79 Cutlass Wagon G-machine build

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Some new updates from the last coupla days.

First off I got the front bumper finished up. I sectioned it 1" on the pass side as well as sectioned the turn signal opening from the donor bumper. I then cut out the area on my bumper, tacked in the donor piece and welded it all up.

I learned something new as I did this. Monday my professor and I were talking about weld "prettiness" and where I need to be at with my welding to be at a level where a decent shop will be impressed and hire me. I asked about mig welding and which was a better weld - a nice continuous bead or "stacking pennies"? We discussed the possibility that stacking pennies, although it looks great, wouldn't heat the metal enough to get decent penetration on thicker metal. So to run a test to answer my question I welded the passenger half with short continuous stitch weld beads. I used the paint shop side 120V MIG with the heat cranked all the way. If the stitches were too long or too slow it would blow a hole, so after finding a decent speed I got pretty nice welds. On the driver side I stacked pennies.

When I flipped it over I found that with that smaller welder on a thick bumper it had trouble penetrating very well either way, but to my surprise the stacking pennies actually got better penetration overall. It also had a smaller heat zone around the weld and looked a ton better :twothumbs. Too bad it's all going to get ground flat anyway, lol!

 

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Everything I've been doing so far in the rear of the car was to get everything situated so I can install a roll cage. After researching kits I found nothing fit the wagon the way I wanted. So I checked into just getting just a main hoop and building off that. I got a price from Jegs, I think it was like $45, very reasonable. What wasn't reasonable was the $99 shipping shaft, er, charge. So I decided to just build the whole thing from scratch. Because I've never done anything even remotely close to this I decided to do a mock up first before bending steel. Using PVC pipe, a few homemade brackets and some duct tape I got one put together.

Please note that my cage won't be "legal" for any serious racing venues, it's main design purpose was to add stiffness and safety without sacrificing comfort and streetability at all. Some features will be- A snug overall fit contoured to the interior. There is recessed main hoop cross bar behind the front seats so I have plenty of seat adjustability. I will also be building a camera stand off this bar. I have fairly long legs so I sat in the back seat with the mock up in the car just to make sure there was plenty of "get in" room and clearance for knees. The rearward bars make up the "cage" portion, similar to a 10 point cage turned backwards. I did this mostly because I didn't want to cut up the dash for front bars and that's probably overkill anyway. I also want to keep the versatility of the wagon's back storage area so the diagonal brace will be above the rear seat area. The rear bars will hit right after the rear wheel wells. I want to keep the stock lower half of the front door panels so I had to make the front bar fairly low to clear the armrest mold. The front bars are more for chassis stiffness than anything and are similar to a tiger cage.

With doing the PVC mockup I was able to test fit and try different options before bending and possibly wasting metal tubing. It's rough and pretty ugly, but when it was in the car it fit great and placement looked decent as I envisioned the real bar in there. The interior will be black with a splash of orange and silver accents. I plan on painting the cage silver too.

 

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The last thing I needed to do before the cage is the rear wheel tubs. If you rememeber the passenger side had some gnarly rot on it.

I don't much like the plastic rear interior panels and this side now gets in the way of the battery...

...and I think the shape of the factory tubs are too doofy to have exposed.

I saw this photo the other day looking at roll bars in wagons and thought the squared off wheel tubs and fairly flat and plain panels made the car look kinda mean so I decided to go for that look.

I started cutting today using a plasma cutter. I will be extending the wheel tubs in about 1" and the red arrow points to the frame rail that will get notched to match the tub. I don't need to do this now but I'm getting it set up for later. I maxed out my budget on rims and tires for right now so when the 275's are worn out I will be getting 11.5" rims and 315-35s out back.

I'll be cutting out the driver's side tomorrow and then start building the tubs.

 

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Finally for now is the big parts delivery for this past week, my 5.3 LS motor. It's not the one I originally thought I was getting but it will do. I sold my rebuilt original 305 (that was in the car when I bought the whole car for $300), for $450 to a fellow classmate for his '54 GMC project. This 5.3 cost me $480.xx including sales tax so I guess I did o.k. for $30 out of pocket lol!

It's from a 2000 Tahoe with a little over 106,000 miles. Unfortunately it came as you see it, luckily it did have the power steering pump but is missing most everything else such as ecm, wiring, alternator, starter, etc... Let me know if you have spare parts that can help me get it together.

Despite I have to piece it together, I'm totally stoked to have an LS motor powering my car. I'm gearing up for the Holley LS fest, woohoo!!!

 

[liquidh8]

Great progress and moving right along. It is nice having the tools for the job. I have most of them at home for me, just need the time. Check out my Buick sometime. I love the fender vents! very nice touch. I am curious as to your outcome of the wheeltubs, I planned on doing something similar, just wasn't sure on how I was going to finish it off inside. Thank you for the spare tire info also, as i have the LS1/C5 rear rotors/calipers, and going with the LS1/C5 front calipers/rotors on the stock spindles with the rotors.

Keep up the progress reports!

 

[LSCustoms]

amazing as usual with your craftsmanship!

 

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Finally some more progress...

First off, another class assignment. We learned about frenching, and for our assignments we had to make a panel and french a tail light and antenna. We were graded on just going through the process, not finishing it to paint ready. Here's mine and my light is in the background. It was a fun assignment but it's not as pretty as I would do to a real car, I knocked it out quickly to get back to my car...

 

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I wanted a fairly large tub, big enough to stuff a 13" tire at full suspension squat. The main problem with doing this to a wagon is the back seat. I want to keep mine totally functional in the up and down position. This required some creativity and some trial and error. Finally on the 3rd cardboard design I got everything to work out. I started with a "chip board" pattern and flat 18ga sheet metal to come up with the sides.

Using the pullmax I raised the edge to a 90 degree angle

and using the slip roller bent the top.

 

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Here's the final product, panels welded with screws holding them in place. They are slightly different side to side because the gas filler neck is inside the wheel well on the driver's side.

Notice the notch I had to create to allow clearance for the back of the seat.

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Now I have to modify the seat back just a bit, the hinge bars run into the wheel wells so I need to move them inward about 1-1.5". More to come on that...