Anyone that knows me personally, knows my 72 went up for sale. I no longer own the car.
It’s been about 3 months since it sold but I didn’t really have the heart to write about it. Dreams die hard I suppose.
I don’t know what that means for 454monte.com, I guess I will continue to mull it over some and decide what to do with this site. I am still semi involved with the car itself, and might just follow it’s progress just to do it.
Anyhow, thought I’d put that up here, I’ll figure out what to do with this site in time….
Hello my 2-3 readers…LOL. Sorry for not posting much these last few months.
To be honest it’s hard to find stuff to write about right now, and really there’s not a lot of talk about at this juncture… sadly. Although I had hoped that we would be nearing the completion of the Monte at this point, it’s not to be.
Things are more or less stalled at this point, mother nature sent us a curve ball recently and the garage where the Monte is got flooded. Thankfully the car escaped damage as it was up on stands and any parts that were not on the car were high enough to escape the tidal deluge of mud, sand and water that left a mess some 6 inches deep.
The biggest factor right now is the loss of all the equipment this sort of project requires, air compressors are shot, air tools damaged, electric hand tools destroyed, and generally the flood left behind just a huge mess to clean up.
So we’re on hold, I doubt we’ll see much forward progress at this point before early to mid September,and the car won’t be ready now until probably next year. This is not so much from clean up efforts as it is waiting on the insurance company to come forward with the money so the needed equipment that was ruined can be replaced.
One update I do have is the front seats should be nearing completion, the bench seat was removed in favor of a set of OEM buckets that were stripped, sand blasted, powder coated and are being recovered. Hopefully I will have some updated pictures soon.
What else? The 1965 Impala project was scrapped, sadly. I am hoping that the car will find a new home with someone that can devote the time to do it, I just don’t have the time or the money to continue with two projects.
To compound matters this summer, I started a HUGE project to make way for a garage, my own garage, on my land in TN, and the excavation work needed is not cheap, and that is also adding some to the delays we’ve encountered as well. Not to mention as well, that Life’s taken a series of weird twists, turns and switchbacks on me this year, as it tends to do at times, and the project has been sort of on a back burner because of some of these things going on.
So that’s a thumbnail sketch of what is going on with the Monte this past few months, we’ll keep pressing forward into the fall, and hopefully we’ll have some progress before too much longer. The Monte will live….stay tuned.
Some pictures of the ongoing prep work getting the 72 ready to paint.
More sanding and molding trim removal
P-side door removed
Sanding on the rear 1/4 panel
Doors removed for paint
Drivers side, firewall- fender area
A little progress update.
The front core support, Aluimitech Reproductions radiator, Spal Fans are in and the Transmission lines are installed.
Here are some updated pictures.
Transmission Cooler Lines:
Fans
New Radiator Support panel:
Core support radiator and fans :
