2 potential LS swaps

[woody90gtz]

I did my underbody, trunk and engine bay in Raptor Liner. Good stuff. Keep plugging away, slow progress is better than no progress (like my car lately) Yikes

[Godlike]

Agreed, Raptor is a nice hard coating. The spray gun setup is awkward but it got it done. I can't get it to chip off my test piece by smoking it with a hammer.
Ya, Im already at the point where I just want my car back on the road and I have a mound of other projects in the way now

[snowblindburd]

We love the Bonneville. Any progress since April? I wanna drive that thing again!

[Godlike]

Ok, you asked for it...  Are you ready?  
Your not ready
Well tree planting ate up over a month of my time this spring.  The larger size Norway Spruce i ordered was a no go (bad crop) so they sent me 360 of the size 1 (8" trees) instead of 120 of the size 3 (18" trees).  I had also ordered 100 White pine plugs and 50 Quaking Aspen.  And before they showed up we were getting drowned in rain so the farmer that formerly rented our field couldn't get into it till the last minute.  But he was able to disk all the high ground he could get to so I could spread field grass seed before trees came.  Too much stress, followed by an ass kicking week of planting with my dad.  But its done and the Norways are lovin life with 6" of new growth on them so far! 

Original 4 acre plot White pine, Tamarack, Norway spruce, Scotch pine, Red pine, and Dawn Redwood
We planted 380 White Pine in 2018
Untitled by GodlikeMotorsports, on Flickr

New plot spring 8 acres
Untitled by GodlikeMotorsports, on Flickr

[Godlike]

Untitled by GodlikeMotorsports, on Flickr
In other news...
I started working on interior wiring last winter. I pulled the rear speaker wires back to the front and rerouted them to the drivers side wireway. all of the noisy high power stuff is on the passenger side now. Rear speaker wires will be accompanied by Aux speaker wires I am adding to each door. Ill mount an amp in the trunk someday to drive them.
Im also running trigger wires to the trunk to turn on the amp I don't have, fire an Nos trunk latch solenoid I bought on ebay, and to pull in a fuel pump relay, or two . I installed a tilt switch to wire in some trunk lights eventually.
Untitled by GodlikeMotorsports, on Flickr

My steering column had loose bolts "as they do"  So I ordered a couple pullers and rebuilt it.  It also had a broken turn signal cancel spring and needed a new stalk.  My stalk was an oddball.  Chrome with cruise and non intermittent wipers.  It is the most expensive version. So I ordered one with intermittent wipers for a 3rd of the price from Original Parts Group along with a pair of Buick GNX fender vents.

[Godlike]

Cleaned up my HVAC control.  The fan switch lever was broke off which is pretty standard. Painted the backing plate.  I used a Summit sticker for the blend indicator. Buffed the lens and added chrome tape to the base plate at the light surround.
Untitled by GodlikeMotorsports, on Flickr

 Tail lights
It took 3 Bonnevilles to build this...
I can usually find around 5 right side tail lights on Ebay but a mint left side tail is a unicorn.  Why that is Ill never know.  I bought a pair of tails recently just for the mint left lens.  Buffed it and the chrome trim I got from another car years ago.  Then cleaned up the original housing off my 86 and repainted the silver bezel.
Untitled by GodlikeMotorsports, on Flickr 

[Godlike]

I installed power vents in the rear doors replacing the original manual ones. I bought them about 11 years ago. Got them tinted and started building a full power window harness.

Ive been messing with gauge wiring.  For a few years now Ive been running a New Vintage Usa Grand Prix gauge set. I ordered a custom boost/vac gauge from them in the same Eurosport font to replace the volt gauge. I had to cut and mod the left side Hvac duct to get the wiring to fit behind them. While I was in there I replaced the dash speakers with some JBLs. I have lots of warning lights built into the gauges.  Along with a regular CEL I want to setup a warning light for high temp conditions monitoring coolant, trans and oil.  And a separate light for low pressure conditions of oil, fuel and maybe trans line pressure.  Old photo from when it was sbc powered VV I had them temporarily wired in using nothing but Wago lever nuts
Nvu by GodlikeMotorsports, on Flickr

[Rettax3]

Fantastic work on the car. I love how you used the Summit sticker, ingenious!
Sometimes I feel like some of us focus so intently on the infrastructure, that we rarely make progress towards completion on our projects, but man, when the project is finally finished, it sure comes out right. Maybe that is part of what makes a craftsman different from anyone else that works on cars?

We don't have fields like you do, but we try to plant at least one or two trees a year. We've had a tradition for the last (wow, umm, let's just say many years, ) of buying living trees for the Holiday, and planting them on the property. Unfortunately, I don't have much of a green thumb, and we have lost a few of them over the years. Nice that you are putting so many back in -I forget, are your trees 'working' stock, or are you re-foresting?

[woody90gtz]

Haha that Summit sticker is great. Details can chew up so much time, but it's really satisfying when completed. And there's something about wiring that's like meditative. Looking good! I really gotta get back on my hot rod. My house garage is storing so much crap that's not mine right now. Drives me crazy

[Godlike]

We've had a tradition for the last (wow, umm, let's just say many years, ) of buying living trees for the Holiday, and planting them on the property. Unfortunately, I don't have much of a green thumb, and we have lost a few of them over the years. Nice that you are putting so many back in -I forget, are your trees 'working' stock, or are you re-foresting?

Ive been pretty successful planting evergreens but it can be a struggle. For a few years I had to spray my scotch pines to kill these tent worm looking things every spring. They never came back this year though. My new enemy is the white pine weevil. Ive seen them kill up to 8' tall trees so far. I will loose around 15 trees this year. Ive planted over 400 but still, pisses me off.
But planting trees or anything really is so rewarding. I got the bug from my dad. He planted spruce and white pine in his yard when I was little. He's got a picture of me watering foot tall pines wearing nothing but a diaper. Those trees are 70' giants now. I hope when I'm 90 "and probably back in a diaper" ill still be planting every chance I get.
My ultimate goal is for our house to disappear into the woods some day. And Im trying to sort of recreate all of my favorite places in Wisconsin.
-White pine, Red pine and Jack pine from the Hayward area and all over the north woods.
-balsam and aspen from Minocqua
-Tamarack from the chequamegon national forest
-and eventually Northern white cedar from Door County