Fixing up a '71 Grand Safari

take care Brandon.....the wagon can wait

 

I tried to work on the wagon

Well, I tried to work on The Clam today, but it didn't really work out. Here's what happened:

It rains and it won't stop, but finally today we had a break and I was able to get the remainder of the parts I need to block sand over to the barn. The last few days have been sanding upon sanding upon sanding. The hood itself actually took an entire day. I don't have pictures because it would basically just be a bunch of pictures of all the pieces I've already shown but in black, then another picture of them now light gray.

When I got over to my parents' house I couldn't get the Camaro in reverse. The last few days it has been hard to get into reverse, with the gear shifter pushing further left each time. This has happened before. There is an L-shaped plate that mounts under the transmission and holds the shifter linkage. It previously had a crack in it. I took it off and, because this was before I had a welder, had a friend weld it up. It seemed to have broken again. Fortunately, I was barely able to pull out of where I was parked, but I did have to drive behind the house and through the yard. I was hoping to get a fender or two finished today so I was a little let down at the though of having to fix this issue, but it is January and today was the first day it hadn't rained in days and it was also a record breaking 70 degrees outside, so if this piece was going to break it certainly picked a very convenient day to do so. At least I was able to get all the pieces I need moved over to the barn so now no matter what the weather decides to do I can continue to make progress, which is good because the entire next week is forcast to have rain.

Here's the plate. As you can see it is bent to the left. The linkage bolts to the left side of this plate and when you move the shifter left into reverse, which takes quite a bit of force, it puts pressure against the bracket which eventually causes it to break. This this is an absolute pain to remove simply because there is very little room to get a wrench positioned to take the bolts out of the bottom mount. It requires getting the wrench on the bolt and moving it about 2 or 3 millimeters and then switching the wrench around each time to progress further.

​

When I took it off the crack was evident. It is painted gold because the last time I had it off gold paint was all I had and since it can barely be seen even when under the car it didn't really matter. April was driving the car daily at the time so it was a joke between us.

​

​

I was hoping to not have to cut the pieces in half to keep all the holes in alignment, but after viewing the damage I realized it had to be done. I put an X on the two sides that go together to keep them oriented where they should be. The worst thing I could do, and it wouldn't be the first time, is to finally get it finished and realized I welded it together backwards.

​

I made sure everything was square and tacked it together

​

At first I couldn't get a good weld at all. I couldn't get it to stop popping and burning up the wire. It was a pretty windy day so I upped the pressure on the gas but it didn't help. I was really beginning to question my welding abilities and began to consider that I may need to go back and check the quality of the welds I'd done on the '37, but then I remembered that this welder likes to have more volts than the chart on the lid suggests. Once I turned it up everything was fine.

​

I cut out everything that was cracked. There is no wonder that the plate cracked the first time because it was originally shaped as you can see it below but without the metal piece I have added here. When my friend fixed it the first time he added the piece shown below. It had all cracked back out so I cut it out and decided to add some back where he had put it.

​

I went back under the car and slide the piece back in place to get some measurements. Seeing I had just enough room I decided to add some more support. I dug this triangle piece out of my scrap metal pile and cut it to fit.

​

​

And after some grinding, primer and a fresh coat of beautifully tacky gold paint, it was finished. Not very pretty but at least I'll have reverse. Considering the stress this piece is under and the fatigue the metal has already endured I'm not 100 percent positive this piece won't break again. I'll see how long it lasts and next time I may have to redesign an entire new piece from scratch.

​

 

dude i have been in the scrapyard business for over 30 years and torn THOUSANDS of cars apart.

i have seen some REALLY REALLY chincy 3 and 4 speed shifters and attatching brackets and THAT is by FAR the biggest POS i belive i have ever seen! NO OFFENCE to you man but where the hell did that come from?

That shifter should bolt directly to a solid drilled and tapped block that bolts to the tailshaft housing of the trans! By the looks of that it is going to continue to break as you have no support at the rear area of the bracket to anything solid.

 

That looks like an old vega/monza trans it's not drilled on the tailshaft is it? Looks like at the bottom of the tailshaft housing it has the extra material and has 3 holes in it in a row along the bottom of the tailshaft for the balance block(vega) or the rear support bar(vega/monza)

if that is the case the bosses should be on the tailshaft to drill and tap to install the shifter correctly

 

Way off topic

Hahahaha, no offense taken. Someone traded this car in around around 15 years ago back when my family owned a GM Dealership (before the government shut us down and then stole a bunch of our money...I'm not bitter). Though the car is a true RS/SS 4 speed, it has been hacked together. There is no telling WHAT kind of crap this car has in it. I've always wondered where that trans came from. That's interesting to know.

I'm pretty sure the car used to be a drag car that someone put back together as a street car. I've driven the car on and off for the last 15 years. It's fun, but it's also a piece of crap. It stops like garbage, drives like a wagon, handles worse than a schoolbus and as all around a deathtrap... but...it's fun... and it happens to be my only running car at the moment (other than the one my wife drives).

It's funny because I suppose for whatever reason a 67-69 Camaro is a lot of guys' dream car so the non-super car guys will always come up and say "Man, that sure is a nice car.." and I've got to where I just say thanks. I don't really know how to explain..."No, it's really not. Can't you see the bondo cracks ALL OVER THE REAR QUARTERS and visible rust everywhere?" Haha.

I always hated the way the front of the car looked because it sat too high, sits very tilted toward the driver side, and had no spoiler, SS emblem or anything up front. I bought a broken front spoiler for cheap off the internet and used a soldering iron to melt the cracks back solid and then made my own adjustable mounts from scrap metal. They wanted something like $60 or $100 dollars just for mounts on the front spoiler. All the parts for this car are RIDICULOUS. This was around the time that we knew they were going to close our dealership down so were were in the process of beginning to clean things out. I always loved the look of the old AAR Cudas with their fog lights so I found two old spot lights under my dad's couch at the dealership and mounted them. That was one of the very first things I ever fabricated. I made my own mounts from scrap steel I cut out of an old door regulator they had lying around. Then I took an old early 90's Buick Century they had used as a loaner car that was going to be scraped or sold and took the front license plate bracket off and modified it to fit on the front. I recently had to buy tires for it so I did some reasearch and found that 235/60/15 is the widest size you can fit on the front without rubbing, and since I like to keep all 4 tires the same size for rotation purposes, that's what I went with...and raised white letters, a necessity in my opinion for most muscle cars. Of course the Rallye Sport headlight flaps don't work. I have a coat hanger that holes one open and a stock that holds the other. In the summer when the days are long I actually close them, but in the winter when days are short I just leave them open all the time.

I'd like to find a used console eventually, however as with most things people want STUPID money for them. I don't mind having one that isn't in great shape because it would just match the rest of the car. They actually want near $1000 for a new console and gauges. The speedometer recently quit working AND the gas gauge quit working. Also, the driver side door handle just stripped out so I have to roll the window down to get out. It's no power steering, no power brakes, no air. Actually, it has no options. The radio is an old unit out of a Winnebago with two small speakers that actually aren't loud enough to be heard unless you're sitting still. Sometimes I literally turn it on just to see if I can guess the song before it's over.

I made a movie for a College course around 2001. Some friends were in it and it was, of course, a car chase movie. Since the movie Vanishing Point actually crashes a white '68 Camaro instead of the White '70 Challenger which the movie stars, I used that footage and edited it to the very last scene of the movie. To me it is VERY OBVIOUS that the style of film doesn't even match but everyone in the class couldn't figure out how I did that. I had used some clever camera angles of my friend standing in front of a bulldozer in a field we found to not show the ground, so with some quick scene changes it appeared he was actually standing in front of a bulldozer parked in the middle of the road. I did countless 180 spins and reverse 180s and whatnot on deserted roads. I ended up breaking both engine mounts and the transmission mount. It's funny because the Camaro, with the way the suspension is lobed together and with the steering, is probably comparable to doing stuntwork with a Model A. Literally. There are no seat belts so I used a rope to tie myself to the seat. Oh the glories of stupidity. Another friend that was is now an professional artist had a project to do where they had to create a promotion for a movie, so he used our movie and actually made a movie poster and full promotion, including a matchbox car of a white camaro in a custom package for the movie. I have the poster hanging on my wall. It turned out pretty cool.



As long as I'm SEVERELY off topic here and I already have my photobucket account open, I'll post some other pictures that some people might find interesting to take up some space until I have some more on The Clam.


Here's one of The Caprice in front of The Dealership before the local government decided to tear it down. It was a coincidence that the local government decided to close us down and tear our building down withing TWO MONTHS of the federal government deciding to close us down and steal our money. The building had been there since pre-civil war times and was used as a horse stable. It was modified and added on to, always being a car dealership. There was a "hidden" basement that after years of hearing about I finally went into before the building was destroyed. The owners back in years past were reported to have made moonshine down there. It was flooded and had been used as a dumping place, so it was covered in garbage. I found a few old Dr Pepper glass bottles and some parts to a wrecked '59 Impala they threw down there. There was a scandal at the local level and our building shouldn't have been torn down, but the scandal involved building a new "Judicial Building" with tax money. All the city council members got voted out afterward, but it was too late for us.


Here's April and I near Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. I bought this car from the original owner, an old lady. She had driven it up until 10 years before I bought it. Her dad bought it for her brand new. Her and her husband had no kids and refused to sell it to anyone. I went to visit her three times and she agreed to sell it to me provided I come back and take her for a ride in it from time to time. She loves getting to see her car. It was almost as base as a '57 Chevy could be. 150 model, rubber mats, 6 cylinder, 3 on the tree. The first time April and I ever did anything together she stopped by the dealership one day after we had recently met and she helped me put the engine back in it.



Me on my sister's ride that she had in the late 70's early 80's. Being a GM dealer's kid had its perks.


My grandfather and his '37 Chevrolet

My grandfather ran a general store and they lived in the back of it, where my dad grew up. They used to run a peddling truck and would go all around the area and sell and trade groceries from the truck. Here is my dad at the general store in front of that trucks


I started saving up when I was 11 years old and when I was 19 my dad found this for sale while on vacation. While I wanted a '59 Cadillac, they were far too expensive. The guy who owned it had cancer, was honestly almost dead already. Dad called me then went and visited the guy. He wouldn't give a price. I told dad to offer him all I had saved. He had turned down more money for the car but decided to sell it to me. He was hooked to a machine. They couldn't find the title so he had to go down to the courthouse with machines attached to get a new title. In 2003 my friend and I took a road trip with this car on the old US 41 all the way back down to Naples Florida where the owner's wife was. It took 26 straight hours of driving (except for getting gas 5 times and stopping at Waffle House and Taco Bell). When she saw the car she actually cried.


This is me on the set of the Dukes of Hazzard movie in 2005. This car had been cut in front of the windshield and had this camera contraption welded to the front and had a generator mounted on the rear to power it all. It could be driven up front by a stuntman while the camera filmed the actors inside pretending to drive.


My dad has never really cared a lot for material things. Two things he's always loved are his first car and his first bicycle. His first car was long gone but his bike was under the house in a rusted heap in a garbage bag. He had intended to have it restored but thought it was too far gone. While he was in Florida a few years ago I stole it and restored it. It took about 8 months. I actually had to have custom graphics remade from very detailed pictures of the original. The headbadge decal wasn't even offered so a guy made one from my specific pictures and measurements and I got a good deal because he now sells them to bike restorers.





I had it powder coated in a candy-red color. Found some NOS pedals and a guy had some original handle grips on a bike out in his yard so I got an old tooth brush, some soap and about an hour in the shower and cleaned them up. I bought another old speedometer from Ebay and used those internals to get dad's original speedometer working. I couldn't find a plastic shop ANYWHERE that would cut just one lens, they wanted to sell in bulk, so the glass shop cut me a piece for the speedometer for $5.



When I had the engine rebuilt on The Cadillac, my nephew, which is into cars, came to help me out. We accidentally spilled some transmission fluid so we took this picture to freak his mom out...hehehe





A few times I would go pick up new hearses at the factory and deliver them. One day I had picked one up and was going to deliver it the next morning when April ran out of gas on the way to work. I had to go pick her up and take her to work. Her students seemed to get a kick out of it. I also bought that old '68 Ford behind it, did a little work to it and sold it. That's how I was able to afford to buy my welder.


April had a Toyota Yaris when we married. She flipped and totaled it a little over a year ago. We decided to take the insurance money and build her a car she wanted. Here's April and I with the family we bought her '37 from. It had belonged to the woman's father since the 50s. She had cancer and they had to sell it to pay for her medical costs. We like cars that have a personal history. She cried when we drove away. We intend to take it back to her when we finish it:


When I was young we used to go to Florida every year at Christmas. The old gentleman who lived across the street in Florida was a family friend that also lived here in Nashville. He gave me his old bicycle one year. It was completely covered in rust. We fixed it up with a cheap coat of paint and I've had it ever since. This is my bike.



And here is that man's wife. I always said I wanted his car. When he passed away around 1999 she sold me his old car because I had always liked him and she knew I wanted it. April and I went back to visit her about a year ago. She's in her 90s now and still does EVERYTHING on her own. She had just been standing on a chair replacing a light bulb before we showed up.

 

April and I getting married in 2010


and Honeymoon in Gatlinburg


My dad's '71 Catalina, that prompted me to search the internet randomly one late night just to see if there were any '71 Pontiac wagons for sale. There was one. You know the rest of that story. He worked at a car lot in the 70's. They sold this car new and when it was traded back in in 1974 he bought it and has had it ever since. It is 100% original, except for the wheels and fenderskirts he added. We used to take family vacations in it.



My nephew actually working under my '57 Chevy


The car for which my internet namesake exists. My dad restored this when I was around 7 or so and I helped a bit.


I sold a set of 10 spoke vectors like the wheels used on The General Lee and bought this cycle from my friend. It was his old starter bike. I found the fairing, saddle bags and sissy bar online for very cheap. To me it's just an old bike I use solely to save money on gas in the summer, but I've found that apparently some people think it's a classic. If you look closely you might see that I've installed the 4 note "mini train horn" from a late 90s Buick Park Avenue.


And finally.... Here is a picture of my grandmother and grandfather on their first date. He had a '29 Chevrolet and this was the house she grew up in. The right side of the picture is April and I on my '31 Chevrolet in front of the very same house. We were able to give both pictures as a surprise to my grandmother before she passed away. She really liked to sit them on her mantle and show everyone at the assisted living home. I used a computer to put his license plate on my car, which surprisingly enough, because of the bad programs I have, took about 6 hours to get right.


Well, that's about it. I guess if I'm going to go off topic, I'll go WAY off topic.

 

Vetteman61;
What an AWESOME post!
Thanks for sharing...I truly enjoyed it!

You and April make a beautiful couple.
You're both so lucky to have found each other...a pair of car-loving kindred spirits!

 

All awesome pics and storys but when it comes to EPIC!......

 

Really enjoyed the pics and story.

You've led an interesting life, and you are just at the start of it.

Great fun, thanks so much for spending the time to write it and post the pictures. A very fun read.

 

Vetteman61 , just fantastic great family and a lovely wife and i gess you wont be buying a Ford anytime soon

 

I have really enjoyed following your progress on the clam, but this little off topic excursion has been awesome. I love all of the pics. The Caddy would have been a heeluva car to take on your honey moon. The American automobile is more than transportaion, it's a part of our lives and I have greatly enjoyed seeing all of them and reading about their stories. I must say that my favorite one of the bunch is the last one that has you and April in the same spot as your grandparents. Wonderful post bud, thanks for sharing.

 

Dude!



Very tastefull and TOTALLY AWESOME!

 

That was grate! You guys are a true car family and really like the red ones! That 71 Catalina looks awesome, your pop still has it? for "Way off topic" post rating.

I'm guessing you're over the flu bug?

 

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I guess I was just feeling in a "typy" mood last Saturday. I was very luck to have a woman that not only enjoys cars but is happy to let me enjoy them as well.

Actually, after the way GM treated our family I personally will never own a new GM vehicle. I will make all attempts to ensure they will not profit from me ever again. My only exception might be if I have to one day purchase some type of crate engine to keep my old cars running. Any american car before 1973 is cool with me.

Dad does still have The Catalina. I actually drove it this summer when the air conditioning went out on The Caprice because The Catalina has the coldest air conditioning out of any car either of us have ever owned. It's still R12.

Thanks again everyone for the kind words.

Brandon

 

What part of Tennessee are you all located?