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XRV8 Gremlin

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amcenthusiast View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote amcenthusiast Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jan/11/2016 at 9:43pm
-took out this pic because it did not flatter the looks of the car (looks better in person, not through a fish eye camera lens)


Edited by amcenthusiast - Apr/14/2018 at 10:00pm
443 XRV8 Gremlin YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=2DmFOKRuzUc
XRV8 Race Parts website: http://amcramblermarlin.1colony.com/
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote amcenthusiast Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jan/11/2016 at 11:11pm
The '75 parts car's engine was in such good condition (internally only) that I couldn't bear taking it apart so I repaired everything instead!

The silver '73 is 'my baby'; the former 'ship in a bottle' I used to build in my mind when I was an alcoholic/party animal, prior to two and a half years ago when I went to a state funded chemical dependency treatment center to get medical help for the alcohol addiction.

I've been 100% sober ever since.

The '73 used to be a Trans Am red, black bucket seat interior, gold stripe X model. Luckily, the former owner tore off the door tag and threw it in the glove box when they replaced the door, apparently when the car had some type of weird accident happen to it's driver side rear half (perhaps more than one accident...)

This car sat in the junkyard, windows down & full of trash for at least twenty five years. It's red paint was obviously bleached out by sunlight which made it look like it was Sienna Orange instead. The gold X side stripes were apparently sanded down and painted over at some point but their outline could still be seen looking at the car up close. (I think it'd look great Sienna Orange with gold stripes but decided not to keep it/but going with modern camouflage scheme instead so it's not so flashy)

Here's a few pics of how it looked when I got it home;

  HEE HEE HEE!

  Now that's UGLY! 







MAN that fender was messed up! Look at the picture on the right >

HOW DO YOU DO THAT? LOOK AT HOW THE DRIVER SIDE REAR FENDER IS STRETCHED/PULLED BACK... what happened?

Upon closer inspection, the inner fender part behind the wheel was truly mangled = I could see no way to simply hammer/dolly it out. Hence, 'saving' this car meant taking the corner pieces off, straightening them out and welding them back on again.

I think it may have been driven 'at speed' with a blown out steel belted radial tire in a perceived emergency type situation because the inner fender stamping behind the rear tire was beaten beyond recognition; it looked sort of like a wadded up piece of newspaper once I got the outer fender off...

Here's what it looked like when I was re-doing the rear fender, with the dollied out inner fender part already brazed back on there (the drilled out spot welds are re-filled with brazing method)

                              
Once I became satisfied all the rust was under control, I sprayed the underbody satin black (after many intense cleaning scraping scrubbing pressure washing sessions etc of course) ... the add on workspace is custom made to fit one Gremlin in there...

I did all the 'welding' using a 'cheapie' disposable canister mini torch; it's all tediously brazed back together with a dinky torch! (just make the best of what ya got!.. I fabbed up my own 'real' oxy/propane torch about two months later)

was a heck of a deal to get the roof rail seam brazed solid because the factory lead filled seam is right there above my cut and lead would pollute the seam so I had to double the effort there to 'get it right'

Of course lots of measuring took place to make sure all was square again while going back together (width and length of wheelwheel, unibody frame channels, roof to floor etc)

...the fenders are definitely a structural component of these cars, where the triangular shape in the rear portion of a Gremlin bodystyle is definitely like a big triangular gusset for structural rigidity of the unibody chassis... where the beauty of the part is definitely 'more than skin deep'; it's a smart shape which adds structural rigidity otherwise...

From that point, it was all about the engine. The first engine (a '65 327 4v) had a cracked block > crack running lengthwise in the lifter gallery in the water jacket under one head/on one bank; the freeze plug on the outside of that bank was not popped out & obviously it froze too hard one winter...

I was not successful to repair it (cringe... shrug...) so I ended up using that block as a dummy just to make the necessary adapter pieces to fit a good block into the engine compartment

I took my time to align the RV8 engine and trans into the Gremmy locations. In the process of doing the work, I noticed the RV8 retains it's fifties style front engine mount bosses and seriously considered cutting into the firewall to install it with that same amount of set back... (but that wouldn't work with the intake I'd planned to build for it)

When I finally got the engine nudged into position (partly hanging from my homemade engine hoist and partly hanging from 'rafters' & chains similar to what they show in Chilton's manuals on how to change the oil pan) I made the engine mounts like this...



Edited by amcenthusiast - May/24/2017 at 6:49am
443 XRV8 Gremlin YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=2DmFOKRuzUc
XRV8 Race Parts website: http://amcramblermarlin.1colony.com/
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote pit crew Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jan/12/2016 at 5:13am
Originally posted by amcenthusiast amcenthusiast wrote:

I thought I made them smaller using the PowerShot camera's size reduction feature, downloaded them to my PC and when I went to install them here they were too big again... I'll keep trying
I use a PC based program called IrfanView. It can crop, resize, rotate, and color correct pictures. Not hard to use and easy to learn. You can download it from their web site.

http://www.irfanview.com 

73 Hornet - 401EFI - THM400 - Twin Grip 20
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote amcenthusiast Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jan/12/2016 at 5:48am
OH YEAH! ...there it is!... I like your car man!


Edited by amcenthusiast - Feb/23/2016 at 10:01pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote pit crew Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jan/12/2016 at 6:20am
Love that IrfanView. Been using it for years.

One of these days we maybe be in the same place at the same time to check out each others cars.
Love your build so far. Keep the pictures and updates coming.

I am in the process of getting a few upgrades completed on the Hornet. Moved up to an EFI 401, coil overs with tubular control arms in the front, new strut rods, and higher rated leaf springs with the CE Slide-A-Link traction bars. The main attraction for the Slide-A-Link bars is they can be adjusted on the fly with just two wrenches. Great when going from street to track and back again. Or when you just want to get a little nutty on the street. Wink

It will be interesting to see how the 17 inch G-Force street tires hook up.



 


Edited by pit crew - Jan/12/2016 at 6:24am

73 Hornet - 401EFI - THM400 - Twin Grip 20
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote amcenthusiast Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jan/12/2016 at 6:25am
*I really like pitcrew's Hornet for all the smart mechanical choices he's made ...and the smart paint; by definition a hornet is yellow and black!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...so I got the seriously damaged body where I thought it would be worthy again (obviously that was why the car was declared 'totaled' & the main reason why it went to the junkyard)

Here's pics of the engine mounts I made to adapt AMC's earlier Rambler V8 to the later stock AMC inline six 'small chassis' engine crossmember

 

These were made after trial fitting locations for trans to tunnel clearances, distributor cap to wiper motor & firewall clearances, oil pan to crossmember... everything I could think of...

The final engine mount design was at first modeled by using pieces of cardboard cut and taped together. With prototypes made out of cardboard, those pieces were then cut out of 1/8' thick steel plate & welded together. Essentially they are triangular gusset type spacers about 1.25" tall welded into bolt on plates which were cut to match the block and mount bolt patterns.

The stock '65 RV8 exhaust manifolds do not fit; the passenger side would hit on the strut rod bracket and the driver side would hit on the steering column (no way to set the engine in 'straight' using the former inline six locations to judge fitment)


 


Edited by amcenthusiast - May/24/2017 at 7:12am
443 XRV8 Gremlin YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=2DmFOKRuzUc
XRV8 Race Parts website: http://amcramblermarlin.1colony.com/
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote pit crew Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jan/12/2016 at 6:31am
Originally posted by amcenthusiast amcenthusiast wrote:

The stock '65 RV8 exhaust manifolds do not fit; the passenger side would hit on the strut rod bracket and the driver side would hit on the steering column (no way to set the engine in 'straight' using the former inline six locations to judge fitment)
I feel your pain. Small body cars are a pain when it comes to manifolds. We had to "shave" a little off the strut rod bracket and the manifold on the passenger side to get the freeflow manifold to fit.

73 Hornet - 401EFI - THM400 - Twin Grip 20
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote amcenthusiast Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jan/12/2016 at 6:43am
comment deleted to save space on AMC Forum




Edited by amcenthusiast - Feb/06/2018 at 4:42am
443 XRV8 Gremlin YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=2DmFOKRuzUc
XRV8 Race Parts website: http://amcramblermarlin.1colony.com/
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote amcenthusiast Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jan/12/2016 at 7:00am



Edited by amcenthusiast - Feb/23/2016 at 10:02pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote amcenthusiast Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jan/12/2016 at 7:20am
(since 304dude re-quoted pics of the headers, I edited out this first set of pics to save space on AMC Forum... that's cool > don't take it personal/no biggie)

Here's how the custom headers looked viewing underneath from the front:



*note I copied Shirley Shahan Drag On Lady SS/AMX drop out crossmember for servicing crank gallery... this works great/highly recommended by me for any AM car with engine built for higher performance level.

Here's a pic of some homemade tools I used to bend all the exhaust tubing myself, using weld on caps, on six five foot long sand filled tubes > two 10' long 1 5/8" ID tubes & one 10' long 2 1/16" ID cut in half to make the four 'end port' tubes and the two 'siamesed' center port tubes:

-shake down the dried sand in the tube, weld a cap on one end, weld the 'T handle cap' on the other end which is used to compress the sand while bending orange red torched pipe inserted into 'wheel barrow tube bending die' which is affixed to  homemade engine hoist's upright post by another adjustable adapter to make bends in different directions... use muscle to push on tube to bend into desired shape (tubes as such are heavy and packed tightly with sand are rather resistant to bending = good exercise!)

I'm not good enough to make full length custom bent tubes so there are many short lengths of tubing cut & welded together to make the longer tubes fit 'right'.

(once I got a little experience doing the headers, doing the rest of the exhaust system was a 'cakewalk' by comparison!)

If anyone other fellow AMCer is interested in making their own custom headers, feel free to PM me or ask questions > that's just my natural tendency desiring to help other people if I'm able.


Edited by amcenthusiast - May/24/2017 at 7:32am
443 XRV8 Gremlin YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=2DmFOKRuzUc
XRV8 Race Parts website: http://amcramblermarlin.1colony.com/
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