Good As Gold Custom Paint for our Pontiac LeMans

Today. Muscle car adds a new face.

The lemons

gets a new finish and lou plays with his parts.

Welcome to Muscle car. No, we're not having a swap meet. This is our 67 lemons. Well, half of it anyway, today we're gonna paint and assemble the other half of the car. This project's been going on a long time and it's taken a lot of work so far.

We're keeping to a budget. So we saved everything we could.

The frame was pulled,

straightened,

boxed and painted

and the old 326 was stroked out by Butler performance when an updated rotating assembly in taking cars,

pro thing came through with the pushings and stainless steel with the brakes.

We modify the control arms put in them

Mosier rear end and bolted in a Richmond super T 10 4 speed.

We had to replace a lot of steel and make extensive rust repairs.

So Brent spent an endless amount of time prepping,

undercoating

filling

and s

so much. In fact, there's just no way we could show it all,

but he eventually gave it the butter seal of approval and laid on his prime.

All the body panels have been fitting in a line

and it's ready for final blocking. Now, a lot of people would have made this a clone, but we don't want another fake GTO running around out there. This one's gonna be all lemons. And before we undid bolt one, we came up with a budget.

We estimated a matching numbers restoration at 16 5 for another 6500. You can add a Stroker kit four speed and tougher rear end.

These numbers are low because we did almost all the work ourselves.

In order to keep the cost down, we salvaged as much as we could. These parts are over 40 years old but they're worth saving. Some of them are even hard to find.

Window regulators are a good example. The best thing you can do is clean them up while the regulators dry. I'm gonna work on the window tracks. All the rust has gotta come off and to prevent its return.

A little paint does the trick.

This will make a nice smooth glide for our regulator rollers. These plastic rollers are replaceable. Ours look good. So we're just gonna clean them up. If yours are damaged, you can try someone like year one or a major restoration shop. They may be able to help you out,

lube the pivot points and gears with white lithium grease and they should be good for another 40 years.

We won't install these. So the doors are painted because the window felts have to go in first. And speaking of doors, Brent found some trouble spots that needed to be taken care of

rust in the lower door corners is a common problem.

All four corners on the lemons had to be patched so the doors can be painted

once they're fixed up a coat of primer and they're ready for color

in order to get the last little flaws out of the body. Sprint's gonna block san one more time.

The guide code shows any imperfections in the body. A dark area means that it's a low spot. The roof is gonna be black which means it's gotta be flawless.

So this one has to be filled.

Brent's gonna keep saying on that thing till it's perfect, which is gonna give me plenty of time to fix my pedals. Now, this thing originally came with a power glide in it, which is boring.

That's why we're putting a stick in it.

We couldn't find petals that were made for a lemon.

So Kesler

set us up with a set from a 66 to 67

Chevelle

with some modifications to the original brackets

that work for us

because we cut it up. It's gotta be braced or the pedals can wobble. But I've got a plan

I'm welding on a piece of eight inch plate

that'll give it all the support it needs

the petals fit perfect and they move well. So we're done with this for now.

Oh

Yeah,

that was a third year turf.

These taillight housing can be saved too. These things look like Swiss cheese. The best thing I've found to fill these smaller holes is silicon bronze. It's a manmade blend with over half a dozen elements in it.

Why do I like it?

It cools so quick. It doesn't fall through the holes.

The edge of this housing has a lot of bigger chunks missing.

So I'm patching it with sheet metal

no more Swiss cheese. So they're going into the finish pile for now.

We've got a lot of small but important things taken care of. It's time for the lemons to go in the paint booth and it's not coming out till it gets some custom colors after the break. It's time for prime.

Who let this guy into the muscle car studio. And why is lou so hard at work? Find out after the break.

We're back.

We've saved a few parts of the 67 lemon

that could have ended up in the scrap heap,

fixed a few troubled spots on the body

and sent it into the paint booth.

I stuck around long enough to help Brent mask it up, then cut him loose on the primer.

The next step in this process is wet, sanding.

I'm no body guy, so I want nothing to do with it

and I'm tired of waiting for Brent to get this thing done by himself. So I got him some help remember this guy? It's Rick Bacon.

He's the guy who did the killer flame job on the 63 Impala pro

mod.

He can set just about anything on fire.

What paint that is?

Rick's joining the muscle car crew as of today. What's up, man? Same old, another beautiful day in paradise. How are you doing? I'm peachy, man.

Oh, wonderful. I have been watching the show. You guys are working bread to the bone, dude. That's the way I roll, man. I don't do body work. So someone's got to suffer. Well, that's what I'm here for. I'm gonna come in and give him a hand. Cool.

Not only can Rick lay down some wicked flames. He's got other skills as well. Pinstriping candy apple pearl,

two tone

graphics

and sometimes all of this on the same car.

He's got a creative flair, especially when the project speaks to him.

Now, the foundation for any show quality paint job is all in the prep work. Now, Brent's already done most of it for us, but I'm gonna give my hand with a wet sanding.

I see you later. I'm busy. Hey, Bret, we,

oh, there you are, man.

Going on, dude.

It's another beautiful day, man. So, where are we at on this thing?

We like this. A little wet sanding, a little wet sand. All right. Well, I'm here to give you a hand with it. This thing looks pretty good.

Got a little low spot right? Above the real well over here I've only done two cars in my whole life. Oh, seriously.

Yeah.

No, you

sure he's the new guy.

So, where do you think lou is right now?

Uh, it's probably lollygagging with a magazine.

It seems like we're the only ones working.

Let's take a break.

You gotta ask me twice.

Oh,

we in a hot pursuit,

bre, you know what, you call a bald guy, bald guy with long hair in the back.

A B

man. It's a skull. It

dude,

once the wet sand is done and the residue is cleaned off anything. Not getting painted is masked off.

Brent's laying down a sealer first. It gives an even foundation for the base coat.

Now, finally, after dozens and dozens of hours spent on prep, it's time for painting

auto body color and supply, mix some custom colors just for our lemons.

The Buttrey black goes on the roof first. Now,

since the rest of the car is going to be a different color, the black gets masked off.

This baby is going to be worth its weight in Santiago gold.

This is something the chief would be proud of. This project's on the home stretch. So it's time to take it for a ride on a lift to get the plumbing knocked out.

The fuel tank is coming out of our big pile of parts

and it's a stock replacement. So its bolts right in.

I forgot to order the sending unit, but that's ok. It's on the way

I installed a bulkhead fitting on the bottom of the tank to hook our half inch line to

this way, we don't have to modify the sending unit to accommodate the bigger fuel line. Not to mention

our gauge will still work.

The line is clamped to the frame rail and attached to the fuel pump.

I'm lowering the car and unwrapping the engine so I can get to the car

one last line and it's done

for the brakes. I've mounted a T in the engine compartment to feed the front,

the proportioning valve and master cylinder will go on later

while I finish these front lines, Rick's turning his attention to the remaining body panel. They need the same treatment as the rest of the body and that means more prep work. Once Rick's worked, his magic, Brent gives him a shot of primer,

a few more panels and we'll be scolded.

The brakes in our lemons are almost done. Now, after the break, we're gonna show you another lemons

that came to a screeching stop before it started rolling. Flashback when we come back.

Today's muscle car flashback. A rare 77 Pontiac Canon.

Some of you muscle car fanatics may argue that Pontiac had the first muscle car.

The GTO first hit the streets in 1964

348 horsepower and 389 cubic inches meant that each pony was only pulling about 10 pounds of car.

The legacy continued in 1969 when the judge was born,

it was stylish, had a high displacement engine

and a nice tuned suspension.

Pontiac was definitely on a roll

in 1977. They gave it another shot and rolled out the can am promising it would be the new goat.

Originally, 5000 lemons

were slated to be converted into Can Ams but only about 1300 were ever made due to a broken spoiler mold

complete with a turbo 400 tuned up suspension,

duck tail spoiler

and a shaker hood.

They look as if this rare production will go down in muscle car history.

A set of stripes, rally wheels painted a match blacked out grill and lou recorder windows gave this car a ton of muscle car style and a beer.

The sporty package had a massive 6.6 L motor

a great starting point for any muscle car. But on the K and M, this is where all that muscle came to a grinding halt.

The 400 cubic inches were strangled back by EPA regulations

along with rising insurance and fuel costs to a mere 200 horsepower,

but that's cool with Mike Cunningham

due to the low production number and lack of interest in 70 s cars. There are only about 200 of these still known to exist

and Mike, well, he digs on seventies cars and this one still turns a lot of heads.

Once they see what the car is all about, then

the interest picks up, Mike snagged this car a few years back for under 20 grand

and it was in stellar condition.

This is an all original unrestored Can am

and it is immaculate.

Not to mention it only has 29,000 miles on the clock

compared to performance cars today.

Yeah, this car is pretty much a slug, but you got to remember that in 1977

the Corvette only had 100 and 70 horsepower and even the Camaro Z 28 li only had 100 and 80.

So the 200 horsepower Canon was a beast.

Relatively speaking.

In 1977 it was one of the top dogs out there.

Now, a lot of you hardcore 93 octane burning purists may think that if it doesn't have 400 horsepower, then it's not a real muscle car.

But you gotta keep an open mind to a car like this.

It's stylish rare and has the potential for some serious upgrades.

And with six cars getting harder to find and even harder to afford cars like this are an ideal platform for a resto mod. All they need is a little muscle

stick around. We're back on our lemons right after the break.

Now, back to Lou and Rick the new guy at his first day on the job. Hey, welcome back today. We're working underneath our 67 lemons the fuel tank and the lines are in. And right now we're plumbing, the brakes.

A rigid line runs from each rear caliper to a t fitting,

a piece of flex line allows for movement of the rear suspension.

One more fitting connects it to the front half of the system.

The rear brake line mounts to the frame rail alongside the fuel line.

Once the master cylinder is in, we'll make the final connections. These manifolds from Ram Air restoration are recasting of the legendary Pontiac Ram Air four headers. You can tell just by looking at them they'll flow better in stock,

but because they're bigger, we got some clearance issues. Now, we can't put them in from the bottom because of the scatter shield. So what we're gonna do is raise the motor up just enough to get them in from the top.

Tell me when

we only need to come up a couple inches for these to slide into place.

And here's something you're not gonna see in the stock restoration. It's a gear vendors unit. Now, this not only adds an overdrive, which is gonna give you better gas mileage, but it also allows you to split all the gears which is gonna make shifting that four speed a whole lot more fun.

We're putting it in before the exhaust to make sure there's plenty of room.

The old housing is out of there. So is the Speedo gear?

So why use an under overdrive? Unit. Well, you can split 2nd, 3rd and 4th, turning your four speed into a seven speed with a smaller RPM drop between gears. You'll have less power loss and better gas mileage.

The first piece of the new tail shaft housing slides on and bolts into place.

I'm test fitting the second piece to mark the floor pan.

I expected to have to make some room here, but because this is an after market floor pan,

I ended up having to cut it

some finessing of the shaft and it slides into place

since we're using Big Ram air manifolds. These 2.5 inch down pipes and exhaust are no problem.

This kit from Bangor

flow would bolt right in if it was a standard application, but we're using the gear vendors. So we're no longer standard. The drive shaft needs more room than we've got. So it's time for some modifications and I can make it work.

The X pipe marks the spot

close enough. Anyway,

then the coleslaw slices through these just like butter.

Oh,

check that out. Two cuts, two cuts are better than one

fitting. The pieces of the exhaust can be tricky.

So I've tacked in most of them to make sure it fits.

Now that it's all lined up. I can weld it back to the mufflers

while Lou's been over there getting his exhaust flow. And me and Brent have been in here prepping out the fenders in the hood the wet sand. It's all done and it's ready to get drenched in some more of that Santiago gold. Now, I could hang out over here and watch him paint, but I think I'm gonna cruise over and see how old lou is doing.

Rick great timing. Give me a hand pushing this thing.

We've gotten a lot done on the lemons today, but we still have a long way to go.

We did get it painted and plumb,

but we still need to take care of the wiring the ac interior and the rest of the body needs to find its own.

If all goes, well, this baby will be ready for the road and we'll take you for a ride later.