Finally getting ready to bring her home. I posted almost a year ago of how I found my she-beast after 17 years. Here she is in all her glory!
Well she's in perty bad shape. The floors are rusted out along with the cross members. I bought replacements years ago, but never welded them in and now those are all rusty crap too. The front bench seat is gone but no worries: was going to replace that with low-back buckets from a 65-66 anyway. Dash will get the GTO treatment with wood and full gauges. Keeping the original 15" steering wheel and have already replaced the steering column for a console shifted auto. The rest of the interior will be restored stock in grey, charcoal, and black. Will install the center console from a 66, and using the Hurst Dual Gate shifter, will incorporate a Gear Vendors gear splitter in the tail end of the trans. They now have a wide selection of shifter knobs with a side button for manual shifting from the trans gears to the splitter. So over to the right with the Dual Gate and now we have a ratchet shifter in 1st in the trans. Hit the button: gear splitter gear between 1st and 2nd (now 2nd gear). Pop the shifter forward to engage 2nd gear in the trans (now 3rd). Hit the button again, now you are on the splitter again and technically in 4th gear. Pop the shifter again and now you are on 3rd in the trans, technically 5th because of the splitter and now @ 1:1. Hit the button a third time and now you are in 6th gear, a .78 final under drive for freeway cruising and keeping the rpms low. A spendy but bulletproof 6 speed TH400. I'm planning a monster mill: prolly a 501 using Butler's kits. Maybe go injected, not sure yet. Haven't committed to aluminum or iron heads yet either. The engine is still on the drawing board because of so many options and possible combo's these days. I want over 500 hp on pump gas, easily do-able these days. The car does have factory A/C, power brakes, and power steering so those systems will all be rebuilt and in good working order. Planning on B body upper front A arms and spindles to improve the handling and get big 12' disk brakes. Front suspension will be Moog, Energy Suspension, and Hotchkiss components. Rear end will prolly be a custom Ford 9" with disk brakes setup to fit under the Pontiac to handle all the torque. Control arms and anti-roll bar systems from Spohn Racing. Drive shaft to be determined. The frame is still in good shape from what I can see and doesn't have any bad spots. The only body mods I'm planning so far is to add a rear view mirror to the passenger side and install a 66 GTO hood. There's lots of rust that needs to be cut out in the back around the rear side windows and the rear pillars. That is what is going to take the most time with the carriage: chopping out all the rust and welding her back up nice and solid and rust free. Of course new wring and plumbing for fuel and brake lines. With paint I want to go with a slight candy black cherry. At night or in the shade it will look like gloss black, but in the sun if you look at it just right I want it to be a deep, deep ruby red. Next I want fire, not flames, but fire all over the front fenders and the hood with little laughing skulls thrown in all over. Shine up the bumpers, stainless window trim, and the roof rack, tint the windows, add set of classic Cragar SS rims with 3 blade spinners and well, there you have my vision. Definitely not a daily driver, but not a finicky week-end strip car either. It's always been one of my dreams to build a car worthy of the cover of Hot Rod Magazine so here goes...
Congrates on the Tempest!!!! I have always liked the looks of those 65 to 67 Tempest wagons. I had a 65 when I was in HS and other than the frame rusting and breaking almost in 1/2 just in front of the rear suspension I really Liked it. I learned a lot of what I know about working on old Pontiac's from that Tempest Custom Wagon. As for Iron or Aluminum Heads, I would go with E or Kaufman Aluminum just to save on your back when assembling it. And most head porters will charge at least double for porting Iron heads, and I do not blame them!!!! Keep us informed as to how it is going! those A-body Wagons with Arrowheads are rare beasts until the 78-86 models came out.
