That's about it..... I have heard they may have a little more nickel in them but have seen no definate proof.....

 

This morning I went down to the shop and modified my welding cart so the new welder would fit on it..... In the process I got to test the new welder out, it seems to work very nice.....

Then finally some progress was made on the car..... I got it blocked up and leveled for the frame connector install..... Also got the factory fuel lines removed and the emergency brake stuff that would be in the way..... Once it was up I removed the hub caps wheels and fenderwell trim(I can not use the fenderwell trim with the new wheels due to having to modify the rear fenderwell lip, plus 2 of them were pretty badly banged up..... After that I wire brushed the passenger side floor areas that were surface rusted, they cleaned up real well..... Last thing I did was to scrap all the factory seam sealer out of the interior floor area..... Tomorrow I will get the lower floor areas stripped where I will be notching for the frame connectors to come up through, and welding them.....

Here's the car up on blocks and leveled.....

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and here's the floor after wire brushing surface rusted areas and scraping out seam sealer.....

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Today I got the lower area of the front and rear floor pans stripped..... Then I got the frame connectors out, I mocked up the pass side one for a test fit..... After that I proceded to knotch the connector and floor pan to get more ground clearance, and add a little more strengthto the unibody..... I managed to get the pass side completely fitted, just need to clean up the surfaces on the factory subframes so it can be welded in place..... It only took about 2.5 hours to fit the connector this way, the drivers side should be a little easier because i can transfer the mods from one connector to another.....

Here's the cleaned up floor pan area.....

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Here's how the subframe connector is supposed to fit under the floor.....

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Here's how it fits after modifications and notched up into the floor.....

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Here you can see the difference in the connector as supplied and after modification side by side.....

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Great project! Nice to see something different!

 

Great project.

 

Awesome project. I have seen cars 5 years old that have more rust on them than your Comet that is 41 years old! That thing is sick.

I can't wait to see where you go with this thing. It looks really nice, keep us updated!

 

Thanks to you all..... Updates will always keep coming.....

 

here is the project I am working on my dad bought it brand new in 71, been sitting for the the last 16 years or so just got it out and rebuilding everything, from fuel tank to carb and brakes, tho not exactatly factory it is a 4bbl 4sp with 289 heads making 10:1 compression that happened around 1972, its crazy comets did offer 302 gt's but only 3spd and 2bbl's went were available also front disc also was not an option but at least 5 lug was, so it is manual steering and manula brakes but drives like a new car with just a tad more effort to steer. #ad
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Today I fitted the left side frame connector and got both sides welded in..... Then I took a look at the seat tracks and seats, it definately looks like the stock early seat tracks would make sit higher then I want in the car(I guess I will sell these seat tracks)..... So I got the LDO's I have out which are much lower, the only problem with these is there for a later car with a cat hump in the floor..... I will be able to modify the cat hump track, using it and my stock bench seat track..... That will be my project for tomorrow.....

Here's a few pic's of the connectors welded in.....

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Nice work!

 

Thanks.....

 

I got the seat tracks all modified and seats installed in the car..... The drivers side was easy, basically just had to mount the tracks on the seat - drill the floor and set it in the car..... The pass side inner track was for the later LDO car with a catalytic converter hump, I used my left side bench seat track along with part of the pass side inner track to make one that worked.....

Here's the 2 tracks I used to make one that worked, the upper is the one for the later LDO car and the lower one is my stock left side bench seat track......

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Here I removed the studs and lower bracket from the stock bench seat track......

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Here I removed the lower brackets from the LDO inner seat track......

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Here is the bench seat track with the rear bracket installed from the LDO assembly, and I had a couple early standard seat bell shaped spacers laying around..... I used one of them in the front with a longer bolt modified and welded in place.....

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After the first test fit I found the inside rear corner was a little high, so I cut 3/16" out of the rear rier bracket and welded it back together..... It work great after that.....

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Here is the car ready to go for the cage, with the front seats bolted in..... I have new foams for the seats, all the seat will go for upholstery after it gets back from the cage install.....

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I had the car ready to go for the cage this week, unfortunately they are running a little behind so hopefully it goes next week.....

In the meanwhile I decided to take the motor I got apart to check it out..... Well lest just say it wasn't good..... Everything was what it was supposed to be, the problem was condition of some of the parts..... First of all the heads showed some detonation in the chambers, only a little cosmetic damage but I need to disassemble them to make sure valve seat are good to go..... The next thing is the camshaft(a solid flat tappet) was in the process of wiping out 3 lobes..... the biggie is the cracks in the 2nd main area of the block..... I called the guy I got it from, who honestly didn't know anything was wrong with it(it was running in his car this way)..... We evaluated everything and came to the conclusion he is going to give me back $1000, so I feel I am not getting hurt considering I still have the Victor Jr heads, Victor Jr intake manifold, Comp Cam Pro Magnum rocker arms, Chromolly push rods, MSD dist, PRW sfi flywheel, sfi balancer and a steel Eagle 347 steel rotating assembly for a $1200 investment.....

Here's pic's of the detonation in the chambers on the heads.....

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Here's the wiped out solid flat tappet lifters and cam.....

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and here are the cracks in the main web on the block.....

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that sucks about the block, but the 1k refund puts you ok, sounds like the seller is a straight-up guy

 

No progress has been made lately..... I am still waiting to get it in for the cage install, they are backed up and haven't had room for it yet..... I will be going on vacation next wednesday for a week, they said to just bring it to them on the 27th because they have atleast 3 cars that will be gone by then..... We shall see what happens, hopefully it won't take them too long to get it done once it's in there.....

 

The Comet is finally at the chassis shop for the chromolly cage install!!!!! Hopefully it doesn't take too long..... I will be going by every couple days to get some progress pic's of the work.....

With the car out of the shop I decided to get some things done in preperation of putting the car back together..... I figured I would start with a relatively easy one and get the rear end center section ready to go, it was already set up for the old Maverick but after selling the car I found out how loud the Detroit Locker was when just pushing the car so I picked up a Tru-trac unit to replace it with..... After double checking what I previousely set the back lase on the ring gear I removed the Locker and seperated the ring gear from it..... I found out the bolts I had in the locker were too long for the Tru-trac unit, The I tried to install the bearings on the Tru-trac and found a big issue that I did not have knowledge of..... Aparrently the 3.250 OD carrier bearings only come in a 2" ID which will not fit the Tru-trac due to it needing a bearing with a 1.781" ID bearing, whick will require a case with a 2.890" OD or 3.062" OD bearing..... So to use the Tru-trac unit it looks like I will need to buy a different case(happy, happy, joy, joy).....


Here's a couple pic's of the center section disassembly.....

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Sweet build. With the same extra ya got back put it towards a dart block and forget about those issues. Love to see a 76mm monster out of that thing.

 

No progress on the cage yet!!!!! Mabye some day.....

With the help of someone on another site I was able to find a set of thick bearing races that fit the 3.250" dia chunk and a 2.891" dia bearing..... So atleast I didn't have to buy another chunk..... I got the gear set up today, everthing worked out great.....

I did get the rear end housing down so I could start cleaning it up, and get it ready to go in the car.....

Here are the races, bearings and new bolts I got this week so I could get the center section back together.....

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and here it is assembled once again.....

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I tried to touch up the paint on the rear end housing late yesterday afternoon, but it didn't work out so well..... It was lifting the paint beside the touch up..... So this morning I stripped the paint off the housing, cleaned it up and masked it then made a makeshift jig so I can paint it..... Unfortunately I did not have hardly any chassis paint leaft so I will have to get some more this week.....

In the meanwhile I decided to get the rear leaf springs down, dissassemble them, strip them so I can repaint them too.....

All this stuff was painted for the other car, but after being installed then removed and moved around my shop a couple times they got a few little marks in them..... I am probably being a little anal about it, but I just like things to be a certain way when I put them together.....


Here's the housing after stripping and being cleaned up.....

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Here it is masked and proped up for paint.....

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Here's the springs disassembled and ready for stripping.....

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Here they are after being stripped(just need to mask the brackets and eyelets next week and they will be ready for paint).....

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You sir, do good work. Please finish this one!

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Oh, and what do you use to stip the paint?