A Slippery Slope

As regular readers of my blog know, my plan for the roadification of the LeMans has been quite fluid. I had thought, many months ago, that having the car back on the road by the beginning of summer was a possibility, but that’s not happening. Then I had thought that I could just whip out the bodywork on a couple of doors abnd shoot them in paint by early spring, but, thanks to constant rain, that’s not happening either. Now, I’ve decided that the interior is going to change color, so that should be dealt with before the exterior. So, where does my current plan stand? Here’s a clue - I just received a new water pump and heater core.

How does “slippery slope” fit into this? Well, for me, it goes like this: Remove the doors, so I should also paint the inside of them. Remove the fenders which required removing the fenderwells, so I should also paint them. The fenderwells look so nice, I should also paint the radiator support. With the radiator support out and the fenderwells off, I should also paint the engine. Before painting the engine, I should replace the leaking water pump.

So, there you go. From a simple shooting of exterior paint to the exterior, interior, and engine bay all re-done. That is the slippery slope.

As of today I’ve got the wheelwells primed and painted - each underside with satin black and each topside (facing the engine bay) with semi-gloss. The radiator support is also primed and painted with semi-gloss. The radiator has been drained and removed. The water pump, alternator, and power steering pump are all off the engine.



Now I need to determine what parts of the engine get Pontiac blue paint applied to them. From photos on the web, I see that the block, harmonic balancer, heads, intake manifold, oil pan, timing cover, water pump, and valley pan are all painted Pontiac blue. The water pump’s pulley wheel, the two alternator top brackets (bent sheetmetal), air cleaner, and the power steering pump are semi-gloss black (60% gloss officially). Finally the two large, cast brackets (A/C compressor and alternator/power steering) are left natural. Now on to the cleaning.