The Return of Roxanne

Couples therapy between myself and Roxanne, a long neglected 1971 Pontiac GTO. It all started in the summer of 2003 we first fell in love. After a few years I traded my car keys for a passport and left her in back in California. Finally after almost...

[frenchgoat]

Dec. 29th 2016: Off to a GREAT start! (╬ Ò ‸ Ó) Not even 15 miles into my 3500 mile journey this happens. Honestly it could have been much worse, a well meaning driver of a Subaru pulls up along side me and is honking hysterically to get my attention right before I am about to get on the freeway.

Originally I thought he wanted to shout at me for going so slow along the winding canyon road which I noticed he was behind me.

“Hey buddy! Your tyre on your Chevelle is almost flat!”

I pulled into a gas station and noticed an auto parts store across the street. Got some of that slime stuff, thinking I could just air up and get to a proper tyre shop to have the tyre replaced. As I was letting the air out of the tyre the valve stem literally falls into my hand and the whole tyre goes flat. Crap I am thinking. Luckily for me I meet a tech at a RV repair shop that was more then happy to help me out and more importantly had the tools for the job.

Our collective luck got better as I slowly inched the car from the gas station into the repair shop driveway, the tyre separated from the wheel in such a way that no removing of the tyre would be necessary.

I had the tech check all the tyres while I was at the shop, truck trailer and GTO and parted ways with a Jackson and only 50 minutes later I was back on the road! 

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Jan. 23rd, 2016: My brothers birthday started off with an impressive snow blizzard. Roxanne managed to get in on the fun as well.

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Jan. 22nd, 2016: I’ve been finding myself frequently wandering into the basement to chip away at the housing for 10-15 minutes at a time. Just brushing on a small dab of paint thinner, then some elbow grease with a 3M pad or a steel brush. It’s coming out quite well. Now as soon as it stops snowing I’ll be able to dig the transmission out the snow on the porch and get going with the main body.

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Jan. 21st, 2016: Snapped a quick shot of the housing before calling it a night and starting clean up.

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Jan. 21st, 2016: Ahead of winter blizzard Jonas, I managed to get everything I needed to at least start the transmission restoration. FINALLY after years of that terrible puke yellow paint staring me in the face I’ll be able to strip it away once and for all.

Once upon a time I managed to get my hands on a 1972 Pontiac Luxury Lemans project and used air plane paint remover extensively, luckily I learned a lot since then - what I mean by that is... notice there is no aerosol applicator in the picture. Furthermore there was a nice quite before the storm, no wind, no rain, nothing, in fact the weather was quite pleasant save for the temperature. Nothing a few layers wouldn’t take care of.

Before I knew it I was starting to lose light. I managed three layers in between scrapings. The garden hose had frozen from the previous weeks of cold weather so I used a solvent and wiped down the transmission before letting her air out on the porch. By the end of the night I had the housing in the basement and the transmission nicely wrapped up in a tarp on the porch.

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Jan. 20th, 2016: Success. After being taken away from this project by, well life, I managed to sneak away and give it another try for an hour. After some close inspection of before photos and some tinkering, I realized I made a bone head move and assembled a few of the innards in the opposite direction. Once the correction was made the shifter came together with ease. I also wanted to note that I used Lucas’ Red ‘n’ Tacky Grease when rebuilding. A baggie was marked for the installation hardware and the shifter placed along with it... onward to the transmission it self now.

[frenchgoat]

Jan. 15th, 2016: This marks the first day in actual work towards the restoration being done. Removed the shifter, dissembled, cleaned and greased. All in all everything looked in pretty good shape save for some marks left by a locking washing under one of the mounting bolts. I suspect it might not be part of the original hardware kit. Don’t ask me how but I sliced my thumb pretty bad while I was trying to put the shifter back together and decided that was a good save point.

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My weekend is ready for me… why is this week taking so long! #muncie #transmission #rebuild #musclecarrestoration #classicarrestoration #roxannereturns

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Jan. 7th, 2016: With the harsher elements of winter fast approaching and the lack of space for the time being, much of the project will be tucked away.

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Jan 2, 2016: At last arriving back home in Virginia, the process of unloading, organizing and cleaning had to begin. 

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Dec. 28 2016: Picking her up in California. Thanks to my dear old dad for storing her the last few years and helping to load her up. Thanks to our dear old friend Mr. Miyagi (the tractor) for saving our backs and of course a huge Thanks to my little brother for loaning the truck - the poor ML would have struggled.

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Jan 8th, 2016: This is what she looked like back in 2003. Proud, loud, sexy and shiny. It would seem I lacked the foresight to bother taking any pictures of the interior. As I remember it was fairly decent. Previous owner had done a quick refresher (new carpet, restored center console, seats etc.)