79 Cutlass Wagon G-machine build

[liquidh8]

Also, I swapped an 86/7 unit in my chevy. It wasn't hard at all. I liked having the controls on the signal stalk. It is easier to wire and all with the fender off. So if you choose to do it, I would do it before putting the LF fender back on.

 

[SRD art]

Thanks for the encouraging words. We looked at a nice rental the other night. I want to check it out when I get there. It's not in a pool community but has 4 bedrooms and the rent is right where we want to be. Our plan is to rent for 6 mos to a year to get rid of some debt that we've accrued while I've been in school.

I had the TH350 in there before. It's never given me any trouble so I suspect it'll be fine. I have 2.41 gears. I think it runs about 2300 rpms at 65ish.

I'm going to head out on I-70 through Denver rather than go north through Wyoming. My sister lives near Kansas City so I'll stop there for a day. I'm meeting TonySS with the red 79 Monte from pro-touring.com in St louis,MO, then I'm headed north to meet the crew and get a tour at the Roadster Shop near Chicago http://www.roadstershop.com, then down to meet a long time friend in Bowling Green Kentucky, then finally to Acworth GA. I'm planning on taking 5 days overall, right about 2500 miles. I'm figuring about $650 in gas. It''l be fun yet boring at the same time since I'm going solo this round. Kansas is the worst, like 5 or 6 hours of corn fields. ZZZZZZZZZZZ Lol! I'll work for a couple months then come back and haul my family out.

 

[SRD art]

Also, I swapped an 86/7 unit in my chevy. It wasn't hard at all. I liked having the controls on the signal stalk. It is easier to wire and all with the fender off. So if you choose to do it, I would do it before putting the LF fender back on.

Yeah, that's why I wanted it. My 79 column is all banged up and so I grabbed an 84 column from a Regal with the washer control on the column. Then I went back and found an 85 Cutlass with the correct headlight switch and panel.

On the tank, I eventually want to close off the square door and add a round aircraft sort of door. So if I have to deal with moving the spout a little for now that's not a worry. Too bad they don't fit right from the get go, but I guess what you pay for. Maybe I'll luck out and mine will fit. 🙂

 

[Longroof79]

Sounds like you have a good plan. It's always nice to be able to stop off and visit friends and family. It certainly takes the monotony out of a long haul.
Man, I know what you mean about driving thru Kansas...or Nebraska for that matter....yawn!
Tony's a good guy. I see you both have something in common.. :wink: He told me he had driven past my town on one of his car buying trips to Florida. I told him he could've stopped. This was of course after the fact. He had to keep truckin' due to time constraints.
I think making the trip without the family in tow is a smart move. Originally I thought you were all going to drive out together.
But I think it's a better plan to have them come out after you get settled in.
I figured you were going to go I-70. You may not encounter snow. It has been a mild winter across the country.

 

[SRD art]

I'm towing my 73 Nova with the wagon in May. It'll still be an adventure in July too- I'm flying home from GA to take a couple weeks to finish packing and doing a tune up and fixing the a/c on the 77 Suburban, get a new timing belt in the Daewoo, and get the 74 Nova ready to tow. So I'll be driving the Burban towing the 74 Nova, with 2 dogs and 2 kids. My wife will drive the Daewoo with a cat and the other 2 kids. I can drive for 18+ a day but my wife says no more than 8, lol! We'll stop in Denver over night, then visit /stay with her sister and Mom in Wichita, KS, for a day. Then stop at my sis' near KC for a few hours and on to stop overnight maybe somewhere in Illinois. Then down to Acworth. Worst part about it will be hearing the little ones, "I gotta pee!" or "Are we there yet?" Every 15 minutes or so, lol!

 

[SRD art]

My last part from Summit showed up today, from of all places their Atlanta, GA warehouse. It's an auger style "muffler". Apparently they're used a lot in circle track racing and I've read on on several forums when placed upstream of the muffler they help quiet down the interior drone of some performance mufflers. I have a single 3" exhaust with a 40 series Flowmaster. There's a ton of drone at certain speeds, so I'm hoping this will help a bit. I don't want to drive 2500 miles and be deaf at the end, lol! For $15 even if it didn't work I figured I wasn't out much.

 

[79T-top]

😢 it's soo... it's soo... beautiful!!!!!!! *sniff* *sniff*

Great work post up some more pictures, I'm drooling

 

[SRD art]

Some updates- Camaro rear sway bar...

Once the rear suspension was all together I tackled the rear sway bar using the junkyard 82-92 F-body 7/8" bar. From what I can tell this is the same size dia. as the largest factory stock G-body rear bar, the advantage being it will be attached to the frame rather than to the lower control arms.

I thought for sure this was going to be a pain and require a bunch of fab work but I found just the opposite. I ordered an extra set of FRONT g-body sway bar links, guessing they'd be just about the right length. At my car's actual lowered ride height they are the perfect length.

With a mock up of everything bolted together I found it fit right up into the frame. Only mod needed was shaving down the side of the brackets for shock clearance (green arrow). Notice how they are positioned here, they need to go into the car like this, right and left accordingly.

With everything mocked in place I marked the spot to drill the holes using the existing holes in the brackets. Then I drilled a pilot hole through both sides of the frame rail with a 3/16ths bit. On the outer side I drilled a 7/8" hole with a hole saw to allow access to the bolt. I then drilled the inner hole using a 3/8" bit. A 3/8" x 1" bolt and nylon lock nut finished the bracket bolt in. The outer holes are plugged off using plastic hole caps from Home Depot. Pretty simple actually, the hardest part was lining up the bracket at the right angle.

In this final photo, (sorry it's a little dark) you can see where the bracket bolts are (green arrow) and overall fitment. Notice the angle of the bar to the link is off (red arrow). This is the only disadvantage to using the upside-down F-body bar, the angle on the ends is off. With the suspension dropped about another 1.5" or so, which is estimated ride height for my car, it's a lot closer to the right angle. This might be way off with a car at close to stock ride height though, you might be able to fix that with longer end links but I'm not sure how that may affect stability of the bar.

The Camaro poly bushings and brackets that mount to the rear were in good shape so I just re-used them. The Camaro axle housing is the same or close to the g-body so it was a direct fit. With the 9" the axle housing is a lot larger, so when I get to installing it I'll use some 3" muffler clamps and fab up mounting brackets.

So here's the end result- sway bar and brackets from the wrecking yard- $15, end links with poly bushings from Summit- $4.99 ea., and bolts, nuts, and washers about $3, so for less than $30 I got it all set up. With the bar flipped I don't know how that may affect handling or functionality of the bar, however as I mentioned previously having it backwards like this is common on trucks so the assumption is it must work fine. Track time will be the ultimate test to see if it will be just as good as an aftermarket set-up that runs 4X as much $. At the very least it will be better than the factory bar that bolts to the control arms and it's keeping me in line with building on a budget. More coming...

 

[SRD art]

Here's some more fab work. I saw some examples of boxed lower arms on a couple cars on the forum so I did mine as well. The way I cut out the plate allows space for installing the sway bar links and frame bumpers.

Finally! After getting the front suspension together on goes the body with the energy suspension frame bushings. Been looking forward to getting this done...

 

[liquidh8]

Looking good! I like how the boxed lower arms are. The rear bar should work too, I agree with the 4x truck observation.