Fixing up a '71 Grand Safari

I know the feeling of frustration when you have to learn as you go on stuff. That's me all the time it seems. So you think you've found a solution on how to use the new radiator? It's not going to vibrate too much to where there's a chance it'll come loose from its mount while going down the road?? As always I'm pretty :confused: about the situation.

On a side note, does your Dad ever look at this forum? Would be cool to have him as a member. I know he has some tales to tell as well as a lot of knowledge and insight with his years in the business?

 

top left of this photo looks like flakey rust on that front bottom corner.while you have it up in the air wire brush/light blast it there good and coat it. also under that strap. Those 2 locales are the most prone to leaks anyhow may as well nip it in the bud.

 

Thats where all the road crap ends up from the drivers rear tire.

 

Yeah, I'm definitely going to go back and hit these areas here. There's still a bit of undercoating here that needs to be ground off and then the surface rust from where I blasted it. I'm just trying to understand the comment here. The very top left of this photo is not the gas tank, it's part of the body, directly under where the tailgate motor is. From this perspective the gas tank can barely be seen behind the frame rail.


Brandon

 

Brandon, this is the only photo I can find of the factory placement of the exhaust pipe on my wagon. To my knowledge, these wagons were only made with single exhaust, and the spare tire well does pose a clearance problem when trying to match this placement on the right side. I will run dual exhaust on mine and will make it work, but not sure how.
I'm all for waiting and seeing how your set up works, but I bet you will end up having to get some extensions that resemble the factory pipe outlet so you don't gas yourself.



And speaking of gas, I do believe that the photo that Wagon Killer is referring to does show the bottom flange of the gas tank, rusty or not. It is housed in the LH quarter, and takes up the exact same space as the spare tire does in the RH quarter. In the inadequate photo above, the bottom of my gas tank is visible at the far LH edge.

(sorry to put my wagon pics on your thread, but they are the only pics I could find to illustrate )

David

 

this is a good way of showing him man thanks for the pic. if you see the gas door on the 1/4?(or rather where it would be there is NO TUBE feeding that tank the gas nozzle goes inside the top of your tank! That area you discribed for grinding and clean up IS THE TANK BOTTOM do NOT GRIND THAT! or you very well may go BOOM! and you can plainly see the metal strap in the center bottom of the tank in your pic i posted.

 

Ohhhhh, OK, I think I see. I haven't really been under this car a whole lot, and when I was I wasn't thinking about the gas tank. When I was up under there 6 months or so ago I thought I saw the gas tank somewhere up in front of the tailgate storage area. Even though I now can put it together in my head that it's not there, I still had in my mind that's where it was.

So the tank is stuffed up inside the rear driver side quarter panel. Do any other parts of the car have to be removed to remove the gas tank?

Wixom, post all the pictures of your wagon on here you want, it's awesome (just don't tell The Clam I said that, I think it gets very jealous).

After the day I had today trying to put the fuel pump on I don't want to even think about that green monster.

Brandon

 

You can unbolt and pull that bottom strap and fold it down to clean/coat

Removal,

Jack up the car(not by the axle) leaving the axle dangling(this will give you more room YOU WILL NEED IT) Get it fairly high off the ground. Remove drivers rear tire,at the back of the wheel well there is a cover.There are 5-6 5/16th head screws holding a cover plate in the wheel well to protect/isolate the tank.

Unscrew your ground strap and unbolt the straps holding the tank,you can push on these(straight back from the direction they come from appx 1-1/2 to 2 inches) and lever the hidden end twards the tank and remove them completely. You will have ample gas line to be able to drop the tank and remove them(REPLACE THESE while your at it) also remove the sending unit hook up wire (twist and pull straight up) tank comes down and forward
towards the brake drum to remove.(thats why you want it fairly high).

You may have 1 fuel line or if a return line there will be 2 the 3/8th's line is fuel delivery and the 5/16th's is the return also should be a vent i think on that one being older they are usually 1/4. Once out you will see the cavity i was speaking of,also on the inside of the frame you usually have a 4-5 inch long piece of 3/8th's rubber line in between the metal lines(usually under the dog leg back door area in front of rear tire) Might as well replace it too as it is possibly dry rotted from age too. Any questions lemmie know.

 

Have you got to the point of the windshield removal? Were you able to remove it without breaking it? Was there alot of rust under there? My front windshield leaks at the top center (at least that is where it comes in) and I will have to remove it (as well as the cargo area windows) and hoping I dont break it and wondering if you had any tricks or advice on removal? I may end up letting my cousins body shop do it.

Thanks!

 

Kingswood use the right tool to remove the chrome strips it is either rust(worse case scenerio) Or very often the seals release themselves after many years from the factory(best case scenerio easier to get out)

or the sealer released from the body metal which can be good or bad(rust) rear windown will probly be the same. also is it comming from the glass seal for sure? i have had these leak back by the luggage rack and follow the metal to the front(doubled roof) and leak down thru the metal strip along the inside top of the windshield.

 

Accessories

Thanks Killer.

I removed the windshield a very long time ago. In fact, I removed it the day we found out April was pregnant, and she only has a couple months left. The previous owners had installed so much sealer and silicone into the channel it was a huge, huge mess. The top moldings could not even be removed. It appears they had just filled the entire area with sealer and then squished the moldings on. It was so hardened I had to chisel them out. I even had to chisel the window clips out and you couldn't even tell where some of them were. I have most of the process documented in this thread.

The removal process was pretty easy, but it helps to have two people. Use a real wire, not a guitar string. I did end up chipping my windshield in one small area that probably wouldn't have matters because of the way it broke, but I was already going to replace it anyway. The only reason it broke is because of all the chiseling I had to do to get the moldings off. The hardened sealer in the front and two side windows is the only thing that made mine difficult. In the areas where there was no sealer it was very simple. The rear windows, which I thought would be easier to break, ended up being much stronger than the front.

After the radiator problem I wrongly assumed I could really dig in and really make some headway. After installed the front crank pulley I installed the fuel pump. When I tightened the rear screw for the pump it wouldn't tighten up. The pump screws into the timing cover, which is aluminum, and it was completely stripped out. I was very determined to not remove the front end of the engine, mostly because Gary was the one who had put it on and because he knows what he is doing I knew it was done correctly. I went to the parts house and the guy who operates the machine shop in the back let me borrow a helicoil kit so I wouldn't have to buy one.

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After carefully tapping the hole, which took a while because space was limited, I then installed the helicoil.

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I expected that to be the end of that. Not a huge setback. Then, I ran the bolt into the threads just to test it and as I tried to back it out it marred. After much ado attempting to back it out it ended up breaking off inside the cover. The fortunate part of this unfortunate event is that only the tip of the bolt broke off in the back of the hole. When I returned to the parts house the machinist recommended I install a stud with lock tight and use a nut on the end. Fortunately there were enough threads left in the bolt hole for this to work safely.

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This problem took almost the entire day. That was two entire wasted days solving problems that should have taken about 15 minutes a piece. The rain then delayed progress for several more days. I used this time to go down to the barn and get the '31 Chevy back together. A couple weeks ago some friends helped me sit the head that I had repaired back on the block. There was quite a bit of work left to do and since it was sheltered in the barn I was able to work on it while it rained.

I was walking around the Cracker Barrel restaurant one day and looked down to notice this chocolate bar. I couldn't believe that there was actually a Pontiac Grand Safari pictured on the wrapper. April was with some of her girlfriends so I figured with her chocolate pregnancy cravings and a picture of a Clamshell on the wrapper this would be a good opportunity to win husband of the year.

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I was finally able to continue on installing the remaining engine accessories. This was a very slow, tedious job because the brackets that hold the accessories on are a complicated series of brackets stacked upon brackets with multi-layered bolts, some going through several brackets into the block and some going into other brackets already installed. The shop manual was somewhat helpful, but not in all areas. I went over to my dad's house and took some pictures of his Catalina for reference. Also, due to the nature of how some of the engine was disassembled outside of my garage, not all the bolts were bagged and labeled as I am accustomed to them being. New bolts and a couple of spacers had to be customized to fit the application to replace originals that have since been lost. Here I have installed all of the bolts but not tightened them up so that I can later install the belts.

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After installed all of the brackets on the passenger side I had to remove them all again when I realized that two of the headbolts had been installed in the wrong place. The middle bolt with the threads sticking out of the top was originally swapped with the one in the very front of the head shown here. I had to remove them and re-torque them and then reinstall the maze of bracketry.

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Unfortunately my friend Nick's motorcycle broke a chain so I went and picked him up. He happened to be close to where my father lives so we pushed it about 3/4 of a mile back to dad's house and left it in the garage. In return he helped me put the hood back on. Here, April finishes tightening the last hood bolt.

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This PCV valve ended up being a huge pain. The old valve came out relatively easy but the old grommet was so brittle from age that it broke apart and a couple pieces fell inside the engine. It took a while but I finally got both pieces out.

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There were many small tasks that don't all bare reporting, but are very time consuming. For example, using the steel grinding wheel to clean these hood latch clamps, then primering them on both sides with self etching primer, then painting them black and then finding the right sized rivets and reinstalling them. Many small detailed things like this that eventually go unnoticed in the final product, when all combined, end up taking a lot of time.

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With most of the engine looking fairly new and fresh I couldn't sit the old, somewhat rusted air cleaner lid on top of it, so I used 400 grit sandpaper to prepare the surface and then used a steel brush bit in the drill to remove any of the surface rust that existed. Then came primer and paint.

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The next problem came when I realized the new fuel pumps that are built do not have the same connection as the original. The original fuel pump had a 90 degree bend in the line that allowed the fuel line to connect with a double flared fitting. The new pump had a nut that came straight down with no bend. With the help of the guy at the parts house I found the fitting on the right.

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As you can see here the line did not even come close to reaching where I have the new fitting installed.

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This was the solution. I cut the end of the old fuel line and used rubber fuel line to connect to the new fitting on the pump, just like is used from the factory on the other end of the fuel line where it meets the carburetor.

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April snapped a picture of me as I crawled under the hood to line up the fuel pump as I sat in the new electronic distributor.

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It fell right into place the very first try. It was so easy I'm almost curious if something isn't right. The previous day I could not find anyone available to hold their finger in the #1 spark plug hole while I used a breaker bar underneath to turn the engine manually to align top dead center on the harmonic balancer. Fortunately when Nick helped me install the hood he also helped me check to make sure I was on the compression stroke, so I was able to sit the distributor in right where it needed to be.

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I found that much like with the head, a manifold bolt that also had threads sticking out the top was in the wrong place, which prohibited me from installing the throttle linkage. After removing the rear alternator bracket and swapping the bolts I was able to get the linkage where it needed to be.

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There are still a few vacuum lines that need to be installed and the wiring harness needs to be hooked up. After that I'll install plug wires, run the wiring and relay for the new HEI ignition and install the wiring and relay for the new horns.

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This hood gap is not acceptable so I'm going to need to find a way to adjust it. The problem is that the hood bolts to the fender, so if I moved it in it would also move the hood with it. Another problem is that because of the close clearance with the door, the fender cannot move in any further.

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After the engine runs I'll take it to get the front end aligned and to have the woodgrain installed.

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That is possible. I never thought about that. Well I had already put the caulk around the trim to hold out any water until I can have the car painted (when I will also have the windows removed), but at least I know that it may be coming from the luggage rack area, I will look into that! Thanks!

 

That is coming along very nice! That engine bay looks awesome! Looks like new! What type of woodgrain are you putting on, were you able to find OEM?

I cant wait to start digging into mine!

 

vetter i had a wagon windshield that was done like that at the top oh just fill it with goo and stick the chrome on LOL what a treat!