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Here is the starting point....The car has been on jack stands in a garage since 1984. 80% of the car wears its' original paint. The floors, trunk and body panels have zero rust. The rear hatch has been replaced as it looks like it was in a mild rear-ender at some point, but the quarter panels were not damaged. It does have some scrapes and dents, but not bad for a 44 year old car. The interior is all there (minus the dash grab handle) but very moldy. Having owned built many muscle cars over the years, I am very excited about how solid this car is!

It has an earlier front bumper mount, but I also have the original. I don't believe the driveline is original (certainly not the transmission) and the top of the tunnel has been cut. Fortunately, the cut piece came with the car, so I can weld it back on.

The plan is to make it a 70s style street machine with a small block, dual 4 barrels, slotted mag wheels, 4 speed muncie and prefabbed Ford 9" rear. I am not going to tub the rear. We are going to try and save the paint and color match the paint in the areas that need to be touched up.









Phil

Interior, floor, jam and trunk:

https://youtu.be/p6TFi3V4SEM

Congrats. Looks very solid.

Nice

Engine bay pics...

Removed the seam sealer to expose the original red oxide primer and to clean out the seams - Super solid - no rot! Coated everything with industrial Chassis Saver. Next up, re-apply the seam sealer and top coat with Eastwood trunk spatter paint for a factory finish look.






I'll do the interior/floor pans next.

Phil

A little more (slow) progress as the cold here has made my garage unbearable to work in.

I did the final finish on the trunk in spatter paint, media blasted/painted the cover and restored a set of Lakewood traction bars:






Phil

Picked up an engine: '72 350 block, 307 crank (327 cubic inches), balanced, competition cams cam, '64 Corvette "fulie" double hump heads, built by Five Star Engines in 2011. Less than 5,000 miles on rebuild.


Phil

Nice one. Got any new updates on the project?

Finally back on the Vega. Finishing up a '68 Camaro build and building a 30x46 garage got in the way, but some good progress has been made. The 327 now has a tunnel ram, the muncie 4 speed is all rebuilt and I picked up a '72 Vega parts car out of PA that had all the Don Hardy conversion parts including: 5 lug rotors, motor mounts, and most importantly a Don Hardy 12-bolt. I have removed the driveline from the 73 and it is now on jack stands. I cannot believe how clean this car is...not 1 inch of rot on the car. Very excited to build this car! Here are a few updated pics...





I am in the process of cleaning the underside and will be installing the 12 bolt soon!

Older photo's from broken links above:

If you can't see the pics above, I will be updating my build at this link:

https://pmanro.wixsite.com/vega

Phil

Nice work Phil love it

Thank you!