# 1972 GTO Restoration Project



## maxmad72 (9 mo ago)

Hey all, I just recently joined the forum and described how I got this car in El Paso almost 40 years ago as a high school kid. I got it running (and got a pretty bad paint job on a kid's budget) and drove it all through high school and college, took it on a honeymoon to New Mexico, and then parked it for nearly 20 years while I was on active duty in the military. While it was sitting those decades, I did have the body and paint done, and the original numbers- matching motor rebuilt by sending money to a business in El Paso as I could. After retirement, I towed it to San Antonio where I live now, and started taking it apart. Here are some pics at the start of the project:








As I dug through my attic and gathered parts stored for years, it quickly grew into the floor of the garage!









Eventually, i started cleaning it up to take it to a guy who could take the body loose from the frame and after crawling around underneath it, I noticed I was going to have to repair some rust holes in the floor pans.









I also stripped out the entire interior. I took out the cracked, ruined dashboard, console, rear deck, side panels, door panels, seats, steering wheel, carpet.... everything except the headliner which is surprisingly still good. I had the headliner re-done in 1986 at a little upholstery shop on Dyer Street in El Paso. Kudos to their good work that still looks great after almost 40 years! I wish I could remember the name of the shop, or if it is still there!









After stripping everything down to the firewall, I painted the metal lip that the dash attaches to and ran wiring for the dash speakers and installed the OPGI two-speaker bracket that replaces the large single speaker with two smaller ones for a modern stereo. I also stripped the firewall down to the metal and used Eastwood rust converter, rust encapsulator, undercarriage primer, and undercarriage satin black paint, Then I covered everything with Boom Mat sound and heat insulator, installed a new fuse box and ran the wiring to the front and back of the car.









I also did a quick run over the body with an orbital and some mild compound to see how the 20 year old paint looked. Minus nicks and cracking in the endura bumper, it has held up fairly well! 



















I sent the dash off to Just Dashes in Kalifornia, and they did a great job of restoring it. Here it is after reinstalling the instrument panel and some of the accessories:









More to follow!
John


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## michaelfind (Dec 14, 2018)

maxmad72 said:


> Hey all, I just recently joined the forum and described how I got this car in El Paso almost 40 years ago as a high school kid. I got it running (and got a pretty bad paint job on a kid's budget) and drove it all through high school and college, took it on a honeymoon to New Mexico, and then parked it for nearly 20 years while I was on active duty in the military. While it was sitting those decades, I did have the body and paint done, and the original numbers- matching motor rebuilt by sending money to a business in El Paso as I could. After retirement, I towed it to San Antonio where I live now, and started taking it apart. Here are some pics at the start of the project:
> View attachment 153268
> 
> As I dug through my attic and gathered parts stored for years, it quickly grew into the floor of the garage!
> ...


This looks great! Thank for the pictures and details.


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## maxmad72 (9 mo ago)

michaelfind said:


> This looks great! Thank for the pictures and details.


thanks!


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## 11th Indian (Feb 15, 2018)

Looking great! Good luck with the project!!! Fellow








72 owner....


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## maxmad72 (9 mo ago)

11th Indian said:


> Looking great! Good luck with the project!!! Fellow
> View attachment 153283
> 
> 72 owner....


That is SWEET!!!! Wow, I hope it looks as good as yours!


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## 11th Indian (Feb 15, 2018)

maxmad72 said:


> That is SWEET!!!! Wow, I hope it looks as good as yours!


Looks you have it under control, if you need any pictures or anything let me know...... Been 
there too!


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## Jared (Apr 19, 2013)

Really nice work so far. The 71 and 72 cars are way under represented on here and yours looks great!

Quick question on the dash. How long did they have it for the refurbish? Was it pricey? My car was originally green and whoever redid the interior used one of those dash covers to switch color. After years, it looks pretty poor.


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## RMTZ67 (Mar 12, 2011)

maxmad72 said:


> Hey all, I just recently joined the forum and described how I got this car in El Paso almost 40 years ago as a high school kid. I got it running (and got a pretty bad paint job on a kid's budget) and drove it all through high school and college, took it on a honeymoon to New Mexico, and then parked it for nearly 20 years while I was on active duty in the military. While it was sitting those decades, I did have the body and paint done, and the original numbers- matching motor rebuilt by sending money to a business in El Paso as I could. After retirement, I towed it to San Antonio where I live now, and started taking it apart. Here are some pics at the start of the project:
> View attachment 153268
> 
> As I dug through my attic and gathered parts stored for years, it quickly grew into the floor of the garage!
> ...


I also like the transformation on the one next to it.  Great job.


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## Wirepickler (Jul 3, 2020)

Looking good, been there myself. Hope everything goes smoothly.


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## maxmad72 (9 mo ago)

11th Indian said:


> Looks you have it under control, if you need any pictures or anything let me know...... Been
> there too!
> View attachment 153295
> View attachment 153296


Wow that looks great! I like where you put those extra guages!


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## maxmad72 (9 mo ago)

Jared said:


> Really nice work so far. The 71 and 72 cars are way under represented on here and yours looks great!
> 
> Quick question on the dash. How long did they have it for the refurbish? Was it pricey? My car was originally green and whoever redid the interior used one of those dash covers to switch color. After years, it looks pretty poor.


Thanks much! It was quite awhile....I am going to say 6 months or so....but of course this was right at the beginning of COVID. Incidentally, if you have more than one dash, make sure you hang on to it....I have a chevelle also, and when I was ready to get that dash done, the company said not to bother sending it in because the core is cheap and it would be more than the core is worth to send it in. BUT on the 72 dash, they said if you don't send us a core, we will charge you $1500 just for the core, and that is if we can get one here! So of course I sent in my core....it was pricey...I want to say $1800 when I got it back...and that was 2019-2020ish...so no doubt prices have gone up.


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## maxmad72 (9 mo ago)

Wirepickler said:


> Looking good, been there myself. Hope everything goes smoothly.
> 
> View attachment 153315
> View attachment 153316


GREAT PICS! Looking good!


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## maxmad72 (9 mo ago)

So here was the next step in the process. I got it cleaned up and ready to roll so I could get it to a welder/body man to fix things like small holes in floor pans, large hole in cowl behind the fender, unsealed fender lip created when the last body shop welded a new rear fender on but did not seal the body gap between old fender and new, and many other small items.
















Next up will be the body off the frame and more tear down!


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## maxmad72 (9 mo ago)

Ok here is body off frame and further disassembly








It wasn't until I got it this far apart that I realized how bad some of the body work was...if you look at this next picture, you can see where a rust hole on the inner cowl (lower part of drivers side behind fender cowl) was patched literally with what looked like a piece of plastic..it was too light to be bondo....








Also you can see where the area on the inside of driver side fender right below the air vent was not properly treated and was beginning to rust.








From this vantage point, you can see another angle on that patched hole in d side cowl. Also, at this point, I could not tell how bad the radiator support was...in later pictures, I show you a close-up. When I saw the prices of used (fair condition) radiator supports for 72's, I just took mine to a body man and had him fix it...I will show you those Pics later as well..

More to follow!


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## Jared (Apr 19, 2013)

maxmad72 said:


> Thanks much! It was quite awhile....I am going to say 6 months or so....but of course this was right at the beginning of COVID. Incidentally, if you have more than one dash, make sure you hang on to it....I have a chevelle also, and when I was ready to get that dash done, the company said not to bother sending it in because the core is cheap and it would be more than the core is worth to send it in. BUT on the 72 dash, they said if you don't send us a core, we will charge you $1500 just for the core, and that is if we can get one here! So of course I sent in my core....it was pricey...I want to say $1800 when I got it back...and that was 2019-2020ish...so no doubt prices have gone up.


Good info. May be I'll look around for a core to send to them. I just got mine back on the road and thinking about a 6 month lead time on the dash makes me a little gun shy right now. The dash is the last thing on my car I haven't touched at this point.


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## michaelfind (Dec 14, 2018)

Thank you for great pictures again.

I do notice that little chevy sneaks into some of the pictures. Reminds me of Herbie, the "love bug" and how he never wanted to be left out of things.


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## maxmad72 (9 mo ago)

michaelfind said:


> Thank you for great pictures again.
> 
> I do notice that little chevy sneaks into some of the pictures. Reminds me of Herbie, the "love bug" and how he never wanted to be left out of things.


Hahahaha You are correct...those chevy's are ALWAYS photo bombers!


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## maxmad72 (9 mo ago)

Here are some close-ups of the dash work I did. I polished the lenses (eventually had to get one new one as it was really dull), sifted through and returned multiple dash light circuit boards until i found one that had both speedo and rally gauge pack, replaced all the bulbs, cleaned up some of the chipped areas, etc.








Finally found a lower dash piece with the radio area intact, and not butchered like the one I had and so many others I have seen when people wanted to install the newer, detachable face radios etc. I ordered a two post stock style radio, but it has all the modern bells and whistles, blue tooth etc. 

That silver marker to the side is exactly that, and I used it to re-touch all the silver edging around the panels where it chips away and exposes the black.




















Here's a close up of engine compartment after removing the front clip...I went ahead and removed all the A/C stuff, because I decided to go with Vintage Air....what sold me is that their factory is here in San Antonio, and the last time I was there, they were fitting a 1972 GTYO with a prototype kit and I really like it!


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## Jared (Apr 19, 2013)

Looks great. You're really making me want to send my dash out. I just hate the idea of shipping the core with how hard it would be to come by another should it get lost. 

Don't apologize for the Chevy. They catch a lot of slack on here but I personally love those cars. My dad had a base model 69 when I was a kid. I got rid of a third gen when I bought my LeMans. If the prices were more in line with how many of them seem to be left, I'd possibly have one sitting in my garage too.


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## Wirepickler (Jul 3, 2020)

my advice, i would get the gauges, speedometer and tach restored before you put that dash back in. take it from a guy that had the dash in and out way too many times, just sayin. only pic i have. Peter is the man and well known. 
Precision Pontiac


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## maxmad72 (9 mo ago)

Jared said:


> Looks great. You're really making me want to send my dash out. I just hate the idea of shipping the core with how hard it would be to come by another should it get lost.
> 
> Don't apologize for the Chevy. They catch a lot of slack on here but I personally love those cars. My dad had a base model 69 when I was a kid. I got rid of a third gen when I bought my LeMans. If the prices were more in line with how many of them seem to be left, I'd possibly have one sitting in my garage too.


Hi Jared, yes, I agree...I always wanted a Chevelle, and just managed to grab one in 07 before the prices went insane...I am finished with it now, which is why I am now able to turn my full attention to the Goat. Don't worry about sending out dash...Just Dashes really does seem like a great company and I would bet (I did not think of it at the time), that you could probably insure it.


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## maxmad72 (9 mo ago)

Wirepickler said:


> my advice, i would get the gauges, speedometer and tach restored before you put that dash back in. take it from a guy that had the dash in and out way too many times, just sayin. only pic i have. Peter is the man and well known.
> Precision Pontiac
> 
> View attachment 153621


Oh Wow!!!! Well, I already installed it (those pictures are coming) but now I have the information from you(thanks!) on where to send them should they go bad on me!


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## maxmad72 (9 mo ago)

maxmad72 said:


> Oh Wow!!!! Well, I already installed it (those pictures are coming) but now I have the information from you(thanks!) on where to send them should they go bad on me!


That really looks great!!!


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## Wirepickler (Jul 3, 2020)

maxmad72 said:


> Oh Wow!!!! Well, I already installed it (those pictures are coming) but now I have the information from you(thanks!) on where to send them should they go bad on me!


All you can say about the gauges after 50 years if they go bad is , thanks for lasting this long.


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## maxmad72 (9 mo ago)

So here are some close ups of the exhaust manifolds...

























I wanted to go with Ram Air Manifolds (never ever headers again!) but after talking to the folks at Ram Air Restorations, they actually talked me out of it....they said that with having to adapt the ram air manifolds to the non ram air heads (a sealing problem), for the same bang, and less bucks, just ceramic-coat the stock manifolds...you will get better flow, and no sealing problems....so that is exactly what I did!
More to follow....


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## maxmad72 (9 mo ago)

Wirepickler said:


> All you can say about the gauges after 50 years if they go bad is , thanks for lasting this long.


Isn't that the truth!!!


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## maxmad72 (9 mo ago)

Here is a picture of the work I started on the frame. I basically stripped it all the way down to the frame








I did the same with the A arms and all of the other suspension parts I removed


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## maxmad72 (9 mo ago)

More work on upper and lower A arms



























I have pretty much followed the same process for all undercarriage parts, including removable pieces, frame, floor pans, etc.: I first use hand tools to get the biggest scale, rust, and old paint off. Then I use a drill with a paint remover tool, then I go to a wire brush wheel for the really stubborn stuff until I have it to bare metal 
. I am sure there are probably less labor-intensive ways to do it, but it is the old-school way I know best...plus I am not a fan of chemical strippers.
When I am done with that, I use Eastwood rust converter, wait a couple of days, then coat with rust encapsulator, then Eastwood's chasis primer, and finally coat with a top coat of either gloss for parts and frame, or semi-gloss for floor pans and side walls.


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## maxmad72 (9 mo ago)

Meanwhile, i finally got down to bare metal on the inside of the floor panels and found these lovely little rust holes...mostly on the rear passenger side floor, but a few scattered in the other floor pans...but none bad enough to have to cut out the original floor pans.










As I am a LOUSY welder (even took classes on it) I contracted with a guy to come over and weld up the holes.


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## michaelfind (Dec 14, 2018)

It looks like the moisture almost made it to the drain as they had designed it, but stopped just short of the exit. Was there a rubber plug in the big cast hole or was it open?


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## 67ventwindow (Mar 3, 2020)

maxmad72 said:


> Meanwhile, i finally got down to bare metal on the inside of the floor panels and found these lovely little rust holes...mostly on the rear passenger side floor, but a few scattered in the other floor pans...but none bad enough to have to cut out the original floor pans.
> 
> View attachment 154159
> 
> ...


Don't feel bad rust stinks to try to weld. I remember going out with my Dad on jobs for farmers. Welding the scrapes they used to cleaning the floor outside the milking barn. Nothing like welding rust with the added benefit of burning manure.


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