Fixing up a '71 Grand Safari

why didn't you replace the rubber roof gromets for the luggage rack?

i replaced all mine as half were disintegrated and fell apart and from experience doing this they sometimes will NOT realign and they crossthread going in and this is NOT a good thing. + with a few disintegrated i had surface rust around the hole lips


i would think about that as they WILL leak

 

Thanks guys. These doors are a real annoyance. I was hoping they would be on already so I wouldn't have to worry as much about all these storms that keep coming through.

It never occurred to me that they reproduced the luggage rack grommets. Where do you get them? Mine were all still pretty soft and none were falling apart, but still if they make them new ones might be a good idea.


Brandon

 

i know i got mine at carquest usually are in the drawer shelves where the door pins are. make SURE you get the screws with them as i had some that were same thread as what i had (these best so u can use your factory stainless screws) and some were metric thread just don't want you getting phantom leaks after all that work

 

That's interesting. What do the grommets look like when they are new and not installed? Are they deep? Is the rubber only at the top?

Brandon

 

no they are appx 1/2 inch long bout 1/4 round with a very SLIGHT bubble at the bottom where the moulded in brass threaded nut is. i have some in my tool box if i can remember i will bring home or take camera and get a pic and thier is a larger lip around the top

 

Enjoying watching this thread. You make it look easy! I read somewhere but i forget your life story. You have a job too right? You progress on this is commendable.

 

that larger lip around the top also sits flat on the roof i worried about urs as they look to be about pulled thru

 

Update on lack of progress.

Thanks to everyone for the nice comments. Well, April was sick last week and, no surprise, I got it. I'm not real sure exactly what this sickness is. I have no sinus issues and in fact, I don't seem to have any of the issues that go with sickness. All I have is an overwhelming lack of energy and no appetite at all. I just want to lay down constantly and it's kind of clouded my head. Due to a misdiagnosis last year I ended up having a pretty bad time. I had pneumonia for 6 months and in that time I also ended up getting the flu, a kidney stone and they also found 3 spots on my lung. After I finally got a doctor that knew what they were doing I finally made a recovery, though even all this time later I'm still getting my complete strength back. I had a lot of muscle atrophy that I'm still working to recover.

Anyway, this sickness reminds me of that feeling. The end result is, I haven't been able to work on the wagon. Last week, along with feeling bad, I had to deliver a new hearse down at the gulf coast. By the time I got back I was so used up I pretty much just stayed in bed or on the couch all weekend, except for Saturday.

My computer is 8 years old. I don't want to get a new one but the power supply on my current one is going out and if I ever cut it off it takes weeks for it to finally come back on. Rather than replace parts on a computer that is already almost out of date I've relented that I have to get a new one, but it's much cheaper to build your own. I figure if I'm going to use parts to build my own I might as well build one that I will like. I decided to take the computer components and put them in an antique radio case. I've been looking for a little over a month on Craigslist and this Saturday I found one. The guy was selling his dad's old radio, which doesn't work.

He only wanted $30 dollars for it, which is insanely cheap, and it was in really good shape compared to others I've found. So, despite the fact I wasn't feeling well and probably should have stayed on the couch, April and I made the 3 hour trip there to pick it up while the picking was good.



I didn't realize how HUGE this thing was going to be until I saw it in person. It is truly massive. Because it is in such great shape and is all there, I have decided to carefully remove all the electronics. I will install my computer components in this one, having the dial light up when the computer is turned on, but I'll save the internals so that in the future, hopefully in 10 years, when my new computer is outdated I'll build another case from scratch and then I'll restore this old radio back to its former glory.

I hope to get to feeling better soon so I can keep working on the wagon. I'm anxious to get the doors back on.

Brandon

 

Great deal on the radio, Brandon. As for making it work, I bet it is nothing more than a blown tube. The finish looks really nice, too. In places where it has dried and chipped, GENTLY rub some iodine over the area. It will stain the walnut the right colour and dissolve a bit of the finish for you to rub over the gap. A good coat of cabinet maker's wax, and it will look like new.

 

How the hell is this going to fit into a station wagon? This is a station wagon forum right? Still kinda nice. I had a 1929 Sanora multiwave radio with a hand crank phonograph. You'd think with the power cord going to it anyway that they would have routed it to the phonograph too?

 

That is sOOOOOO gorgeous!!! I love stuff like that!! I am a big fan of steampunk and there many a beautiful computer case make from things like this. I cant wait to see how this comes out...

 

hope your feelin better B....but at least you'll slow down enough so the rest of us dont look slow
...as for the sqwak box...is that a ZENITH??....its actually pretty rare if i recognize it right

 

The weather has been absolutely terrible for the last two weeks. April ended up getting sick and then gave it to me. I had to deliver a car to Biloxi, Mississippi while sick so that extended my sickness for almost a week. That is when the cold air, constant rain and unstoppable strong winds started and they didn't stop for almost two weeks. Because The Clam is now at my house with only one door and no dog house it has been necessary to keep it wrapped up tight underneath a tarp. The winds have been so strong that even if the weather had been nice I couldn't have managed the tarp by myself. Because of this I haven't been able to make any significant progress in the last two or three weeks.

One Saturday, because of the weather, April and I went on a small road trip to west Tennessee. My computer is getting very old and besides becoming insufferably slow it has begun showing signs of hardware failure. I'm going to have to buy a new one. Fortunately my friend Nick loves building computers so he is going to help me order the parts I'll need to build my own. Realizing this I decided I would rather have a computer that I enjoyed looking at so I started searching the internet for antique radios for sale. After about a month or so I finally found this 1940 Zenith model. Typically these sell between $200-$600. The guy who had this for sale just didn't want it anymore and had it listed for $30. My intention is to carefully remove all the parts and store them. In the meantime I am going to install my computer inside this encasement. I have already designed a shaft with the help of my neighbor Craig and his mill that will allow me to mount the button on a spring loaded shaft to turn the new computer on and off and hopefully I will be able to illuminate the old radio dial when the computer is on with the orange glow of LED lights.

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Back to The Clam. Finally we got two days of dry weather, and the temperature was very manageable as well. I removed the master cylinder and brake booster to replace them. This would have been very easy given that there are only 4 bolts through the firewall that they are mounted with, but access to the bottom, passenger side bolt was blocked by the steering column. Also, although the bolt itself was not rusted, the nuts and backing plate had a small amount of rust that had fused them together and made the initial movement of the bolts very difficult provided how little space there is under the dash to obtain anything that might resemble leverage. The angle of the picture doesn't truly depict how restrictive the placement of the column really was. The problem was that the bolt was too long for a regular sized socket and a deepwell socket was too long and interfered with the column. Also, a wrench could not get a good grip due to obstructions all around the bolt.

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After fooling with this for a good part of the afternoon and running out of options, compounded by my failed efforts having slightly rounded off the bolt, I remembered that my friend Tate had bought me this set of special sockets as a wedding gift. They are designed to remove nuts and bolts that have been rounded off. Their slight extra length allowed me just enough room to push an extension in the end, though there wasn't enough room for it to click into place.

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It's easily assumed when your start putting together contraptions like this that you're getting desperate. There are adapters there to change between different size drives.

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After removing the brake parts I stripped the firewall for a little touch up, bagging and labeling all the parts and screws of course.

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After some strong degreaser and wiping it down with brake parts cleaner I applied a coat of heat resistant primer and black paint to the firewall. I will eventually paint the frame rails but I'm not going to remove the age old grease from the cradle. Because this car will be a driver, all of that grease is a very useful and needed rust preventative.

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When Saturday came April helped me install the remaining doors. She's not allowed to lift more than 25 pounds because of the pregnancy so I handled getting the doors in place while she did the other things like lifting the jack and holding the doors steady and I installed the bolts. This is certainly not a one person job and almost not a two person job. These doors are very, very heavy and cumbersome. This door gave us a particularly hard time.

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Eventually, we got it mounted. I applied antiseeze to all the bolts, as I do with almost all of the course thread bolts I reinstall.

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April really, really enjoys removing tape, so she offered to handle all of that, which was actually harder than it sounds. She also enjoys pretending to be very, very hardcore about it.

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The driver door didn't give too much trouble. In fact, I almost installed this one myself after April held the door steady so I could get the bolts started. She went on to install the incredibly frustrating gas door. The shop manual said to remove the hinges from the door rather than the body because it is easier. I didn't understand why until we reinstalled the doors. The hinges on the body control the placement of the door on both the X and Y axis, relative to if you are looking at the side of the car. The hinges on the door only control the door leaning toward or away from the car at the top and bottom, which is much easier to realign.

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They may need some more adjustment when it is time to install the fenders, but we hope they won't. Until then The Clam is a four door again. I sincerely, with all my being, hope I never have to pick these doors up again.

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Hey everyone. It's been a while since I've had any progress. The weather has barely allowed even going outside, much less working out there so it has killed progress.

April also brought home a cold and then I caught it right as I had to make an overnight trip to deliver a fleet of new hearses with some other guys. Unfortunately, this compounded my problem because of the weather so that had me down for another week. Everything's better now if the weather will finally let up.

This last week we had spring revival at church, which is an hour away so that took up most of that week and this week April is helping me work on my resume. It's been busy and when it's not busy, it's raining.... all the time.... I may go crazy.

 

Sorry if I missed replying to anyone in particular that left a comment, but thanks to everyone for the compliments and following along.


Brandon