Fixing up a '71 Grand Safari

Good god, man. He shouldn't have been going so darn fast, it's good that he only took out some signs and went into a ditch instead of rear-ending you. I don't blame you for avoiding a collision, right-lane or not. Maybe he planned on going in the left lane but too fast, forcing him into the ditch. It sounds to me like he was going to slam on his brakes at the red light though, so he doesn't sound to me like a very smart driver;

"LOOK AT ME SLAM ON THE GAS AND BRAKES WEARING DOWN MY CAR PARTS AND USING UP LOTS OF FUEL UNNECESSARILY!"

It's not as if I have all the context in front of me, but I do know it's not good for gas mileage or wear on a car, or other drivers not knowing the whole story.

 

I've had several people say that they thought the rear end may be the problem with the vibration. I've never heard of a differential cause the problems I'm having, but it's certainly within the realm of possibility and I hope that is the issue.

Concerning the near-miss, I was in the correct lane very, very close to a complete stop and he was in the same lane as I was, except he was looking down or not paying attention and didn't stop.

 

Glad you are all OK and that clown did not destroy years of your amazing work!

 

Thanks Bruce. I was telling April that if someone totaled The Clam we'd probably have to get some later model (90s) car because I don't have the time to build another one... and also.... I don't have the heart. I need a break... haha

 

I hope you weren't being serious with this threat...

 

Death of a Clam

This has been a terrible month. I took on a different position at work that requires me to be there at 5:30 am and work 10 1/2 to 12 hour days. This means by the time I get home and take care of Rose and do things around the house it's immediately time to go to bed or I'm so exhausted I don't have the energy to do anything else. I caught the stomach flu and ended up having it for an entire week. Shortly thereafter April called me in morning around 7 o'clock and said she'd had a wreck. She wasn't hurt. In fact, she never even hit the steering wheel, even with a lap-belt. It knocked the other guy into a ditch. Then the starter on The Caprice went out, which I still haven't had time to fix and Rose ended up having a stomach bug and the same night April caught a bacterial infection that lasted a week and ended up with her having to be admitted to the hospital for fluid and to have the baby monitored, all the while I've been working with the insurance agent, adjuster and claims adjuster. I have every receipt for The Clam and I have been having to scan them all and send them to the insurance agents.

April rear ended someone on the way to work. He stopped at at a red light. She did not.

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She slid into them, which meant the nose was down. This caused the already low bumper to go under their bumper, which meant the brunt of the force was into the sheet metal.

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The front bumper is bent down. The hood, front fender, quarter extension, header panel, core support, woodgrain and woodgrain moldings, hard to find clips for the woodgrain, grill, all the chrome moldings on the front, parking light, inner fender well, wheel over molding, radiator and air conditioning condenser are all destroyed. The entire side of the car's woodgrain will have to be replaced. There doesn't appear to be any frame damage.

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We were very fortunate that the claims adjuster used to own a body shop and owns several old cars. He was very understanding of exactly what it takes to fix an old car and how hard it is to find parts. Some of these younger guys that only work with new cars don't understand that you can't simply take a car like this to the shop, have it fixed and it show back up at your house in a few days.

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I am still uncertain of the future of this car. The car would be essentially totaled due to the cost of parts and labor, but I plan on doing most of the work myself so that will allow the car to not reach the 75% of car's total value that the insurance company deems a "total loss." The claims adjuster valued the car, due to it's condition, high options and rarity, at $15,000. There wasn't another that could be found at the time in the country for sale and he had to do evaluations based on similar cars but of different years. The condition was deemed not a show car but above average. One part of that was the fact it is a daily driver and I haven't quite finished with everything yet. For example, the rear interior panels are still out of the car as I continued to work on the rear leak at the sliding rear window weatherstrips.

I had just ordered a brand new Edelbrock carburetor that I had yet to install. I also had plans to have the rear end completely rebuilt and use 3.42 gears to put our RPM in the correct, useful range for better mileage and towing.

I am a member of a group on the internet for 1971-1976 Pontiac B bodies. Fortunately, a member that sells 1971 parts exclusively messaged me and asked if I knew that the front end on all 1971 B bodies were not the same. I am very glad he messaged me because this was almost a costly mistake. There were four models in 1971. In order, they were: Catalina, Safari, Bonneville, Grand Ville and Grand Safari. The Catalina and Safari wagons looked identical at first glance to the Bonneville and Grand Villes, however the Bonneville and Grand Ville actually had a header panel (front nose clip in front of the hood that housed the headlihgts) that was a few inches longer than the Catalina and Safari wagons. The hoods were the same, however this means that the front fenders and quarter extensions are also different shapes and mount in different ways. It should be, in theory, possible to change our wagon to a Bonneville/Grand Ville front clip, however it would involve changing all the panels except the hood, would add a few inches to the front, would not be original, and would require the bracketry to be mounted in a new way. I had already looked at a couple parts cars and almost bought one, which was a Grand Ville, and it would have been a huge waste of money and an enormous set back. Why Pontiac did this I don't know, but it has really limited the amount of cars I am now able to use as donor vehicles.

This is the 3rd car that April has totaled and each incident was her fault. The harsh and unfortunate reality is I do not have the time and cannot afford to continue to provide antique cars if they are going to be wrecked. After I fix this car with the insurance money it will mean we will have an extra car that should be worth approximately $15,000, depending on the market at the time, and that is a substantial amount of money that could be invested in other places. These wagons seem to have taken an upswing in popularity even since we have purchased this one. Because they have been so popular over the years with the demolition derby crowd the 1971s are very, very rare. As you climb up the years of the model, getting newer and newer, you begin to find more and more, with a 1972 being slightly more plentiful, 1973 more plentiful still and 1974, 1975 and 1976 being the easiest to find. After all the work and being so, so close to finishing the car, to say that it is sickening to get to enjoy it for such a short time is an understatement.

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We were fortunate that our cousin has just moved to Florida and no longer has room in their driveway for two vehicles. As a result he decided to sell his 1999 Suburban. It is a two wheel drive, LS with 131,000 miles. New Michelin tires, new alternator, new brakes and best of all he drove it from Florida and delivered it to our house because his daughter works for an airline and he was able to get a free flight back home. It has a few issues. There are some dings, the driver side interior door handle doesn't work, the park position for the wipers are way too high and a crooked service lot in Florida was suppose to fix the rear heat, and changed my cousin for the labor and parts, but as it turned out they only cut the heater hose and blocked it off. It was delivered on a Thursday and I was able to get it registered and insured the next day. We were very fortunate to actually have two choices, especially on such short notice. Another friend of the family had a 1997 Buick Park Avenue. This car had the 3.8 v6 engine, which was one of GMs better engines. The gas mileage would have been better than the Suburban, however in the end I made the decision for the Suburban firstly due to its safety, being a larger vehicle. Secondary reasons are the increased seating, with the Suburban capable of seating 8 passengers and still have room for a lot of luggage, as well as it being capable of towing a car and trailer and is already wired for trailer brakes. Also, our cousin was very kind and gave us a great deal on the Suburban.

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You can see a little damage on the rear of the Suburban here. As you can see, The Caprice has been repaired and is in better condition than it was before the wreck.

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The plan for now is to use the insurance money to buy a parts car, take the front clip from that car and fix The Clam. It is actually as cheap or cheaper to buy an entire parts car than to just buy the need parts that have already been taken from a parts car. Also, a parts car would allow me to sell off extra parts in case the insurance money doesn't completely cover the cost of the repairs. One more benefit is that if I find a Catalina rather than a wagon it will allow dad to have extra parts for his '71 convertible in case of any future wrecks. Unfortunately, due to their rarity, finding a suitable 1971 Safari with woodgrain will be unlikely. This means I will most likely have to take a non-woodgrain fender and find and drill the holes for the woodgrain trim. Since we have a replacement vehicle for April and my work is taking up almost all of my time and the remainder of that time is taking care of Rose and the house and with a new baby that will be here soon, I'm not sure how long it will be before I will be able to fix The Clam. For now, unfortunately, it looks like there is no choice but to store it away. As for the '37 Chevrolet, which this story started with, I suppose it is put off so far into the future it may be a long, long time before I can resume that project.

The isn't the end of the story, but it will be a long while before anything else will happen. For now, Rose says, "See you later!"

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I think these three sentences more or less sum up your situation.

I don't know how recently your wife's other accidents were, but it must be getting somewhat expensive to buy auto insurance for her with three at-fault accidents on her record. It seems that the cheapest route is, yes, not to use what are essentially collector cars as her daily driver, but rather a somewhat older (10 years) car of not terribly high value, which would probably be the least-expensive thing to insure. A plus is that a newer car like this would have air bags and other safety features that were not on cars in 1971.

If you fix this car, as you say, you'll have a $15,000 vehicle that will essentially be a museum piece, and that's a lot of cash to have tied up and inaccessible. To be honest, I would wonder if you could actually sell it for that much regardless of condition and regardless of what the estimators might say as we've seen some recent ebay auctions of clamshell wagons in very nice shape where the bidding has failed to crack the $10,000 mark or stop once that's reached.

If you're not going to use it as a daily driver, do you really want and/or need this car? Is it worth fixing it up only to sell it and hope that you can recover what you spent to fix it up?

Perhaps the thing to do is just get rid of the car and move on. You say you would have to just store it away as you have no time to work on it now as other aspects of your life are demanding attention. Is it really the best thing to stick it in a corner for five years hoping that you'll get back to it some day? Is it that important a car?

 

This is something you might consider doing with the insurance money.

http://roanoke.craigslist.org/cto/4889761999.html

Car looks beautiful, and the price is certainly right at $2,500.

 

Good luck on getting the Grand Safari back together. I've been looking at internet pics of the big '71 Pontiacs, and I honestly can't tell any difference in the front end between the different models. Except for the wood grain and the surround molding, your front end should be the same as a Bonneville or 'Grandville'. When you have some time, I'd suggest searching out a good GM salvage yard - one that has an 'old timer' working there who can look up the parts in an interchange book - to find out what fits and what doesn't. If you find out that a 'Catalina' or a 'regular' 'Safari' fender fits, then there's more vehicles to pick from. Also, '2-door' fenders may or may not be the same as '4-door' fenders.

 

It's not a wagon, but here's a catalina.
He's asking $3400 on this site, but I saw this same guy asking $2900 on another site, so he could probably even be talked lower.

http://classiccars.com/listings/view/394510/1971-pontiac-catalina-for-sale-in-creston-ohio-44217

 

'71 Grandville convert, Ohio - $2,000
http://columbus.craigslist.org/cto/4863921525.html

A 'WTB' ad.....maybe has extra parts?
http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/hnp/cto/4887334411.html

 

It just so happens he knows someone with a WHOLE STACK of Hollander interchange manuals! (they go all the way back to the 50's)


Also the Demo derby guys normally DO NOT USE the Pontiac front clip on Pontiac cars! They have no clue how to set them up properly so they use Chevy's or buick/olds. Personally I would check and advertise on the derby site for your parts they would be WAY cheaper than a whole car

I wonder if my clips might work for your chrome? They look close on width. they may be a different design but still work too

 

Oh and if they don't total that and you want to get rid of it let me know. I know how to fix it.

 

That station wagon looks really cool. It's amazing because growing up I never liked that bodystyle, and I was always into older cars, but now I appreciate them much more. Fortunately, we were already able to find April a replacement within just a few days and I think she needs to stay in something newer and easier to find parts for. You can't throw a rock without hitting a late 90's Chevrolet truck, Tahoe or Suburban around here. I can get the interior door handle that's broken straight from AutoZone for $15. It's nice for a change to be able to get parts...haha.


I've been posting over at one of the demolition derby sites and checking it daily. There is definitely a difference between the Grand Ville/Bonneville and Catalina/Safari. I had a guy who sells 71 parts show me pictures and after seeing them I can see the difference now. The grill is the same, but the fenders, 1/4 extensions and header panel are different. They look the same, but their dimensions are different and the way they bolt up. The fan shrouds are also very different. A Bonneville/Grand Ville shroud is much deeper. I know it's hard to believe, I grew up with these cars and dad sold them new and has had his since 1974 and didn't know it.

I really appreciate the links. Unfortunately I've looked into all of them so far. I suppose I'll have to be patient and play the waiting game while making sure I keep the discipline to search nightly, but you guys are always good at finding things I seem to let slip through the cracks.

The clips I had trouble finding were the white clips on the top front fender moldings. The holes for these clips are very large in comparison. Most other clips on the car use a small stud that has a plastic clip that slips over the stud and clicks into place. The other types of clips, which I cannot remember the name of, remind me of a cricket leg. They are shaped somewhat rectangular and have a long leg that comes off and with tension holds the clip in place. I know that's a terrible description but I can't really think of how to describe it at the moment.

I may be wrong, but I'm not sure that the Pontiac fender will interchange with anything else. Also, the Bonneville/Grandville fender will not interchange with the Safari/Catalina fender.

Here is a picture of one of the types of clips used on the front. The ones on the top piece of chrome are a similar setup if my memory serves correct, however they are made of white plastic and push into the holes rather than being held on by a nut.




These are NOT the same clips that are on the rest of the majority of the car, however they are the same style and concept. These slide over studs on the side of the car and then push to the side to lick in. Then the piece of molding pushes over the top locking into the longer edges of the clip.

 

He's right, the '71 Catalina\Safari vs. the Bonneville\Grandville are different. If you take one apart and compare the parts it becomes obvious but unless you've done that you'd never know. This was fixed by '73 but those first 2 years are a headache.

Shame about the car, it was really nice. But as it goes, maybe her having a daily driver car like that just isn't in the cards. My wife loved the '67 Bonneville I had but driving it was just a completely different world from a modern car and I couldn't see it being used every day in traffic with all the idiots out there...