Fixing up a '71 Grand Safari

Several smaller finishing touches seem to have no end. It feels as though I'm finished with the car but there is still much to be finished and it seems as though each time I finish a project two more are added to the list.

The original clips holding the inner fenderwells were not only a rusty eyesore, but their rust would eventually spread to other places so they had to be replaced.

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New hardware from the aptly named hardware store.

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The old rusty clips did not come off easy. When the bolt is removed the clips have a tab that is bent up into the bolt hole that holds the clip in place and means you can't pull the clip off without pushing that tab. This seemingly small task turned into a frustratingly time consuming one.

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The dome light had a glass lens that had fallen out and the plastic cover was broken to pieces. As you can see in the picture the lens on the right has a round, metal ring that holds it in place. The ring was long gone on the left side. After polishing the chrome dome light housing I used a small amount of glue to hold the lens in place.

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I found the plastic lens in the glove box, broken all to pieces. This lens is expensive and hard to find so I glued the pieces I had back together. I found out that Gorilla Glue foams as it dries, causing it to expand and run out of the seams. At least it looks a lot better than it did with no lens.

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At long last I got back to sealing the rear tailgate. I've been using one of April's big stainless steel pots on one side of the tailgate to catch water when it would rain. There were only two areas at the sides of the tailgate where water would come in so the pot would catch water on the driver side and I had a piece of plastic propped up on a piece of wood that would direct the drips of water over to the spare tire well where it would drain out the bottom because I removed the drain plug. This is why I have yet to paint the exterior of the tire well black as it should be.

One reason it has taken so long to get to this project was that I had to sandblast and paint the original metal pieces that mount in the top corners of the tailgate area. Originally these metal pieces were embedded inside rubber but that rubber rotted away long, long ago. All that was left were the rusty metal support brackets. I was able to save one of mine but the other was completely rusted. Fortunately Wixom donated one to me. I forgot to add them to my things to be sandblasted the last time I was at the powdercoaters so I finally called a friend that has a sandblaster and he met me at his cousin's house, where his blaster is, and let me strip the brackets. After that I cleaned and painted them. This is one of the two brackets.

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This is the area where the tailgate comes up to meet the bottom of the rear side window and the rear sliding window.

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This is the area with the tailgate rolled down. When the tailgate is raised the weatherstripping I added to the tailgate presses against the bottom of this mount. I needed to find a way to seal above the mount.

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I began by trimming the bottom tips of the left and right rear sliding glass moldings I made a while back. I needed about 1/16th of an inch or so, just enough to let water drain down them but still run under them, all while also meeting the top of the rubber weatherstripping on the tailgate.

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By trial and error I used a piece of the weatherstripping and trimmed and fit again and again until it began to take a shape that would seal when I screwed the bracket in place. I used weatherstrip adhesive to seal the rubber to the bracket.

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Here are the before and after photos after I finally got the piece trimmed and glued into place. I'll touch the area up with a paintbrush later.

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The many holes in the bracket were used in the old molds when the bracket used to be encased in rubber. I used the new rubber piece I made and covered up all of those old holes except for one. This will allow any water to drain from this area and down the side of the tailgate as it was originally designed to.

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This is a picture of how the new rubber molding looks when the window is closed (I left the tailgate down for better access of the camera). The inside of the rubber had to be trimmed to match the angle where it would meet the glass.

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When the tailgate is rolled up and the window is rolled down it compresses the side moldings between them allowing the water to drain down the back window into the tailgate weatherstripping and then drain to the either side of the tailgate.

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After this process I found that the tailgate area still had a couple very small seeps so I'm going to be investigating those and sealing them after the sealant dries on the pieces I have complete thus far.

Despite the fact The Clam isn't completely finished we had the opportunity to make it to the local cruise in. Since this may be the last time this year we get to go we decided to debut The Clam. Jacob called before we left to see if he could go with us. The tailgate area worked great for Rose. We sat her car seat in the back and kept the tailgate up just enough to keep her from possibly falling out.

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Another project that I finally was able to get to is cleaning and painting the fenderwells and the bottom of the frame under the rocker panels. The frame in this area had some bare areas from sandblasting which had caused some surface rusting.

I thoroughly cleaned the fenderwells and then came back over them with brake cleaner to prepare them for paint. Then I taped off the area.

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I used a grinder pad on my air grinder to strip the worst areas on the bottom of the frame and then finished the rest with scotch-brite pads. Then I prepped them for paint and taped off the area. I was only able to get the driver side done today so I will have to finish the passenger side tomorrow.

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The new master cylinder had some rust on it from where brake fluid had run over when Nick and I went through the terrible time we had bleeding the brakes. I used the scotch-brite pads to clean the part and then repainted it with a cast iron colored paint.

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The devil is in the details Brandon, you're doing a great job! Uh, does April know you've got one of her pots out there? I was just kidding earlier about her toothbrush, but now I'm sure she's found it missing a few times,lol!

 

Brandon if there is/was a "plug" in your spare tire bottom, remove it and LEAVE IT OUT! should be like troughs in the metal leading to the hole. Those are for drainage and I have NEVER had a wagon with a plug there(altho I never had one that old I drove). it will hold water and rot it out.

 

I'm determined that The Clam will not have water leaks. It will.... nay... it must happen.

 

lol ok Brandon and you will control mother nature and condensation how?

did all the same you have and ya still have pesky leaks here and there it's a never ending battle.

seriously tho I don't think the newer ones had that plug in the very bottom none I had did and the spare tire areas were in excellent condition even tho the rest of the bodys started rusting I may have pics from my olds

 

Yeah I have this one small drip coming from somewhere above and it runs down the rear passenger pillar and drips halfway down it. My only guess would be it must be coming in on one of the roof rack screws on the rear but I put caulk strip around them. I'm stumped on this one for now until I can investigate further.

 

Will someone please explain to me where the Reference "Clam" comes from and what does it define ?

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It generally refers to full size '71-'76 GM wagons that had a tailgate that slid into the floor and rear glass that slid into the roof. Clam is short for clamshell which describes the aforementioned tailgate opening.

 

See what I mean LOL will drive ya bonkers! could be that or check the top corner of that rear window. use a garden hose and hit from many angels

 

I guess this is kind of the boring part of a restoration. Nothing interesting or cool like cutting and welding sheetmetal, but just little details that have to be done.

I moved on to finishing the passenger side fenderwells and frame.

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Definitely need to wear a mask to keep the surface rust and various other particles our of your lungs

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After I finished painting and removing all the masking paper and tape I was finally able to install the front rocker panel molding brace. If you remember way, way back when I cut out and replaced the lower panel on the passenger side I cut the panel in the shape of a capital "T" so I could keep the original holes and maintain the exact placement of this piece. I ended up not sanding down the rocker trim because they are aluminum and it would have involved sanding them with sandpaper of varying degrees of coarseness, polishing them and then covering them with a clear coat. I wasn't confident that the clear coat would stay on and could possibly chip off with rocks so I used a polishing ball on the end of a drill and spent a long time getting them back into shape. They aren't perfect, but they're better than good enough.

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I needed to find and set the pinion angle on the rear end. The new transmission caused the need for a longer driveshaft and the difference in size between the new 700r4 and the old TH400 meant that I had to modify the crossmember to allow the trans to sit lower. My friend let me borrow this angle finder.

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It is not necessary for the car to be level. What is necessary is that all the angles are relative to one another and that the jackstands are under the rear axle to mimic how far up the axle would sit against the body if the car were on the ground.

First I got a measurement from the driveshaft.

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Then I took the driveshaft out and got a measurement from the yoke.

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I tried several different areas on the differential and they all gave different measurements. This was confusing because this is not supposed to be the case so I ended up using the measurement from the yoke because that is supposed to be the most accurate measurement. Though I don't have a picture I then crawled under the transmission and got a measurement from the pan. As it turns out the yoke and transmission are exactly the same angle (positive and negative 3 degrees relative to one another). This means the transmission is pointing down to the same degree that the pinion is pointing up. This is ideal in theory, but in real life you want a bit of negative angle on the differential to compensate for how much the leaf springs allow the pinion to rotate upwards under the forces of acceleration. Other suspension types such as ladder bars require less and a four-link suspension requires an even lesser amount of compensatory negative degrees of angle. My friend is going to let me borrow some 1 degree shims to insert between the leaf springs and the rear end before I buy them. This is the appropriate way to change pinion angle. We'll begin with the one degree and move to a two degree if necessary.

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I continued working on the rear tailgate and window seals and found that the window still had too much play in it to align correctly with the rubberstripping on the tailgate. I found the reason to be yet another bolt missing from the adjustments for the window alignment. This missing bolt was hiding under the headliner material.

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The switch on the dash that operates the rear window works fine but the switch for the tailgate did not operate at all. I begrudgingly pulled all of the parts necessary to access the panel. First I used a jumper wire to determine if it was the switch that was bad. The jumper wire yielded no results so I knew if the switch was possibly bad, I also had other issues.

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I spent a very long time tracing wires and reviewing a wiring schematic in the two shop manuals for this car, the GM Shop Manual and the Fisher Body Manual. They were very confusing and not very well organized. To skip over a lot of boring details I finally found on my own that there was a relay inside the dash but the previous owner had disconnected it and tucked the wiring inside the dash making it very difficult to notice if you didn't already know it was there. When I found the harness plug for the relay I used a jumper wire and found that the tailgate worked so I knew the missing relay was my only problem. I bought a new relay from the parts house and when I plugged it in it began to smoke. I began to wonder if this relay was incorrectly labeled in their system as the blower motor relay was.

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I took the panel almost completely out and noticed the original relay still screwed in place deeper inside the dash. Just to see, I plugged in the original relay and found that it worked perfectly. I put everything back and it worked great. I wish I hadn't wasted money on a useless new relay.

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Jacob was off from school for fall break so he came by on his four wheeler. He helped me begin diagnosing the faulty cruise control. We used the flow charts in the shop manual and began checking various wires as indicated with a test light. I showed him how to use a known good power source to ensure a proper ground before testing an unknown wire or plug with a test light.

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We found a problem with the brake light switch, which also controls the cruise control.

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After fixing that problem the cruise still didn't work so we continued on and found that the button on the stalk was bad. I don't have the special tools to pull the steering wheel and get into the column so fixing this project will have to wait until another day, but at least I now know what the problem is.

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I finally put the rubber bumpers into the gas flap door...

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...and added the radiator overflow hose. I had to cover the chrome cap with my hand because the glare was blinding the picture.

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I learned an important lesson years ago with my Cadillac. Always mount the transmission dipstick tube. I'm not sure if it was never mounted or if the shop that rebuilt the transmission on the Cadillac never put it back but I never even noticed that the dipstick tube was not connected to a brace. After a while I had a transmission leak that I could not place. I eventually found that the movement and vibration of the dipstick tube had wallowed out the grommet in the pan and when the car would sit for a couple days the fluid would drain back into the pan and when it reached the level of the dipstick grommet it would pour out onto the floor.

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At first I was not thinking clearly and mounted the dipstick tube to the firewall. I completely forgot about the concept of why I needed to mount the tube in the first place. If I mount the tube to the firewall when the engine, and consequently the transmission that is hooked to it, rock back and forth with the torque of the engine then the tube will bind, causing the grommet in the transmission to wallow out as it did on the Cadillac. The dipstick tube needs to be mounted to the back of the block so that it may be free to move in relation to the body of the car but in relation to the engine and transmission it will be steady and still. I fixed this problem after the realization.

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The underside of the hood was still nasty and dirty and looked terrible. The primer was an eyesore in comparison to the otherwise completed engine bay. Also, when sitting inside the car you could see the primer color on the underside of the cowl. First I cleaned and steel-wooled all of the dirt and grease that was present then prepped everything with brake cleaner.

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Taping everything off wasn't a huge deal in comparison to the entire project but I found taping the cowl vent holes to be somewhat daunting.

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The end result is that when I raise the hood or sit inside and look at the cowl I don't notice anything, and that was the point. All that work to make sure it's never noticed or looked at, but I was glad to get it done. It had been bothering me since we got the hood back on.

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Brandon, there's no way this is a "boring part of the restoration." I wish I had more electrical analysis skills. A buddy is doing a restore on his '69 Z28, I've offered to help even if its just to hold the light and maybe agree on any item he struggles with and declares was a stupid GM design idea,lol.

Its cool of you to work with Jacob on the Clam. Not sure though how April is going to react when she sees Rose's baby blanket up under the hood!

Thanks for the update!

 

Miles Per Gallon

Haha Mike. That beautiful Pocahontas blanket was the 2nd cheapest when I went to Goodwill to buy two blankets back when I was set sanding and had to sit the doors on a table. I had a red one that I bought at the same time, the 1st cheapest one that day, but it is gone.

I tested my miles per gallon today. We drove The Clam to Church. I went to the gas station this morning and parked in a specific spot. We used a GPS to measure our mileage and then went straight back and filled up at the same pump in exactly the same spot and since the gas tank is basically just a jug I was able to fill it up exactly where it was. It was about a 75 mile round trip that included some stretches of 60-65 mph and stop and go, downtown redlights.

It averaged almost exactly 17 mpg. Not too bad I think.

I set the bar high at a personal goal of trying to get 20 mpg on the highway. I wasn't sure if I would be able to get close but I think I may be able to make it. Most cars are most efficient around 55 mph, but the overdrive ratio accompanied with the high rear end ratio means the car does turn some very low rpms even on the highway around 55 mph. The great torque of the 455 Pontiac allows the car to not be overly strained when cruising at low speed. Because of the high gear it may be possible that if I get it may find a range of max efficiency somewhere over 55 mph. I'm looking forward to taking it on an interstate/highway only trip and checking the mileage which I'm sure would be better because we had quite a bit of sitting today.

Modifications thus far include:
Electronic Ignition with regapped plugs
New true dual exhaust with x-pipe crossover
K&N air filter
700r4 Overdrive transmission
lower end torque "tow" camshaft

The only modification I have planned for the future is an electric fan I picked up from a Lincoln Mark VIII to replace the belt driven fan. This should pick up 1 or maybe 2 mpg. I think my goal of 20 mpg highway may be possible.

 

Remember, you can also always have April and/or Jacob get out and push the Clam when you're in traffic with the engine off.