How's it going guys? Been busy with my bad luck :evil: had a city bus scuff my truck and dealing with a fishing ticket. So now I'm back to the malibu. My goal out of this is to make the car more dependable. I drove it on 3 hour trips prior to the driveshaft snap and destroying the floors, and everytime I went one way on that trip, something would need to get fixed. Let it be the factory clutch fan going out, the SI alternator not giving enough juice (even though it was new), or the scorched starter wires. Here are some of the main issues I'm adressing with my current setup and some of the progress made.
The floors are completely finished and welded in. The driveshaft had destroyed the floors from the bucket seats back and the front floor pans were original and were pretty thin. I found a clean donor floor out of an 84' cutlass and got all that welded in. Once the car is completely done, I'm going to be hosing it down looking for any leaks under the dash as there was a few before.
The first thing I wanted to get done was the roof rail weatherstripping and the window felts. After pulling both quarter glasses, I discovered hidden rust holes that definately needed some attention. Cleaned those out with a burr and used some fiberglass and metal to metal to fix'er right up. Now I just need to do a little more sanding and she'll be ready for some paint. At the same time, I'll be re-shooting my rear spoiler along with the urethane front ss spoiler. Kinda wanted to do all the spraying done at once. Did manage to get the door window felts on to finally stop some leaks and keep leaves out of my door for change.
Just a few pics of the mock up of the spoiler and finally got all the black spray paint sanded off.
I'm going to try out a set of A body rear springs to see how much it lowers the back half of the car. Then with the cooling system, I'm swapping over to a Thunderbird, or Mark VIII, fan single fan that moves a lot of air! This way I can chuck the flex fan that was a quick replacement for the failed factory clutch fan and also get rid of the small auxiliary pusher fan I had installed. To make sure that my charging system can handle the load of this 18 inch fan, along with the subs, radio, and headlights, I'm converting the system from an SI to a CS 144 alternator. The 140 amps this alternator puts out should give me plenty power compared to some of the hassle I got from a factory replacement alternator. Last other major thing is moving the battery into the trunk and I've got the wire to run it. Just have to make a battery box for it.
The rest of the other things I'm doing are cosmetic. I started polishing the top of the aluminum core support and it seems to be coming along very well. This along with possibly polishing up my M/T valve covers and the cold air intake should definately add a little shine to the engine bay. With the cold air setup, I'm going to start it off with a 6 inch straight pipe on both sides, then use either a 22 or 60 degree pipe to angle the filters downwards. The driver side filter should be right over the power steering pump reservoir and the other alongside the alternator.
I still need to rebuild the engine and I have a gasket set and new lifters on the side for that. Also bought a set of stamped steel 1.6 ratio rockers to go along with the lunati voodoo 60102 camshaft. Then replacing the cracked TH350 with a fully prepped 700r4 that put me 850$ in the hole, but has all replaced hard parts and internals and should hold up with no problem. I'm going to wait a while before I swap my wheels out with the older chevy rallys I have. The tires on the IROCS are still practically new so I'll wear those out before I swap over as I think the rallys are a 15x8 wheel.
I'll keep the updates coming. Can't wait to get parts painted so I can see how that front spoiler looks.
The floors are completely finished and welded in. The driveshaft had destroyed the floors from the bucket seats back and the front floor pans were original and were pretty thin. I found a clean donor floor out of an 84' cutlass and got all that welded in. Once the car is completely done, I'm going to be hosing it down looking for any leaks under the dash as there was a few before.
The first thing I wanted to get done was the roof rail weatherstripping and the window felts. After pulling both quarter glasses, I discovered hidden rust holes that definately needed some attention. Cleaned those out with a burr and used some fiberglass and metal to metal to fix'er right up. Now I just need to do a little more sanding and she'll be ready for some paint. At the same time, I'll be re-shooting my rear spoiler along with the urethane front ss spoiler. Kinda wanted to do all the spraying done at once. Did manage to get the door window felts on to finally stop some leaks and keep leaves out of my door for change.
Just a few pics of the mock up of the spoiler and finally got all the black spray paint sanded off.
I'm going to try out a set of A body rear springs to see how much it lowers the back half of the car. Then with the cooling system, I'm swapping over to a Thunderbird, or Mark VIII, fan single fan that moves a lot of air! This way I can chuck the flex fan that was a quick replacement for the failed factory clutch fan and also get rid of the small auxiliary pusher fan I had installed. To make sure that my charging system can handle the load of this 18 inch fan, along with the subs, radio, and headlights, I'm converting the system from an SI to a CS 144 alternator. The 140 amps this alternator puts out should give me plenty power compared to some of the hassle I got from a factory replacement alternator. Last other major thing is moving the battery into the trunk and I've got the wire to run it. Just have to make a battery box for it.
The rest of the other things I'm doing are cosmetic. I started polishing the top of the aluminum core support and it seems to be coming along very well. This along with possibly polishing up my M/T valve covers and the cold air intake should definately add a little shine to the engine bay. With the cold air setup, I'm going to start it off with a 6 inch straight pipe on both sides, then use either a 22 or 60 degree pipe to angle the filters downwards. The driver side filter should be right over the power steering pump reservoir and the other alongside the alternator.
I still need to rebuild the engine and I have a gasket set and new lifters on the side for that. Also bought a set of stamped steel 1.6 ratio rockers to go along with the lunati voodoo 60102 camshaft. Then replacing the cracked TH350 with a fully prepped 700r4 that put me 850$ in the hole, but has all replaced hard parts and internals and should hold up with no problem. I'm going to wait a while before I swap my wheels out with the older chevy rallys I have. The tires on the IROCS are still practically new so I'll wear those out before I swap over as I think the rallys are a 15x8 wheel.
I'll keep the updates coming. Can't wait to get parts painted so I can see how that front spoiler looks.
