RUNNING! ALMOST "DONE"

It's alive!

We got the GT running.  Once it was all together I pulled the choke and it fired right up and ran very smoothly.  This with rebuilt but not-yet-balanced carbs and an engine I rebuilt in 1989 with over 100k miles on it since.  It is also one that sat unused for over 10 years so yes, I'm happy with the job I did almost a quarter century ago :)

That is not to say that there are no problems.

I converted the car from positive to negative ground and converted from generator to a Saturn alternator.  It may or may not be working but the alternator light is glowing brightly.  I'm going to pull the unit out and have the alternator tested then backtrack the wiring I did.  Or I might take it to somebody else and let them worry about it.

The big problem was the rust.  The Previous owner "repaired" them by covering the rusted floors and sills with sheet metal screwed in place.  The more "patches" I pulled off the worse it looked.

Not having the time or money to cut everything out and rebuild it all I did the following:

I cut out as much of the bad metal as I could and then rust-treated the insides of the sills and rockers with rust converter. I then painted up inside and then sprayed undercoating in as best I could.  I then got steel and made new inner sills and floorboards with my metal break and pop riveted it all in place.  I then painted everything and then put down two layers of fiberglass mat and resin.

I then put down a layer of dynamat sound deadener and thermal insulation on the floors, firewall and transmission tunnel.

I painted and undercoated the underside and, hopefully, I've bought another 5+ years of life for the car.

I'm about to start putting the interior back in and hopefully the car will be mobile in the next week or so.

I also welded (very poorly) a metal patch on the rear floorboard where it was badly rotted out right above where the leading mounting point for the rear driver's leaf spring is.  If I hadn't done that, the forward leaf spring mount would break through the floorboard very soon.

God, I'm a shitty welder!  But it worked.