76 Caprice Estate from Florida to California or bust!

I cant view any of your pics but it sounds like a nice wagon, LOADED!

 

So it's the 16th, are you on the road?

 

Sounds like a great wagon and a great road trip! Good luck on your travels!

 

Hope you're having a good trip with the new clam. I bet your work has a naughty filter of some kind that blocks those images from showing up?? :confused:

 

congradulations ! can't see pics either. You must be on road right now. If you come West as stated, from palm Springs take the 111 to 79 to go across mountains to San Diego. Lots to see here and if you are in town on a Saturday will take you to an awesome Saturday car event - just many wonderful,cool and awesome cars, one never knows what shows up. trying to get a couple of long roofs together

 

Hey Guys thanks for the interest! Yes we arrived in Tampa at about 6:30 PM on Saturday evening and Mark who has been the perfect host so far, picked us up from the airport and drove us straight out to see the car. She needs a little love and will need the rust in the known areas like the dogleg and the spare wheel base fixed but it is not too serious either. The wood is not worth saving so I will replace this and it will need a coat of paint as well but once it is finished, this will be a stunning car. Also other than the rust, the body itself is as straight as it comes. I don't think it has ever been in any serious accidents and there appears to be absolutely no bondo anywhere. It is a very honest original Clamshell!

The interior is clean and tidy. The roof lining is like new the carpet is ok, the vinyl on the top half of the door cards is almost perfect but the remaining plastic really need to be redyed if you want it look right. The dash has one crack but Mark has also got another put a side so it can be replaced. I will have to remember to remind him so he dose not forget to get it out of storage before we leave. Overall, the interior is probably about a 7-8 out of 10.

Mechanically, the tires are brand new, the brakes are good but the master cylinder is weeping so I have already bought a new one but really, I wont touch it until I get it back home though, and the engine runs like a Swiss watch. I drove it down to Gulfport from Saint Petersburg and it drives absolutely fantastic! No sign of any front end wear or flat spots from a poor tune or worn cam or carby and there doesn't appear to be any other engine or transmission issues at all. Overall it is quiet with no squeaks or rattles and absolutely floats on a cloud. It effortlessly drives along as straight as an arrow.

Oh there was couple of nice surprises waiting for me as well, as most of you know I was holding out for a fully powered tailgate and A/C, but was not fussed about the third row, well I knew this one had the trifecta with all three options along with other nice goodies like power windows, steer, door locks and drivers seat, but I did not know it had factory cruise control and tilt wheel as well. Mark forgot to write this up when he sent me the original list of options! This is one fully loaded Clamshell.

We spent the rest of the day buying things like spanners and screw drivers a new parts like a fuel filter and few other bibs and bobs so we can have relatively hassle free trip back to LA. One thing stopped us in our tracks today though is the rear drivers side door decided to it wasn't going to open for some reason, so we spent the rest of the day working out how to remove the door card without damaging it while the door is still closed. We managed that but it was also getting late so we called it a night and we will resume again first light tomorrow.

My iPhone 5 has been flat since I have been here (got an old Nokia with a US sim as well), and I forgot the plug in lead so I can't charge it either but I will fix that tomorrow so I can charge up my iPhone so I can start taking some . I was Also going to transfer it into my name tomorrow as well but it turns out to be some holiday or something and the DMV wont be open so I will have to wait until Tuesday before we clear all of this up so we can finally hit the road.

Anyway it is getting late and the jet lag is still reaping havoc so I better call it a night. Hopefully I can put some pics up tomorrow.

Cheers Mike.

 

Finally had a moment where I could sit down and put up some of my favourite shots of the 76 Caprice from our trip from Florida to California.

First stop of many!


After about 4 hours on the road on the first night, this is where we found out that the starter was suffering from heat soak, straight after this pic was taken.


So this is where it sat for an hour or so until it cooled.

Then it started and acted as if nothing was wrong. That's when I found out that it was a female!

The next day somewhere near Pensacola I think, where the Blue angles are.


If I remember rightly, the car is still running in these shots. We even left it running when we filled it up. I think it ran for 12 hrs straight until we stopped for the night in Donalsonville Ga.

 

Good luck on the trip and gratz on such a great car!
PS love the color combo

 

Beautiful wagon very lucky for you! glad you made it home safe and sound but we do need to hear more about your EPIC journey.

 

Beautiful wagon! Also have a safe trip if you're not at your destination yet.

 

nice wagon! got the glass for mine paid for and should be on its way downunder soon

 

let me know when you get closer to Palm Springs-San Diego area

 

Thanks guys, hey rrbnut, I should have said something when we arrived in SoCal, it would have been cool to catch up and see your 76 CE as well, maybe next time for sure! As it turns out, we finished up in L.A. on March the 1st and I am only just getting the time to go through some of my pics and posting them now.

When we were in SoCal, we were there when the heavens opened and dropped about 4 inches of rain on the Friday over the L.A. area before we left. Man those freeways are fun when the rain is belting down and the spray is coming up from the wheels of all them cars and rigs reducing visibility down to about 10 feet, I was surprised to not see any real accidents really. When I think about it, we travelled from Pomona down the I-15 to a Malibu boat dealer on Murrieta (so we were half way to San Diego anyway) and then back up and over to Carson then LAX to pick up a hire car, finally north along the I-110 to meet the I-10 to get back to Pomona so we covered a lot of road in some of the most appalling road conditions I have ever experienced!

Ok here are a few more pics. Just a quick snap at the Mississippi State line just to show we were there! Here you can see the extent of most of the rust. The dogleg needs attention and the lower 4-5 inches of the driver side rear quarter needs to be snipped of and rebuilt. I have had it on a hoist (when I got the starter motor swapped out), and it is really isolated to what you can see in this area thankfully.


The rest of the rust that will need to be treated is, a new piece welded into the spare wheel well bottom, and the lower front passenger fender also needs some attention as well. This is the extent of most of the rust, but there is still one or two spots around the place that will also need to be treated before it is painted as well. As you can see the wood on the driver’s side is toast and also the front fender is suffering from a previous repair so the wood tones do not match. This all will need to go unfortunately because I was hoping to save the wood but when you see it for what it is then it would only degrade the overall appears once the car is finished.

This is just outside of Sierra Blanco TX (gotta love iPhones!), you can see the township in the far far distance.


Same spot, must have been a pee stop if I remember correctly!


We drove over night leaving at about 4 pm from Donaldsonville GA (due to the starter change over) to Phoenix making it there in around 4 pm the next day, after only stopping for a 3 hour sleep rest from 3am to 6am in a truck stop somewhere deep in the heart of Texas. We were sitting on around 80-85 mph in this thing through the middle. It was awesome!


Well on our way by now, this is in a small gas station in Marana AZ. Just stopping to check what was happening under the hood I think. It used around 2 quarts of oil in 3500 miles, with a an average speed of over 60 mph, not too bad.


More to come, Enjoy

Cheers Mike.

 

We've stayed overnite at Donaldsonville.
And the Blue Angel museum in Pepsicola is a great place. Retired pilots are the tour guides.

 

great on the update and yes please contact me next time you are around the San Diego area; also lots of car events going all the time here and could be fun to visit some of those when you are here next. cheers!