Fixing up a '71 Grand Safari

Thanks! I'm very glad to have that project finished.

 

Today was the first day of mowing for the year, time to get rid of the girls' old beds now that the bunk beds are done and also time to tackle the long awaited fuel gauge problem. I took the car to Matt (the tuner) late last night and he met me in a parking lot where he reset the fan settings now that I have changed the thermostat. We set the low speed fans to come on at 206 and go off at 200 and the high speed fans to come on at 215 and off at 207. This is basically 20 degrees cooler than stock for both the high and the low. He had tuned five cars that day and showed up in a late 70's Cutlass with an LS swap which had something around 550 horsepower. I held the laptop while he datalogged. I hadn't ridden in a G Body in a very long time and I'd forgotten how much smaller they are on the inside than The Caprice. After leaving Matt I had dropped The Caprice off at the tire shop because I had a bad tire out of balance that came in around 70 mph. They trued the tires and I picked it up around 10:30 on Saturday and brought it back to start on the fuel gauge issue.



I first tested the Dakota Digital box to see if maybe when I crimped the wire in the box I missed and made contact on the insulation instead of the wire. That wasn't the case. The next connection in the system is where I ran the sender wire from the fuel pump harness over to the engine harness, and I covered that connection in black tape so I skipped it and went to the back to check the ohms. Zero. Typically when a gas gauge reads empty it means there is zero resistance in the wire, which means zero Ohms, which means there's usually a short somewhere. I went to the next connection back, and still nothing. I also noticed that not only did the sender wire read zero Ohms, it also had continuity with the frame, which meant it was grounding somewhere. After checking all of the connections the only thing left was to check the tank connection. I tried to do this by lowering the tank slightly in the front with a floor jack and block of wood, but there just wasn't enough room. I eventually had to drop the gas tank, which meant I had to remove that filler neck mount that I had just finally finished and got mounted last weekend. The tank was really heavy because it is a 20 gallon tank and I had just filled up before leaving work on Friday; not the optimal time to be messing with the gas tank.





The whole issue with the wiring was very frustrating because I had purchased a Racetronix fuel pump and harness for the fuel pump and sender. I think I gave an overview of this earlier in the build, but they have the very frustrating policy of providing no instructions with their kit, which requires extensive modifications, and instead require you to join their private web forum to get instructions, which consists of a .pdf article that some guy had written. Also, if you ever express concern of lack of satisfaction for their product or lack of response on the forum, they ban you from the forum. On top of this, at the time I bought my kit they had made changes to their kit but this is not mentioned in the articles and the forum tech seemed completely unaware. I had to stop my work and read through all of the write ups and blog posts I had written on the topic to remember how and why I had to make the changes the way I did. Also, their "tech" person on the forum had given incorrect answers, but fortunately a member of an Impala forum helped me greatly in figuring it all out the first time around. After basically relearning this all over again I finally determined that when I had to re-pin the Racetronix bulkhead harness I had accidentally mixed up the locations of the ground and sender wire. I guess that would explain why the sending unit had a ground problem. The picture below shows a pen pointing to the harness in question and my elaborate drawing.





The original problem was made more confusing by the fact that the top side of the connector consists of 4 connectors in a row, while the bottom connectors are arranged in a square.





I swapped the ground wire and the small blue wire, which is for the sender. I still don't understand why the kit has redundant wires powering the pump. The thick blue and red wire both splice together in the connector at the bottom of the picture below. Until this point, I had forgotten how much modification this kit needed and how the customer is basically left to figure it out. The top of the fuel hanger must be drilled and a screw glued in the hole and the sending unit must have the rivets drilled out so new wires can be soldered on and some wires have to be replaced or cut because the kit has incorrect fittings. Also, a few wires have to be routed to new locations.







After all of this I made sure I won't forget a very stupid lesson. On all of the cars I typically work on (pre fuel injection) if you want to test a fuel gauge you can just turn the key on. On a fuel injected car, if you don't hook the fuel lines up, but you do hook the power wires up and turn the key on, gasoline shoots out of the top of the gas tank. I turned the key on and thought, "What's that splashing sound?," and then it hit me.



After all of this I modified the Dakota button that I mounted in my ashtray so the ashtray would slide in and out correctly and I also had to modify the button so I could remove it from the mount and turn it over so that the button on top would control the features on the top of the dash and the button on the bottom would control the features on the bottom.



While I was under the car I noticed the pinion seal had been leaking slightly, so I'll need to replace that in the near future. This has almost concluded the original goal of making the car a daily driver. Now that the gas gauge works I'll make the 4 hour trek to the bodyshop that is going to repair the rust under the old vinyl top.

 

It's always something...

 

Hahaha, ain't it the truth!

 

I put four new halogen headlights in and then it was finally time to tackle a project I've been anticipating for months now, the air foils to prevent air from flowing around the condenser and radiator. I had anticipated that this project would be very difficult and had been really dreading it. The car has been running steady between 200 and 206 degrees, but it's never been over 70 degrees outside. It's very possible that it wouldn't need the air deflectors, but the summers here can get very hot and the humidity is almost always very high at that time. I suspect the air conditioner will need all the help it can get on those dog days of summer. I've never really cared for the original design of the grill on the '78 Caprices. Maybe one day I'll make a new design that looks like it could have been OEM.




This was the gap on the driver side. Because of the angle of the picture the gap is a bit larger than it appears in the picture. Also, the mounting surfaces here will be perpendicular, requiring a right angle in the air foil.





I had anticipated the passenger side was going to be much more difficult because of the air conditioning lines and mounting surfaces, but after some test fitting I found that this side was the easiest, only requiring a single, flat piece of steel with no bends.


I started on the passenger side with some cardboard.


I made the bends, measurements and cuts.


I got this quarter panel to a new Suburban several months ago from the scrap bin at a local body shop. I picked it up specifically for this project and I'll be glad to finally get this thing out of my driveway. I transferred the cardboard to the sheet metal. I was really surprised how thin the metal is on newer vehicles.


I made the necessary bends and cuts to the metal. Watching some videos online have helped me with some techniques to get better at getting the shapes I need.


After a lot of test fitting on again and off again I finally got it to fit into place.


It was at this point I realized I had tackled the piece completely wrong and after some thought realized to do it right I needed to scrap this piece and start completely over. I had quite a bit of time in this piece up to this point and it was a hard pill to swallow to toss it in the scrap metal pile. Unfortunately, sometimes you just don't have your head in the right place and you do stupid things that don't make sense.


Fortunately, the new piece, when made correctly, was much less complex than the first piece so it was easier to make. I fit it into place and then marked and drilled the holes two at a time. The original setup had a smaller, less effective air foil that mounted in the same location so I reused two of those screws and screw holes.


After creating a cardboard template for the passenger side I followed the same steps to make that piece also, minus the wasting half the day making it the wrong way.


I used an old inner tube from a dump truck tire to make rubber backings for the parts of the foils that would mount to the aluminum condenser.


After the paint dried on the pieces I glued the rubber strips on.


There was very little space on the backside of the core support and getting these pieces mounted was a frustrating effort of dropping screws and then finding them. They were stainless steel so a magnet woudn't pick them up.


Here is a shot of the passenger side. They both turned out better than I thought they would, blocking off more of the areas than I had thought they would. As it turned out both sides were much less complex than I had thought, also.


Almost the entire area on both sides is now blocked, causing the air to be forced through the condenser and radiator. Below is a picture of the backside on the passenger side.

 

Waiting to hear from you on the test drive.

 

Looks good. One step closer to completion and then you can get back to the Grand Safari.

 

I have found that when you work in a tightly confined office setting and have two small children, if everyone gets sick, you might as well get ready. Some sort of sickness went around and people at work got it, then my wife got it, then both my children, who have a propensity for coughing directly in your face, got it. I held out pretty well for a while, but finally it got me.



I had planned on putting an aftermarket radio in April's '97 Lumina so she could hook up an MP3 player. I really don't like the look of aftermarket radios and after looking into it a bit I found that you can modify older radios to add an auxiliary input for an MP3 player. April and the kids were out of town for a week so I used the time to tackle the project. There are several different ways to go about doing this depending on which version of the AC Delco unit you have and how you want it to function. My cousin who had given us the car used to drink coffee and Coca Cola a lot and the buttons were always getting stuck because the cup holder is right against the radio in these cars so while I had everything apart I cleaned it all with soap and water.





The front lights were also burned out on the radio so I ordered new LEDs. I ordered red ones because I've always liked the look of the red and orange gauge and dash lights. The old bulbs had to be de-soldered from the circuit board and the new LEDs had to soldered in their place. The new LEDs had internal resistors so they had to be oriented in the correct negative/positive direction, which meant following the directions was key.





I decided to go with a five pin aux jack, which automatically interrupts the signal and activates the jack when the aux plug is plugged in.





I installed the jack on the back of the radio, visible below in the upper right hand corner of the radio. I ran an aux extension cable out of the back and up through the middle console/armrest. My hope was that when the Ipod was unplugged from the extension cable it would kill the signal, acting as though the aux jack was unplugged. This ended up not being the case and as it is now only the CD player and Aux work with no radio function because the aux jack is always activated due to the fact the extension is always plugged in the back. I'm going to relocate the aux jack to the front of the radio so that the cable can be unplugged when someone would want to have the radio on. Also, whatever varsity GM engineer that designed the dash bezel on the Luminas needs to be found and shot. I ended up breaking the dash bezel into something like 5 different pieces. I'll need to take a trip to the junkyard.





I started having an anti-freeze leak that I couldn't get to stop. I couldn't exactly trace where the liquid was coming from. I would tighten clamps each day and check again, but the leak would get worse and worse.





I finally determined the leak was coming from the radiator itself, where the fin and tubes were connected to the tank on the passenger side. It was hard to find the leak because it was leaking down the inside of the radiator and coming out of the bottom. I found others have had this issue with their new radiators as well. I was afraid that Griffin would not replace the radiator, or that they may try to charge me for shipping. This was not a cheap radiator and I was not about to pay anything to have it replaced. I was already going to be out all of the time I had in finding this problem and removing and replacing the new radiator and the cost of new fluids. If this had only happened a week earlier; the airflow block-off plates would have been way, way easier with the radiator removed. This picture with the radiator out gives a better look at how they block off the air gaps.





Fortunately, I remembered that I had bought the radiator through Summit Racing. In every experience I've had with Summit they have had absolutely great customer service in every way. Once again, not only were they very polite but also accommodating to my problem. They sent me a new radiator and had UPS pick up the old radiator.





Taking the old radiator out was no problem. I found that removing the transmission lines was hugely improved by removing the electric fans. It was easy to remove the fans, with only 6 easy to reach metal screws, but I couldn't put them back in with the radiator installed because of the way the lower mounts were made. I would have to pull the radiator each time I wanted to install the fans and install them together. This was a huge problem because installing the transmission lines with the fans installed is possible, but barely. To solve this problem I was able to trim the bottom of the electric fan shroud so that I could install the radiator and then slide the fans in to place afterwards. This did not compromise the strength or integrity of the shroud in any way so it appeared to be the perfect solution.





I had to buy some cutting wheels for my dremel so I could get a hole big enough to fit a metal saw into. The aluminum was thick and the dremel didn't like it at all. I was amazed at how expensive tiny cut off wheels are for dremels.





With the cut outs I was able to slide the fans into place. I had trouble getting the transmission lines to seal, which meant I ended up taking the fans in and out several times. I found that this was a difficult process until I learned the sequence. There was a very specific sequence of things to do and remove that allowed the fans to slide out, but before I realized that sequence it was pretty difficult. The problem with the transmission lines were the fittings between the lines and the radiator. These fittings use a straight threads, which requires a sealant. I had tried using a liquid Teflon tape sealant but apparently I wasn't using enough. In the end I used regular Teflon tape and everything sealed up fine. Hopefully this radiator will hold up better than the first one.

 

Well, that's bogus...are the radiator fittings not a factory fitting, such as GM?

 

I had to get adapters for the radiator because I used a larger NiCopp line.

 

After getting the radiator and all subsequent leaks stopped it was time to move on to the evaporator core. I destroyed the threads on the old one when I was trying to install the AC dryer. On these cars you remove the top half of the air box and the evaporator just sits inside. These boxes are very easy to break or crack as they get older and there is a urethane material that seals the two pieces, so it can also be easy to damage the pieces when attempting to pry them apart. I got mine apart without further damage than had already been done by the individuals that had worked on it previously. I also found that the last person to install the orifice tube had put it in backwards. One small silver lining is I was able to thoroughly clean the air channels while I had this apart.


This is what the area looks like with the top removed. I used a putty knife to help separate the two halves. The evaporator sits inside a cradle with no mounts, only soft strips to insulate it from vibration.


After the evaporator was out I had to scrape all of the old sealant off of all of the mating surfaces. The worst part about this was that I had already sealed the top and side of this box to the cowl when the fender was off. These areas are very prone to leak on these cars and I used windshield sealant to seal the area the first time, as was shown much earlier during this LS swap project. Now I had to re-seal it again, but this time with the fender on, so it was more difficult. I took a vacuum and cleaned the the bottom of the air box, then wiped it down with wet towels. I had never had this off of one of these cars so it was interesting to see in person, not just a drawing, how the hot and cold air is directed through the car.


The sealant had dried so I tried to poke down until I made an exit, but the bottom of the tube was apparently dried too and the caulk gun wouldn't budge. I had to cut the tube with a hacksaw to get to some of the usable middle parts. I used windshield adhesive strips to seal between the upper and lower part of the air box, which worked great but I wasn't thinking and put them on the upper side of the box. It is a tight fit and I couldn't get the box installed without messing up the sealant, which of course should have been obvious to start with. I ended up having to remove all of it and then install it on the bottom part of the box and then sit the top down on it. This, the correct way, worked much better.


After getting the evaporator back in I installed the AC dryer. After getting that on I moved on to the final piece of the AC system that I'll have to make, since I'm going to have the remaining two hoses made at a hydraulic hose shop. This is where I did something very stupid. Because I had ruined the old AC dryer I had to order another one and I had to piece together parts from various different vehicles to get it all to work. Also, it's been several months since I had worked on the AC wiring. I knew that I had cut the end of the low pressure switch off of the original harness but I couldn't find it anywhere. I had the new low pressure switch that I was going to be using and I remember that I had test fit it and it worked but I couldn't find the end I had cut from the original harness anywhere. I tend to keep things of like manner together so I don't have problems finding them later on, but I still could not find this thing and I ended up spending several hours over a couple days cleaning out and searching through my garage. I finally realized that I was trying to find something that didn't exist. For some reason throughout this process I had ended up with a new R12 low pressure switch, which has a very large plug in the end for the harness and that is what I was trying to find. I finally realized that the R134A low pressure switch is the one that I had finally determined I was going to use and one of the pigtails I had in the box fit it perfectly. I had a couple different pigtails because the place I ordered it from (Summit I think) had an issue with their computer system saying a few different part numbers fit the same application, depending on how you looked it up. They ended up sending me more than one and told me to keep the ones that didn't fit. After I finally remembered all of that and remembered which new pieces were right and which new pieces were wrong I finally realized I'd had them in front of me the whole time.

I then found another issue. The low pressure switch is just a ground from the PCM with a switch in the middle. The pigtail from the switch has two wires so I expected to find two wires in the harness that I had put aside, but I found that there was only one wire there when I un-taped everything. In short it turns out this is because I was combining multiple types of AC systems in order to get the computer to be able to control the AC system. The issue stemmed from the fact that the original compressor had a ground wire coming off of it, which the low pressure switch would tie into.


My compressor doesn't have a ground wire because it grounds through the case and mount. It only has one wire coming from it.


I could have spliced the ground wire into the existing hardness somewhere, but there were a couple of reasons I opted not to do this. To access the back of the harness for soldering I would have had to remove a large portion of it from the car, which would have taken a long time. Also, just finding a ground and splicing in this ground could cause issues with having two pieces of harness now tied together that later I would wish weren't permanently together. I opted to run a dedicated ground and attach it to the back of the passenger side cylinder head where the other grounds from the harness attach.






Then I soldered in the other end of the low pressure switch pigtail with the existing wire from the engine harness.


Below you can see the new ring terminal for the ground. This ground bolt is somewhat difficult to remove and install because the transmission dipstick is so close to the bolt.


Here is what the finished product looks like. After getting all the wires in a loom and taped up with black tape all I need now is a hose made to run from the AC drier to the compressor and one from the compressor to the condenser and I should have AC, which is good because some days are starting to get hot, which is OK with me, but the wind can be a bit much for two young girls with long hair sitting in the backs seats.


When I went to move the car after getting everything put back together I noticed the pedal felt weak and the brake light was on. I checked the master cylinder and found that the rear pot was empty, so I suppose the next step will be finding the leak which will most likely mean new wheel cylinders and hoses for the rear.

 

Jeez. I feel your pain. I'm trying to sell a Maxima for some bucks, and every time I fix something, something else goes wrong. All in one week, I might add. And I'm still not done fixing, either.

 

Yeah, it feels like it's never going to end. The bodyshop that was going to fix the roof has been held up for about a month. I'm very anxious to get that fixed so I can get my new carpet installed.

 

It's been a very long time since I've posted updates, though some work has been done. Activities with the children, helping others with some projects as well as some sort of bronchial infection the children gave me and my father has taken up a lot of time. In that time, thanks in part to the sickness, I even managed to get some rest.

The AC is still working well, even in the high humidity 95-100 degree weather we've had. The car never even gets close to overheating and the electric fans come on high and low exactly as they are supposed to. The only issue is that with no carpet or insulation the exhaust puts some heat through the floorboard. I'll be glad to get the roof fixed and re-install the carpet and I believe that issue will be resolved.

As stated in the last post, the brakes indicated that they had a leak in the system. As suspected it turned out to be rear wheel cylinders. Summit racing had sent me a virtual gift card for spending enough money with them to fund a small middle eastern military for a year, so I used those dollars to buy a coolant system pressure tester and a one-man brake bleeder kit.

Up on jackstands The Caprice does her impression of a Caprice in the ghetto. As I was working on the brakes it began to rain... a lot. If I wanted to be able to drive the car the to work the following Monday I wouldn't have time for setbacks, so I continued working in the pouring rain, and pour it did.






I had thought I had the rear brakes replaced when I had the front ones done a while back. That turned out to be wrong. Apparently I'd never done them since I'd owned the car.





Pictured below are new wheels cylinders and a hardware kit. Also in the picture is the set of impact sockets I picked up at a huge discount from the local Sears right before they went out of business. I got metric, standard, and some torque sticks. Unfortunately my 5 gallon compressor doesn't have enough oomph to get the job done. I have a large, 220 compressor, and a two post lift for that matter, but no shop. One day soon, hopefully.


That looks a bit better.


This is the brake bleeder kit. You put the special lid on your master cylinder, add brake fluid to the tank and then pressurize it by pumping it up. Then all you have to do is open each bleeder valve until fresh brake fluid comes out. The kit was a huge improvement and pretty cheap. I wish I had purchased one of these a long time ago. I don't ever plan to go back to the two-person, brake pedal pumping method, and I'm sure my wife and friends won't mind that fact. After this the brakes feel better than they ever have.


Skip several weeks and I had finally decided on what type of gears to get for the differential. I had previously thought if you wanted posi-traction you would just select the brand you wanted. I was surprised to find how many different types of limited slip differential options are available. I knew there were lockers and limited slips and open diffs, but I didn't know of all the sub-categories of each.

My friend Brian, who has been a professional mechanic for many years, just opened his own shop. Since a rear end must be set up exactly right or the parts can be ruined, I didn't want to take the risk of wasting all the money I'd spent on new parts by doing it wrong and ruining them, so I had him install the new gear set. I had known for a while I had bad pinion seal and when I had checked the rear end grease it looked like a melted milkshake thanks to The Caprice's past adventures of creek stomping over the years. Brain was nice enough to take picture along the way and email them to me.


There is so much information out there about so many different types of rear gear sets I had trouble decided what would be right for me. I eventually settled on a Yukon Dura-Grip limited slip with a clutch pack system and a 3:42 ring and pinion, from Yukon as well.


Fortunately the axles were not pitted so new axle bearings were installed and the original axles were retained.


Checking the run-out on the ring and pinion. The contact is in the center front and back.


Checking the backlash. The original pinion bearing was failing and there were metal shavings all in the bottom of the pumpkin and axle tubes. All of that was thoroughly cleaned and now I've got to break the rear end in for 500 miles before changing the oil and inspecting the lash again. I'll be glad when this 500 miles is over.

 

Nice. And on that trans, you'll still get fair mileage in OD, or good pulling power in direct drive. As far as the brakes, I'm surprised you didn't end up metal-to-metal, or the rivets dug in to the drum.