Fixing up a '71 Grand Safari

Near nashville

 

nice post Brandon !!!
great picks bro

 

Small Update

An arctic front moved in which dropped temperatures into the teens. It has been extremely cold in the barn but I have really wanted to get through with this as soon as possible. I have wrapped up in multiple layers but my hands have been exposed. As long as I am moving and sanding they stay warm but if I stop they start getting numb. Today the high was back into the 40s, which was good because April forgot to leave me the keys to The Caprice so I had to ride a bicycle over to my parents house, which is about a mile and a half. It was still in the high 20s or low 30s at this point. I called her after she got off work to get her to pick me up on her way home and asked her to look in her purse. I then asked her if she saw any keys. She looked, then hesitated a minute. I could actually feel it sinking it. It was pretty funny.
After many, many days I finally finished block sanding all the removed body parts. I do still have the small pieces that mount to each of the four corners, but those are very small. The header panel, which houses the headlight buckets, actually took a lot longer than I anticipated. With all the curves and small lips it was very difficult to get all the sanding lines out without sanding through the primer.
It took quite a few attempts to get the trailer backed in because I didn't have the extended mirrors on the truck and it was impossible to see exactly where I was going. First I had to move all the parts outside, pull the car in the barn and then put the parts in the trailer.

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It was a close fit. The car was in the trailer at an angle and was only about an inch or two from the support cable from the door on the trailer.

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I had to cut a couple holes in the paper so I could see. I definitely didn't want to run over the hood.

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I know these doors don't look that big, but they are extremely difficult to move. I had to pick them up from the door panel side to make sure I didn't scratch the primer and this made it impossible to lift with anything but the back. After moving all of them I felt like I had been hit with a truck.

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I recovered the holes I cut and now I just need to finish blocking the roof and quarters on the body and it will be ready to take to the paint shop.

 

Thks for the update Brandon. Try not to come down sick again! Cold temps are brutal esp if there's any wind involved.

 

Thanks, Mike. Even more especially when you have on 4 layers and then have to ride a bike a mile in a half in below freezing temperatures...hehehe.

Brandon

 

Working in below freezing temps does all kinds of wonderful things to your respiratory system,lol. The news did a piece on it here a couple days ago.

 

Interesting you mention that. I've always had a very mild case of asthma set in when I exert myself in cold weather. When I was young I used to play soccer and though it didn't really ever stop me, I could feel its effects. Today I was wondering about it as well.

When I'm in the barn I've been wearing one of the cheap masks from Lowe's that has the small valve on it. I wear it for the dust but it also helped in keeping the air I was breathing warm. I apparently inherited this from my father, we both are extremely sensitive to any kind of air to the face that is a different temperature than what we're in, or from getting sore throats in cold weather. According to the doctor it's some form of asthma. Very, very annoying and usually leads me to getting sick or a sinus infection at least once a year, typically after spending the night somewhere else.

But yeah, if it weren't for the mask I most likely would already be sick again. I wonder since I technically had the flu on New Years if that counts as my 1-2 sicknesses a year quota.

 

You are making really great progress, Brandon. I cannot wait to see how wonderful it looks when you are all done! It is going to be simply spectacular.

Dealing with asthma brought on by the cold is a bugger. My Mom has suffered from that for a LOT of years. A simply paper painter's mask will be a big help. You are right, the mask helps warm the air. It also, though, traps the moisture in the air you exhale, making the air you inhale more humid. That is a good thing, since it is partly the very dry air that is causing you the problem in the first place. Cold air only holds a fraction of the moisture of warm air, and as the air gets warmer with your body heat, it actually sucks moisture from you. That is what is causing a lot of the problem. I'm surprised the doctor never suggested masks to you or your dad long since!

 

Well after reviewing your pics you're going to have to resand the whole roof at least 3 times!
I see aircraft skidmarks all over that thing and they are HARD to remove!

 

That's interesting, Mike. And actually that moisture is also somewhat of a problem. After wearing the mask all day it gets very wet inside and then the cotton fibers start coming apart which leaves little threats that tickle your nose all day.

Man, you can't say things like that about having to resand the roof!!!! I almost had a Redd-Foxx-big-one just reading it. I don't think I could take it. I finsihed with the 180 on the roof, now it's time for the 320, which is actually more difficult. The 320 paper loads up a lot more than the 180.



Brandon

 

Wow, great detail in your project reporting, i'm exhausted from reading the whole thing. At first i wanted a big wagon to keep my mini one company but now i'm not so sure , what a ton of work you have done, super job.

 

Awesome work on this, read through the whole thread......Will be following this for sure

 

lol i KNOW i just did one! i think my arms still HURT thinking about it!
Redd foxx big one CLASSIC! i am rollin!

 

Thanks guys. I finished the roof Saturday. In total it took around 7 hours on the roof alone. The panels were on a table so they were fairly easy to get too. The roof was a much less natural position to reach and I was pretty tired afterwards.

I'm am tentatively scheduled to take it to the paintshop next weekend. I have two quarter panels to go and I also have to scuff every inch of any other area that sealer/paint will need to stick to, like door jambs, all the little crannies around the door hinges and in the tailgate storage compartment. If you want to take my fingerprints, you better do it now because I'm sure the scotchbrite pads will alleviate me of those before the week is over.


Brandon

 

The time since the last entry has been full of sanding. The weather has been wet and very, very cold. We have also had more than one night full of damaging winds and tornadoes. Once again it has been so cold that I have had to keep my hands warm and begin sanding immediately upon getting to the barn or my fingers would get numb and I couldn't control what I was doing. Also, a couple of nights, because of the storms, water ran into the barn. It didn't cover the entire floor, but about 10 feet of the concrete next to the door was covered. Also, we had one day that the temperature spiked to 70 degrees and then dropped to 30 that night. This caused condensation of the concrete which caused everything metal from hip level down to be completely covered in water and it was so cold it was very difficult to dry any of it off so that it didn't cause my sandpaper to clog. Also, this caused some flash rusting which had to be dealt with as well. Something else fun that happened was that at night I started to notice red marks on my fingers and hands that would burn in the shower. I couldn't figure out where they were coming from until I noticed one day that I was bleeding. It turned out the sandpaper was rubbing through my skin, causing the bleeding, and because I was pressing on them, I couldn't get them to stop while I was sanding, so I had to wait for them to heal. All that aside, after finishing the body panels I was able to finish the body of the car in one week.

After buying all the paint supplies, which amounted to just a little under what I paid for the whole car, the guys at the parts house are much more accommodating now, so that is a nice result. It turned out that the color April, and I as well, really liked was a 1973 GM color. Oldsmobile called it Emerald Green, Pontiac called it Verdant Green and Chevrolet simply called it Dark Green. The cost of the paint supplies were stroke-inducing: Two gallons of base coat, reducer for that, a gallon of sealer, two gallons of clear coat, a hardener and a sealer for that. No wonder the parts house guys were so happy.

Yesterday I took the car and all of its parts, in two separate loads, down to the paint shop. Fortunately, the shop is only about 3 miles from our house. It is in the back of a used car dealership that was, up until recently, a GM dealership that the government in their infinite stupidity decided to close down when they took over GM a few years ago.

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The painter called today and said he was already done with it and asked if I could come pick it up so it would be out of the way. This was much sooner than I had anticipated and the problem I had was that when I hauled the doors home I didn't have anyone to help me unload them into my garage. I searched everywhere and finally I called dad to see if he knew anyone. He called a friend who came over and helped me unload them. After unloading the doors and fenders and various parts I came back and picked up the car. I called April, because it happened to be right as she was getting off work, and she met me there to get a first look at the color. We both thought the color turned out really well and it really complimented the color of the interior. It was difficult searching for the right shade of green but April said that this was exactly the color she had pictured so I suppose that's what matters. The pictures don't really do the paint justice compared to what it looked like under the florescent lights.

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And, upon April's request, an obligatory shot of me in front of the car.

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Here are a few of the pieces

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It's not a show car, but it wasn't intended to be. In my opinion, it turned out to be a really great, perhaps above average, driver quality car. Next stop is the upholstery shop to have a headliner put in. Then I'll have the windows reinstalled, which can be done at my house since the window guy is mobile, and then I'll drop the engine in so the ball joints can be replaced before I reinstall any of the front end. It was recommended that I wait at least a month before installing any woodgrain.

Brandon