The rest of the front end is still pretty solid. The car is a true 36k mile old lady car. It was well maintained over the years that she owned it, I got all the receipts since new. I plan on rebuilding it down the line but it should be good for now. It may just be me since the original steering required zero effort one now this one is a little stiffer.
The reason I mentioned the mirror base gaskets, I had a pair of the late style Monte Carlo mirrors and to be able to use them on my Malibu, I needed the El Camino base gaskets. I see that you already know about that...cool! I never did install them, though. I sold 'em.
The car is solid for living in the northeast, only has rust in the bottom of the doors, and for some reason above the wiper motor. I find it odd that there’s rust above the wiper motor because it was garage kept its whole life. My 79 H/O had rust everywhere, but that area was solid. If the car didn’t have a vinyl roof I would have done some spot repairs and left it alone. Unfortunately I hated the landau too and took it off. So it needs a full paint job. Being a paint and body guy, that specializes in painting, the paint job is a long way from being done. Some day it’ll get there. I’ve owned the car since 07 and didn’t really drive it because it wasn’t “finished”. My kids have been motivating me lately to just use it as it is, so that’s what I’m doing.
You gotta listen to your kids... drive the car while you're making upgrades. Before you know it, it's winter again and time to put the car away for hibernation. At least while you're driving the car you can figure out what you want to work and improve on over the winter months.
That MCSS is very slick and I believe you can see in the pic that it actually has the LS nose on it, it had made the rounds on some of the Gbody IG pages and other social media
I'm jealous its like the better looking twin of mine, seems to have the same stance, wheels, rear spoiler, and with a slightly smaller cowl hood.
