Fixing up a '71 Grand Safari

I certainly hope everything is in remission, and also that you continue to add to your blog, I enjoy reading it. We seem to have somewhat similar projects from time to time.

 

I had vacation days that had to be taken before a certain date or I would lose them. Knowing this was coming up I had decided to take a cross country trip in The Caprice. With the date looming I had a lot of work to do before the car would be ready. The fast pace of getting ready in time meant I didn't document much of the work that was done and it seemed as though there wasn't possibly going to be enough time. About three weeks before the trip I sat down and looked at how much time I had left and what had to be done and came up with a plan and in the end I was able to make it, just barely.



I didn't have a set plan of exactly where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do, and I didn't want to plan anything specifically so that I could change routes if I took the notion. In the end I ended up going 4012 miles in 5 days and averaged 20 mpg, which I thought was pretty good considering the type of driving that was involved. I didn't use any electronics, which wasn't a big deal anyway since I don't use social media, but I did take the GPS to accompany my new 2020 roadmap and Route 66 guide. I like how a GPS can zoom in and reveal a lot of old stretches of highway that have been bypassed and aren't always noticeable from the road. Also, you can take divergent routes and not get lost for hours on small back roads. I ended up installing an MP3 player and new speakers. I installed the new speakers in a thunder and lightening storm one night after work in the pouring rain with a tarp thrown over the open trunk while I laid in the wet trunk with a flashlight and what was funny is that after halfway through the first day I didn't use the radio, MP3 players or anything else the rest of the way. I took this trip by myself. My goal was visit a lot of places in the short time I had. I often like to take my time and explore areas, but for a litany of reasons the motivation for this trip was not that. I knew I would have to push hard to get to some of the places I wanted to go and so the pictures I took were not meant to be good photography, but were more representative of me jumping out of the car and taking them as quickly as I good just to have a reference to remember some of the more interesting parts of the trip.



My tentative plan was to hit Route 66 and take it west. I found out that Route 66 is now defunct and in some parts is impossible to find without a travel guide. I really only found out the necessity for this guide the day before I left and I tried to find one at local bookstores but they weren't in stock. I ended up printing one in .PDF file from the internet. My friend at work was able to then take the printed pages and use one of the machines in that department to turn it into a spiral bound notebook which ended up being super helpful. I found that west of Oklahoma, Route 66 is pretty easy to spot, but east of that section it is less celebrated. A random assortment of roads and turns that were once the highway are now bits and pieces of other roadways, some with very little to no markings at all. Many people in the area are unaware of what it is or its history, however further west it becomes much more evident, with signage and eponymous signage. I started by heading to Springfield, Missouri and began my Route 66 journey there. If I knew then what I know now, I probably would have headed further west before taking the time to travel the old route, as navigating the many turns and streets via the guide was time consuming and didn't really have the nostalgic feel I was looking for that would later turn up in the western states. I found that the Route 66 guide was very useful for pointing out the landmarks and their significance that I would have otherwise overlooked or not have understood the importance.



My very first encounter with anything Route 66 related was this sign at a gas station shortly after getting to Springfield. I asked the people inside for some info on direction but, despite the art out front, none of them even knew where the road was or that they were currently on it.





Eventually I began to encounter small tributes or indicators of The Mother Road.





Long stretches of road began to string out for miles, and though impressive, they would be nothing in comparison to what would lie ahead. On one straight away I noticed a small, single engine airplane flying very close to the ground, directly in line with the road. At first I thought it was just a plane flying low to the ground or inspecting crops, but then after passing it I began to think I hadn't heard the sound of an engine. Shortly after a red Dodge truck met me going what seemed to be about 100 miles per hour. I was curious if I had just driven under an emergency landing. When I returned home after the trip I looked online to find reports of the incident but didn't find anything so I assume it was just a coincidence.



I fueled up in Carthage, Missouri. I noticed some coolant under the car. When I crawled under I saw that the spray had coated the undercarriage. I tightened all of the hose clamps and hoped that would solve the issue.





When I got to Jopin, MO I pulled over to find the coolant was still leaking. I found a nearby parking lot and right as I did the check engine light came on. I found that the radiator was leaking between the core and the tank on the passenger side, just like my first one had. This was now the second radiator with the same problem. To make a very long story short, I ended up going to one O'Reilly's and two Auto Zones to try to get all the problems fixed. The check engine light ended up being a lean code on bank 1. I put a full bottle of stop leak in the radiator and searched for vacuum leaks. In preparation for the trip I had gone to Harbor Freight and bought a portable air compressor that hooks to a car battery and a 2 ton jack. I did not, however, bring a jackstand, so I bought a jackstand and found that the exhaust bolts had come loose between the pipe and the manifold on the driver side. Not knowing if this would fix the problem I bought the cheapest scan tool I could find, tightened the exhaust and finally went to get something to eat. This was the first night of the trip and I was afraid it was all over but I found that after letting the car idle for quite a while and driving to get food that the stop leak had lived up to its name. All of this had taken up a lot of time so my first day was cut short and I ended up staying in Joplin. Some people close out bars to have a good time. I close out AutoZones.





The next day I woke before sunrise and headed out with trepidation. Along the way I spotted quite a few old relics, like this brick laden bridge from the old Route 66.





Right down the street from the brick bridge was this inoperable old drive-in theater. This picture was significant because it would be the last time I would see my front center cap. I found that Route 66, as with most old roads, went through several re-routes over the years, so if you want to travel it then at times you will have to chose which era you want to follow, and of those eras you will still have new and old versions in various states of use or repair. Shortly after this picture I entered what has to be one of the worst kept portions of the old road. It was almost laughable how bad the road conditions were, and there are still houses on that portion, so people travel this "road" daily. I had just had my new wheels mounted and the combination of the aftermarket Corvette rallies with the extreme conditions of the road meant my complete set of center caps was not long for this world.





In Amarillo, Texas I of course stopped by the Cadillac Rance.





I knew that people were allowed to spray paint the cars, but what I had never considered is how much that paint would pile up over the years. It was pretty amazing how thick the spray paint was on these old cars.





I had hoped to spent a little bit of time at the Cadillac Ranch but when I pulled up, as soon as I opened my door I heard the sound of air quickly escaping my rear tire. I knew dark wasn't too far off, and I knew I can change a tire in the dark, but I can't take pictures of The Cadillac Ranch in the dark, so I went ahead and took a hurried visit to the obtusely angled finned relics and made my way back to the flat.





My old springs and shocks were in very bad need of replacement so right before I had left I had all new springs and shocks on the car. Since the Caprice/Impala platform was essentially unchanged from 1977-1996, new springs are still available for this car, but they are only lowering springs for 94-96 Impala SS's. Stock springs are not readily available. I had spent many hours this past Thanksgiving researching exactly which springs would suit my needs the best. I had tried to replace the springs about 7 years or so before by trying to match the stock spring rates. I had failed miserably and had been living with handling and ride quality that could only be described as absurd. The new springs and shocks are good for aesthetics and handling, but bad for ground clearance and utility, like trying to get a jack under the frame with a flat tire. Also, I have yet to install limiting straps on the rear axle, so if you jack the car up the springs fall out, which requires two jacks to reinstall correctly, and I only had one jack. Fortunately I had been keeping a growing list for about two weeks before the trip of what tools I should take and had a trunk full, including cover-alls. I tried as hard as I could to plug the hole in the tire without taking the wheel off, but there just wasn't enough leverage. I even used a long pry bar I had brought with me and it just wasn't going to happen. I finally got sick of laying on the gravel and thought I remembered there being a concrete platform a way down the road where I had stopped to take a picture. I put all the tools up, pumped the tire up and threw the pump in the car and tore off to the concrete pad as quick as I could before the tire went flat, because the leak wasn't a particularly slow one.



When I got there I found that I have a very poor memory and the lot was gravel too. After a lot of messing around I finally got the car jacked up and took the tire off. It took three plugs to seal the hole, which held the rest of the trip.





I left the center cap off of the tire and put it in the trunk. Late that night, trying to make up time from my tire escapade in Amarillo, using the Texas Interstate speed limits to my advantage, I hit something that might be considered a pot hole, but I believe a pot canyon may be a better descriptor. It hit hard enough I expected the tire to blow out. It actually knocked the GPS charger out of the cigarette lighter. When I stopped for the night I discovered the hole had claimed my driver side trim ring as well as my remaining front center cap. After this, I removed my sole remaining center cap in the rear before I lost it, too.



I knew the camera wouldn't capture the grandeur of most of all I was seeing, but I took a few photos along the way regardless. One thing I can say about all of these states is that the driving is like a dream. Everyone stays in the right lane unless they pass. If you do come up behind someone, they let you over and they don't get angry about it. It was like I was living in a fantasy land.





At some point in a man's life, he needs to figuratively and literally stand on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. A gift shop was playing Eagle's music on loop and I was surprised to find that despite being a Tuesday in February, a line from a song that was, at the time of my trip, 48 years old, that wasn't even the title to the song, still brought in a steady stream of visitors the entire time I was there and while I was eating lunch at the cafe across the street. People from all over the world were trickling through. This attraction appeared to be the only thing keeping this town from disappearing.





I have owned a K5 Blazer since I was 17 years old and have always had an appreciation for them. That being the case, I think this picture in front of the Colorado River may be the coolest picture of a K5 I've ever seen. That little blue speck is The Blazer, the deep gorge behind it is the river.





When I woke up that morning I had to fight through a snow storm and almost the entire day was overcast. I was beginning to doubt I was going to make it to the Grand Canyon, or if I did, that I would be able to see anything. Shortly before I arrived the skies cleared away and the temperatures were in the high 50s. There were very few people there and in many places I was the only one around. It was perfect.





If you're looking for a place to find quite and solitude, the only thing better than the mid-west is the mid-west in February. There were very long stretches of Route 66 where you will encounter zero to few people at all. Unlike the great plains where some vegetation may grow, these areas are inexplicably enormous and there is practically nothing to block your view. It is easy to spot a single person walking 10 miles away. On one stretch during some rain my wipers quit working. No problem, you can just park in the highway and get out and fix them, and take some pictures while you're there, because you won't encounter anyone. It turned out the wipers were barely grazing the window molding and had gotten stuck. I turned one the blades over and the problem was solved.





I got to the Hoover Dam before the sun came up. The original highway used to pass over the dam, but now the dam has been bypassed by a new four lane highway which can be seen crossing the river over the new bridge in the back of the photo below. To view the dam you now must pass a security checkpoint. Other than those guards and whatever crew was inside the dam, I was the only person there. I had complete free reign to walk around and park wherever I wanted. Eventually the employees began to trickle in for work. Before the sun rose I sat my camera on the very edge of a rock wall and sat the exposure for 20 seconds. I held my finger on the strap just in case the wind blew it off. I think the result turned out pretty cool. The picture below is much lighter than it was in person. The dam was visible, but much darker in person at this point.





The parking garage was closed and the only way I was only able to get a picture of the deep side of the dam was to park in the road, again, not a problem because no one was there, and walk to the side and take a picture. All of the places I could get a good view of the deep side were closed off. Below is another view of the new bridge. I accidentally bypassed Boulder City because of the new highway and my very old and non-updated GPS didn't know the new road was there until it was too late. I didn't bother backtracking to go check it out.





I entered Las Vegas around rush hour. On the Las Vegas strip a cop got behind me and followed me the entire way through. If anyone got between us he cut them off to get back behind me. If I changed lanes he forced his way behind me again. Once car even pulled right out in front of me, slammed on the brakes and blocked half my lane, causing to officer and me to half to go around him, but the officer did not address this at all. This continued the entire length of the strip. I stopped at a store shortly after and the clerk, finding out I was from out of state, warned me that the cops there like to follow tourists around and give them tickets. I agreed with his warning. I didn't bother taking a second look through Vegas as I was pretty off-put by their authorities and I noticed that any direction beyond the strip appeared to be a nasty and a pretty bad looking part of town, so I got out a Dodge, less literally than I would later on.



It was at this point I had to make a choice. I had wanted to head to California and hit the Pacific Coast Highway, where it runs next to the Pacific Ocean. I would have had to push really hard to have completed this leg of trip in the time I had left. Also, I had met some people at gas stations that had just come from up north and they said they had encountered some pretty bad weather. Had I made that leg I would have had to hit two solid days of hard interstate just to make it back, so I decided to turn back at this point and take highways the entire way back. Looking back, I believe that was the best decision.



People who don't live in "The South," are given the idea that we have sprawling farms and fields and dirt roads everywhere. This is all a Hollywood myth, particularly after the invasion of the rest of the country moving into the area. It's difficult to throw a rock without hitting a subdivision or at least a house, so I really loved and appreciated the seemingly endless amount of land and highways that were just open for exploring. Back home anything that's not a state road with tons of driveways has a gate or blockade. Here, you were truly just free to go wherever you wanted. It was great.





At one point I was on an old highway which had been bypassed by the new highway. Though the yellow line was still visible in some parts the old road, it had ceased to be maintained. When the asphalt gave way they would just fill it with gravel. The road was very straight and long but I had to drive slow because you never knew when you would drop off into a pit and bottom out or gouge a hole in the oil pan and what pavement was there was badly broken. At one point I began to see cow manure on the road and realized the area I was in was so vast that there were no fences and the cattle were free to cross or stand in the road at any point.



I don't have an external thermometer on the car to tell me the outside temperature, but the Dakota Digital dash will tell me the temperature of the air right before it enters the throttle body. As I entered the Rocky Mountains the intake temperature showed -1 degrees. I'm not sure what the actual outside temperature was, but it was a very different type of cold than I am used to. It seemed to me to be a far less humid cold. 13 degrees here felt more like 35 degrees back home.





The speed limit in Utah is 80 miles per hour and most of the backroads and highways have a speed limit of 65-70 miles per hour, but on this day the crosswinds were so strong that you didn't want to push it much past that. It was very common for most tractor trailers to end up partially in your lane as you went by them due to the wind gusts. In the foothills of the Rockies there were a lot of twisty, two lane roads with a speed limits of 60-65 miles per hour. They were well kept, but there were some wet spots. Back home, without a doubt, there would have been black ice somewhere. Even with the new Hotchkis and Bilstein suspension I thought I was pushing it pretty hard, and then I started getting passed by women in their SUVs going 70 miles per hour around these insane turns going up and down hills with snow on both sides of the road and damp, wet road in the shade. I suppose the locals are pretty used to this sort of thing. I started following a SUV and trying to keep pace, but eventually lagged behind. Everything I've encountered on roads thus far in my life had told me I was going to be eating guardrails at any second, so I slowed down and enjoyed the scenery at a pace that was more fun. Below is approaching the top of the Rockies. The highest point on the road I was on was approximately 11 thousand feet. Again, the camera cannot capture the magnitude of what your eyes behold in person. For me, it's not everyday I'm almost as high as the clouds.





Kansas has an enormous network of gravel roads which serve as main roadways. When I was a teenager one of my favorite things to do was drive and find gravel roads. Again, another myth of the south is that there are lots of gravel roads. Almost all the gravel roads have been paved, so this would have been heaven for me growing up. If you drive through Kansas and you don't go get sideways on some gravel roads you are not a real car guy. Below is a picture of a rare ditch.





Eventually I literally got out of Dodge... City Kansas.





As I began to see the end, I took a bit more time explore things. I enjoyed seeing all the many different cities and town. It was interesting to see how many towns used to have a nice, flourishing communities but are now all but abandoned and falling apart. Often times what is left are very cool buildings and streets with no one around to care if you just park in the middle of the road and take some pictures. I headed home and as soon as I crossed the state line, literally the moment my wheels crossed the line, even though it was 8:30 pm, the interstate slowed with congestion, people began driving like idiots and the intense frustration of over population that I had so quickly forgotten about for the last five days immediately came back.

 

That trip is amazing and so awesome. Great photos!

It is now, so things are going better than they were 6 months ago. Still doing chemo for another 2.5 years so that's frustrating as it saps a lot of energy. Unfortunately I was fired for having cancer as well so I'm in the process of putting my house on the market and looking for car storage.

 

Man, that is terrible, and it doesn't even sound legal that they should be able to do that. I also didn't know chemo would last for that long. I've had relatives go through that and it was very draining.

 

Vetteman, Thank you for sharing your adventure with us. Just yesterday I was telling my brothers that I want to take such a road trip. It sounds like it was a once in a lifetime experience.

 

Who’s going to turn this into a coffee table book? I’d buy it. I laughed, I cried, I learned a few thiNgs. What an awesome country we got here

 

You were right in keeping your speed down in the windy conditions. On my move to Texas, on I-84 in NE Oregon, I'm bebopping along at 75 MPH, and a gust of wind hits my right side. It pushed me into the center median, and after yelling for Leadslead (who was screaming over the radio) to "Shut the f#%k up," I got the truck stopped. I screwed up though, I should've made sure I was on the blacktop before fully stopping, because after taking many deep breaths and checking my tighty whities, I went to pull onto the shoulder, but no. My tires decided to just slip...downhill. had to be pulled out by a tow truck...THREE HUNDRED NINETY SOME-ODD DOLLARS FOR THAT PULL!

 

Hidey ho neighbor! Ain’t Goodlettsville the best!

 

Did you take that photo Grizz!?

 

I did! Now I’m Beginning to think my tire picking up the exact same mystery bolt vetteman was looking for wasn’t such a coincidence after all.

 

That's incredible. Too bad you didn't know who it was at the time.

 

I knew exactly who it was! It was only about 30 minutes ago.. I Couldn’t keep up in my big avalanche on 24” wheels it’s no wonder he went to Cali and back in 5 days. The man is a DRIVER! I had to stop at the post office but saw him on the way home. Didn’t want to ruin his lunch. Plus the girl and I needed food too

 

Looks just as good going down the road as it does in the pictures BTW

 

That's awesome.

 

What a great read. I'm sure, only topped by the actual trip. Thank you so much for sharing. I used to take my kids on day trips around here, checking out back roads. No maps, no GPS just some lunch and my three kids and off we'd go. It was fun to discover where they came out...the roads not the kids. Although they are interesting too.
Our countries are so beautiful we are very lucky to live where we do. I have been to the Rockies, on this side of the line and you are right, it is difficult to accurately capture the magnitude of the mountains.
Your car looks amazing in the pictures. I really enjoyed your story and like Grizz I giggled a few times and was heart broken at the troubles you encountered but was impressed at your resilience...three plugs in one tire! That alone would have been enough to turn some homeward.
I wasn't aware of your illness until now and wasn't aware that chemo treatments could go on for so long. That really must be difficult and now you are having to move. Please take care and continue to post your stories, I'll check back when I can.