pure perfection.

Sunday Update:
Hood is installed and is aligned better than the factory thanks to the new pin set up. It pains me to talk negatively about GM and the Vega hood design but I think I have earned the right after four decades of ownership. Every time I see an H-body hood it's almost a personal embarrassment these cars rolled off the assembly line looking as poorly as they did. BTW, sunny and 38 degrees F today, that works for me...or not.

[vegastre]

Wholy Hood And Gas Charged Struts

Warmed up a little when March arrived in Texas which has allowed me to continue on the SJ. This short video shows how someone can get carried away with a hole saw and at the same time highlights one of the best modifications I have ever done to the SJ which is the installation of Gas Struts to open and close the hood. Exceptionally simple design but the functionality of this Mod raises the bar on quality and feel of the car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP-V6ZYhJ0E

As I state in the video this is not a new Modification. I did gas struts back in 2012 and started the Wholy Hood back in 2004 and finished it up this year when designing and install of the new pin set up for the hood. Over time it all comes together to form a pretty sweet hand crafted package. Here is the link if you wish to do this Mod on your H-Body.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37170

EDIT: An H-Body Member had PM me (private message) Asking about the Wholy Hood. I thought I would go ahead and share the genesis of the hood project. First conceived in 2005 as a better way to raise and lower the hood. I came up with the Gas Strut idea independent of any input from the board or any where else. I had weighed the hood years earlier and knew it was a very heavy for such a small hood. I wanted a light. easy opening action and the way to do this was by drilling holes in the frame work... a whole lot of holes. A process which took many hours. next which was figuring where the gas struts would go and not be in the way. This was an arduous task and came up with the best design bar none. The simple small gas struts tuck up out of piece. (See post and video). Finally was the installation of the hood pins which again was a entire process and design on it's own. In close, Hopefully you will realize all three work in coordination with each other.

[vegastre]

April Update

CUSTOM HOOD LATCH

Another hood video featuring a design I came up with to do away with the H-Body latch. While the factory latch is certainly beefy it's a rather crude setup not the least of which is the plastic latch release cable. Having owned two H-Body''s for years I have replaced several of these plastic sheathed cables. My idea and design was more on how to replace the plastic cable and what evolved was sort of what shook out. The finished latch you see in this video was an end result rather than having a blueprint or drawings to start with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD_0Lw6Vh0I

EDIT: The video is not quite accurate, Sometimes when you I make these videos I don't explain the genesis of what prompted the design. In this case the Factory latch had to go to make room for the throttle body and it's related components. Also this present design is more mock up with a finished design to come later. I never settle on any thing quickly although I will admit I like this design a lot.

[283vega]

I think you may be able to replace the outer plastic cable housing with bicycle brake cable housing. This is just a guess never having done it

[vegastre]

Good idea Brian,
I will try this when I restore my 72 GT. Not sure I explained myself so good but to further confuse everyone my point is the factory latch itself is a very beefy latch with the exception of the H-Body's steel cable encased in plastic. The plastic gets brittle with age and is of course the weak link. Let me retrace and say it's not a totally bad design but more evidence where General Motors was cost conscious with the cable design during the Era where wide use of plastic and ABS was used everywhere they could..

[vegastre]

July Update

CUSTOM REAR TRUNK LID

Well folks,
It's July in Texas. Something like 20 or so 100 F plus days in a row. It's brutal out there and as such not a whole lot of work on the SJ Astre. I did do a rear trunk lid custom creation which I'm very pleased with. Done earlier when It was much cooler I recently did a video which I have uploaded. This video is basically my answer to the cheap factory metal deck lid.It must be said that having owned H-Body cars for decades I have had plenty of time to think about all theses custom improvements. I know their most likely not your cup of tea. I only present these videos as more a record for me and at the same time share my ideas. Love it or hate it this latest creation is very functional with the split trunk design. Check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwIgHYWPYrQ

EDIT: The genesis for this design was the installation of a bass speaker. With the 75 Astre their is almost no trunk space. Really none to speak of. You have a spare tire well on the driver side and about three inches of depth on the passenger side. In a very functional way their is no room for stereo components whatsoever. I use to be big on stereos for my cars...not so much any more. Today with the digital revolution you can stream everything off your phone. This has changed the entire formula of this car somewhat radically from engine management to music. I dare say this entire car eventually will be ran off my Samsung Note book. I'm not being futuristic here I'm just being practical with the hardware I have. This is after all the digital age. The big bass speaker hovering over the spare tire more a 90" answer to a 70's mind set and the split trunk design was a functional must result of this.

[vegastre]

UPDATE

I know, It's been six months.

It's February in Texas. 22 degrees F for a high today but just a few days ago we had record highs in the 70's. Crazy Texas weather. The warm weather did let me re-design the firewall and the throttle bottle "Air Intake Box". The original design was poor and not functional. the new firewall and box is or I should say a quantum leap with a pretty neat large air filter which allows lots of air intake and seals off the engine compartment fumes. noise, etc.

Checking my camera phone for the video I realized the video was on my old phone that up and died on me. Damn, I will do a new video as soon as it warms up a bit. Anyway, I think you will find it interesting with the Throttle Body in the back of the Supercharger.