Punky Manor - Vintage Stock Car - Tribute Build

The Process - Continued

Once again I find myself trying to figure out what should come next on the Punky Manor Tribute Torino build. I know I need to run brake lines through the car and back to the Frankland quick change rear end. But I need to complete a couple of other tasks before I can do that.

Since I installed rear disc brakes on a car that originally had discs brakes on the front and drum brakes on the rear, the stock proportioning valve will no longer work. I decided to install an adjustable brake proportioning valve next to the drivers seat, so I can adjust the rear brakes with my seat belts on.

Before I install the brake lines I need to paint the interior of the car semi-gloss black. If I am going to paint the interior black, I might as well paint the trunk area, the engine area and the bottom of the car.

So, I masked off everything that I didn't want black paint on, including both the car and the garage. I put on my painting suit and dumped on about a gallon of semi-gloss paint.

Here are some pics of that process:

Now that the interior, chassis, and engine bay are all painted black, it's on to the next project. Below is a before image of the engine bay and front suspension. It is pretty easy to see that the front suspension and brakes need a complete rebuild.  

I went ahead and ordered all new front disc brake replacement parts including; rotors, calipers, bearings, dust caps, brake pads, and flexible brake lines. For good measure, I also ordered upper ball joints, tie rods, and new coil springs.

In the 5 years that I have been working on the Torino I never noticed that there wasn't any way to mount front shock on this race car. With the addition of adjustable weight jack components (where the shock mounts originally were), there is no place to mount front shocks. I can only wonder how this car was raced in the past with no front shocks!

There was very little room to actually fit a front shock down to the lower control arm with all the other components and extra wide tires. I ended up having to fabricate both the upper and lower shock mounts. I welded the upper shock mount to the front engine bay roll bars, and bolted the lower mount to the torsion bar mount holes.

Next up, I think I will need to run all the new brake lines. I also have to start figuring out how to get the drivetrain assembled and installed in the race car. Take care for now.