Rich's Rebel Project


 

On Saturday, June 11th, 4 members showed up to help Member Rich Stillinger with his Rebel - Rory, Regan, Keith, and Jared. (Patrick who was still doing exams arrived around 5pm.)

 

It was pretty much raining when I arrived just after 11 am.

Rich had a fully stocked fridge full of pop, juice, and even beer. We were told to help ourselves.

Rory was working on the brakes and Jared assisted. Pretty much everything under the drums were re-done. Shoes, springs, cylinders, etc.

 

Regan, Rich and Keith were working on getting the block done. They had a hole tapped for engine oil to reach the rear bearing. They also made several other mods to the engine to help it to have a longer life.

Here's a shot of Regan and Rich discussing the modern modified specs on how to get the most horsepower out of your 401 (Actually, Regan spent about as much time teasing 'Uncle Rich' as he did assembling that motor)

 

Pic of the new 401 engine that Rich is building and going to be putting in his Rebel SST.

This is gonna be repainted, completed, and installed.

 

 

Rich and Keith looking over the engine bay, as Regan continues to work on the engine.

Later, Keith and Regan went for parts at Steve's store for a parts run as well as getting a better fitting for the mod to better feed the rear bearing.

 

With Rich, Rory and Jared still in the shop, we went to work on re-inforcing the stablizers.

Rich worked and cut the pieces that would be later welded to the open sides, and all three of us welded them on.

 

A pic of some pretty decent beads ran along the seam. The welding went really well.

 

View of the engine bay. It's very clean and pretty much rust free...

 

View of the dash. it's in really good shape, and will make a really nice Daily Driver soon.

 

Back seats are in really great shape. It's amazing that this car is as old as it is, yet looks only a few years old.

 

This is how much we got the engine completed.

Intake manifold, valve covers, cover for timing chain, sump, water pump, carb, main pulley, and oil pan.

Rich pretty much wants to paint it, so we stopped there.

 

There was a lot of joking, teasing, teaching, and really good camaraderie.

For supper we were served Chilli, Hotdogs (chilli dogs!), salad, and bread. The Stillinger's hospitality was really great and supper was fantastic.

All who couldn't come really missed out.

 

Rich's Rebel Project Part 2

 

Our second gathering on July 17th was yet another good turnout. Keith, Rory, Regan, Pat, Larry and Jared joined forces at Rich's place, and helped to work on Rich's Rebel.

Rory demostrated his expert work on fixing the soldering points on the Rad.

Almost looks factory, huh?

 

Then Jared went to work cleaning it up.

 

Here's Keith working on cleaning up various parts such as motor mounts and tranny mount.

Keith was smart enough to wear gloves - You can tell he's a seasoned parts cleaner, because Keith is wearing his PPE's, but Jared was too green and choose to forgo the gloves and spend several days trying to scrub the paint off his hands.

Or just hope his skin would grow out enough so it wasn't so obvious.

 

Meanwhile, Rory went to work putting the finishing touches on the rear end and getting it completely on.

Actually, I have no idea who that is - And I'm hoping it really is Rory, and not some stray shot I did of some thief trying to steal Rich's rear end (That sounds worse then it really is)

You can see that Rich had done quite a bit of painting. He did the the rear end, and those stablizers we welded.

 

 

Picture of Regan and Pat getting the motor ready to install. We also got the tranny on, and flywheel all bolted up.

Again, we can tell who is the seasoned mechanic, and who isn't. (note the gloves)

I was impressed on how much effort Regan spent on getting the engine ready, but after several comments of, "Ya gotta drive it, like ya stole it" I realized why...

 

 

With the engine more complete, and on the 'Cherry Picker' the next step was to mate the tranny with the motor.

Here we see Pat and Larry listening to Regan and/or Rory on the finite details about proper insertion of an engine.

I think at about this point, Pat in suffering from 'Information Overload', according to that blank stare, but Larry looks strong, still ready to debate on... (did you notice that rhymed?)

 

Jared decided Rich should have a breather that looks new. So he spend much time sanding, cleaning, and painting (with several coats) of rich satin black.

It turned out looking pretty good but too bad Jared was unaware that the paint supply was at a minimum.

 

Jared did manage to 'squeeze' the last drops outta the 'spray bombs', and actually get the rad painted.

That rad almost looks new, huh?

 

 

Here we see the group looking more like a crew from D.O.T. then a local car club. All we really need is to see to complete this shot is one guy's head at about ground level shoveling dirt at the others.

It's Larry working on the engine and everybody just looking at Larry working on the engine.

They're getting ready to put the tranny on the engine.

 

Here's a great shot of everyone giving a moment of silence in prayer - In hopes that we didn't totally mess it up - Or that the chain would continue to hold, and not drop the bloody thing on the concrete 4 feet below.

 

 

Success!

We got it in with only a minor scratch (gouge??) in the firewall paint. Guess that prayer didn't work...

 

We all drank a ton of pop, called each other various names, and played 'hide and seek' with someone's smokes.

For lunch, we did the BBQ, and pig'd out.

As I said before, All who couldn't come really missed out.

 

 

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