New to the Forum - 72 Pro Touring Chevelle

[Rinkys]

Okay. I have been kicking around doing my thread on my build for some time now, and am finally getting around to it. I have had some pics and another build thread on Google+, but thought I would post it here. The story begins like this. The Chevelle was my sisters car in high school, and she had been driving it since about 1981 or so. She was quite popular – and all popular girls have lots of friends, but many more enemies. One of them decided to key up the original spring green paint (at least we thought it was original – more later) and cut up the original black vinyl top.
That is when the car was changed from spring green to Corvette yellow. She drove it for a few more years and even took it to college. Then she decided to “upgrade” to a 1984 Mustang while in college, and I received the Chevelle around March of 1987, a few months before my 16th birthday. I agreed to pay $1200, but only got to $600 in payments when the engine started knocking. We agreed that $600 was enough. I made what improvements I could (new engine, bucket seats, console, new coat of yellow piant with racing stripes, etc.). When I joined the Air Force after college (1996), I parked the car under my father’s deck and was going to return to get it later in the summer. Well, long story short, and I am sure this sounds familiar – that never happened. New wife (not insinuating it was her fault at all), new job, living in Virginia, moving from California – it was all a little much to handle. That, and I could not afford a house with a garage. A timely PCS (Permanent Change of Station) to California in 2006, and enough cash to rent a house with a 3-car garage, meant that the build was on.
I have built a fairly complete, pro touring style car with modern bolt-on suspension pieces, 4-wheel disks, LS3 engine with T56 transmission, painted PK3 Very Viper Orange Pearl with black stripes. Since all of the above has already happened, I can show the story start to finish here. Because I have LOTS and LOTS of pictures, I have uploaded them to Google+ (link in signature and below post). I heard a few guys on another forum say it is the best build documentary they had ever seen – so I thought I would share. Here is a few pics to start it off….

https://plus.google.com/photos/10705...97347779304417