25 April 2019
Brake lines and assembly

Headlamps installed, and the car is sitting on its own four wheels for the first time in a long time.
It's *very* low.  In fact, it's too low -- the front crossmember is a little less than 3 inches from the ground; I'd like to see four.
I'd thought to maybe try to put the computer on the back half of the pass wheelwell but there is no room at all.
No room under it, either.
I found all the missing parts for the gas pedal; painted the lever, installed a new pedal, and mounted it.

Have not found the missing windshield washer reservoir bracket yet.
I had thought that the brake on the driver's side was off center and the whole thing needs to be shimmed out, but somewhere after this picture it just figured itself out.
Got the coupler to attach the MAF to the throttle body.  It's a 4 inch coupler, and came with an insert to make it 3.9 on one side so it attached tightly to the throttle body.  This is the Spectre piece.
I bought two braided lines (Fragola) to hook the tank to the pump.  On both I thought "hey, I'll get a 90 on one end and that'll go on the pump side.  No, the supply side there's not room for a 90.  Trying to put it together the other direction really didn't work well.
Proof that you can screw up a flare on NiCopp line too.
I've mentioned before that the garage is magic and keeps disgorging useful things of unspecified origin.

Today's discovery was an old Ridgid 37 degree flare tool.  Would have been nice if this had appeared before I bought the one at the bottom, but I can't complain much; I bought one and now I have two.

Seriously though - where do these things come from?
Since the car was too low, need to adjust the spacers.

Started just shy of 2" 

Believe I read at one point that with the way the A-body suspension is set up, a half inch change at the spring is a full inch of ride height.
So, let's test that: spacers now set to 2.5".
I took the springs out by unbolting the UCAs.  While I had them out, I realized that none of the bolts holding them together were tightened (and one was missing the nut!).

Corrected.
I put the Camaro radiator in as a test.  It fits, somewhat, but it feels so tiny.  Maybe the stock El Camino radiator can work with the LS?
I made a bracket to mount to the master cylinder to hold the proportioning valve.  I think this will work Just Fine.

The loop going to the valve isn't as sharp of a bend as it appears here.
And then I went ahead and plumbed out the front brakes too - MC to a tee fitting, and the two halves of the T to the brackets at the wheels.
Even secured the line to the back of the crossmember.
While I was down there, I noticed that I was missing an oil pan bolt.

Why am I missing an oil pan bolt?
Tee fitting.
I mentioned back on the ninth that the tie rod ends were hitting the pan.  One suggested fix is to lower the rear and raise the front of the engine a little.  To do this, I started with a short transmission mount, and it is indeed shorter (and I could cut and reweld my crossmember, but I'm not going to do that)
With just the tranny mount done, I still hit but it's hitting much lower - I was hitting the grease fitting before.  Will raise the front of the engine just a little.
I got 69 Chevelle disk hoses, figuring that the travel is a known value and they'd be long enough. 

They are not.

These are 11 7/8" long and even with the travel being limited by the tie rod ends hitting, they're not long enough.

Oddly enough, there's a hose for a 1980 Chevette (H86572) of all things that has the right ends and is 14 1/4 inclues long.  That may be the answer. 

Need to figure out how long I need to add first though - there's longer ones for trucks or motorhomes.

Also the magic garage has eaten my banjo bolts, which is not such a big deal since the hoses aren't long enough, but I do wish the brake fluid hadn't tried to run out the ends of the hoses.  Drained what didn't dribble out back into the bottle with a big syringe.
Tried again with the Fragola hoses, no right angle on the supply side this time.  This works better.
Tank sliding off the jack has definitely ruined the finish.
Back in 2010 I bought a 98 Trans Am.  The exhaust was "too loud", she said.  I replaced it with a quieter setup and stored this one in the attic for whatever reason.  Somewhere along the way, this heavy thing was set on top of the Chevelle's windshield and promptly broke it.  Sigh.

Apparently the reason was so I could use it later.

Also, the internet was right back then: these are some really really ugly welds.
It fits up under the car well enough, I suppose.  Needs about six more inches before the "mufflers" on each side to get back where there's more clearance.  Also needs massaged to meet up with the collectors.

I did get four feet of 3" tube from Summit and a tailpipe expander from O'Reilly so I should be able to adjust as appropriate.
Driver's side is a little short to line up with the collector (and I still need to weld in the correct collector things to connect to the Hedmans).  It'll be fine.

May need some bends - it doesn't quite line up with the bumps in the transmission crossmember.  We'll see.
Pass side is a little better.  Seems to be close to the cutouts in the crossmember on that side too.
Oh - and no pic, because I don't know what to take a pic of: the oil leak I mentioned earlier this week was not, as I feared, the rear main seal. It's coming from the dipstick or the oil level sender or somewhere similar. Don't know where yet, but at least it's not telling me I need to pull the engine back out to fix it.

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