HAFRODs 78 Aeroback Salon build

[Texas82GP]

It sure is funny how temperature effects my work ethic. In the spring and summer, I spend 90% of my time on my projects. Yesterday, I was planning on pulling the engine from the Salon today. Well, today is here, it's raining and barely above freezing. Yesterday I did wipe it down though. Lol. I could fire up my propane heater in the garage but I'd need the 55 pushed out. Not going to be pushing it out into crappy weather. So I get on here, catch up on some members builds, and get fired up to work on something. I badly need a shop built. This 2 car connected garage sh*t sucks. I'm not going to blame the multiple projects though. LMAO. I keep changing my mind on the engine to use. I really want just a stock 350 since this car appears original. Now I'm back in street racing mode and wanting to build a Monte Carlo SS. Bottom line is, the Salon is the closest to being finished of all the projects and should be tackled first. Waking up in a new world every day sucks

I encourage you to stick to your original plan with the Salon. It's a beautiful car that you've done a ton of nice work on. It sucks that you suffered the coolant leak at the head gaskets, but I think the best approach is to figure out what the problem is, fix it and move on. I think you torture yourself with all the uncompleted projects. Finish one of them and get some enjoyment out of it. I think that will give you a good boost. You seem really close on the Salon, expecially with how hard you work.

 

[Bar50]

Hey, don't feel bad, it's easy to get sidetracked by another project...happens to me ALL the time. Shop, yeah, way worth giving up some projects for. More so with this funky weather.

 

[HAFROD]

Funny thing that I have been dreading. The aero mirrors I got for this car were off a later 80s Caprice. They look just like 86-88 Monte and F body. The drivers side mirror lens was broken. Last year I ordered two different ones new from ebay. They are both too small. I guess the mirrors must be a bit bigger than the Monte ones. So I made a template from cardboard and had went to my local glass and mirror shop. The lady said if it's for a car, they cannot do it. So I lied. I told them it was for a fork lift. Lol. It cost $10 and picked it up the next day. I dry fit it and they did not follow my template worth a crap. Guess that's what I get for lying. I took it back and the lady went to the back and brought me out a sanding disk. She said they were too busy. She said all I had to do was sand the edges till it fit. So since I'm no glass and mirror tech, I watched a couple videos on youtube and within 5 minutes, I had it fit. I used an 80 grit roloc on my angle grinder and finished the edges with some finer sandpaper by hand. It is now siliconed into the housing on a towel. The passengers side mirror is already on the car. This mirror is the one I had to swap to longer cables and was tedious. I just by chance found these mirrors at my local u pull it yard a couple years ago. G body mirrors do not sit straight on Salon doors. These mirrors sit straight. So basically, I actually did do some work on my Salon today. Lol. Heck, tomorrow, I'm going to bolt the mirror on.

 

[HAFROD]

Now that our G Body cruise it set in stone, I have a goal to finish this car. I was planning on finishing it first anyway since it's the closest project to being road ready. My biggest issue is a headliner board. It is unique to two door aero only. I had bought one from a 4 door. It was too long and planned on trimming it down at the front. The wind destroyed it because it was so brittle. I'm thinking of doing a custom one out of panel board. Probably make it fit up in the roof and tuck the edges into the trim surrounds. I have seen a couple shows in the past do it this way but on street rods. I guess it won't hurt to try. Headliner material is inexpensive. I want to install a headliner before I install the windshield. I still have a lot of tedious little things to do. I'm planning on getting it pretty much finished and then pull the engine out of the El Camino. I'm going to put in new seals and paint it before I put it in the Salon.

 

[Bar50]

What are the chances of ordering an abs headliner and modding it? Or wagon? Just a thought....

 

[HAFROD]

What are the chances of ordering an abs headliner and modding it? Or wagon? Just a thought....

I'm wondering if a 2 door Malibu will fit. I know a cool dude in Tulsa that has a bunch. Lol

 

[HAFROD]

So I found a short list of needed small parts and ordered most of them today. I still need to call Dixie Monte and order a set of sill plates and a pair of door lock knobs. I also still need to order an air filter but have to wait till air cleaner fab is finished to get the dimensions. I had no hood clearance with the set up before. The Weiand intake was too tall. I bought an Edelbrock EPS dual plane and it's considerably lower. I also ordered a 13" drop base air cleaner to cut out the bottom of the factory air cleaner and put it in. The drop base swap should help a lot. I'm basically going to cut the center out of both bases and weld in the drop base into factory air cleaner base. It's going to be a lot of money and fab for a stock looking air cleaner but that's my theme in the whole car anyway. I also have a 3 1/2" GM flex hose new in box but the air cleaner snout tapers too small. I fixed that by ordering a piece of spin tech 3 1/2" oval muffler pipe. I will use this for the new air cleaner snout. I'll use a section that's stock snout length. After some black base and matte clear with new repop air cleaner decals, it should look like it came that way. Another detail that has been a pain is the battery cables. I want the cables to have the transparent shielding like used for car audio amplifiers. I did find out that if using this type for the starter to battery, it must be pure copper inside. Not tin or aluminum mix. I seen an under hood fire aftermath at a local car audio shop from an owner trying this with aluminum stranded wire. I have already bought red and black side posts terminals that are rubber shielded like stock. I bought ARP stainless hex head bolts for them too. The ARP's have a small head but washer made into them. So those look like stock style bolts in the side post terminals. After some research, I found some black nylon hose/line clamps that are two piece. I'll drill and tap the chassis rail to bolt these to. The battery cable will look good going into these. I'll use black ARP hex head bolts to bolt the clamps to the chassis. My original plastic chassis clamp was broken and it was cheesy looking anyway.

 

[Bar50]

If I had a headliner board I would share. I need one for my maroon Malibu. I do have a few breather bases so you could see what you need.

 

[HAFROD]

Today I gathered my rear quarter window interior plastic trim. They were in horrible shape from sun damage. I had blasted these a year or two ago with my portable sand blaster to remove the dead loose plastic. There were some gouges and craters left from deeper damage. I used bed liner in a gallon can and shot it through a sand blasting gun at 120psi. The craters I hoped would fill in but no luck. Fast forward to today. I used a foam block and 120 grit paper and sanded these panels hoping the craters and gouges would sand level. Still no luck. I used some polyester glazing putty mixed with cream hardner and applied it to the gouges and craters. I blocked with 120 again and It leveled the surface. I then used Dupli Color bed liner in aerosol. They now look pretty good as if they never had any damage. I'm going to let them sit overnight to dry. Tomorrow I will sand lightly with 320 just to barely flatten the surface. This should look very close to the original grain. Then it will get painted with tan SEM vinyl/plastic paint. I know SEM has the texture coating for this but this is just how I do it.

 

[HAFROD]

The bed liner was not thoroughly dry but wanted to see if the 320 flatten worked. Like a charm Lol