Last call, The 1983 Malibu wagon

[Tack427]

She looks better before the lights come on.

(Warning: Some of these Pic are Pictures of actual 4x6 gloss pictures. Because that's how things were done last century)

I bought this wagon, way back in 1998. With 4 mismatched bald and spitting tires, rotting off rear bumper, and hood with holes in it. Drove it 40 miles home with 3.8 liter/Th250/2.41open gears, screaming down the highway with plates from my fathers car attached.

First thing to go was the steel wheels with barely any thread, for a set of American racing tail gunner wheels from my recently departed 1984 Camaro




Next to go, the rotting rear bumper for a Lauren engineering fiberglass roll pan



Around the same time, I also swapped out the dash with a non cracked dash and started fabing a cluster of Autometer Phantom gauges, and adding bucket seat and a center console in place of the bench.

 

[Tack427]

I had a 1969 4 bolt 350 block with 2.02/1.60 heads at the machine shop being worked on, So I pulled the 3.8 V6 engine out and sent it to the scrap yard. Then due to some money troubles the car sat for 4 months in front of my house with no engine. Looked funny with no engine and the front bumper 3 feet off the ground. But finally things came together and the motor was dropped in.


I guess I forgot to mention I was 18 when I bought the car, 19 when I dropped the engine in. Not bad for a kid, So a year or 2 went by I found a 3.73 open in a monte carlo for 50 bucks at the junk yard. I pulled it myself and dragged/carried it a quarter mile across the yard, just for the yard rep saying "we would had picked it up with the loader" oh well live and learn. Short time after that this happened....

Of course 45 miles from home,
Since I already had taken the TH250 trans out, made sense to upgrade to a TCI TH350


Shortly after all this, In 2001, I joined the Army Went to Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan, And the car mostly sat at one place or another for 12 years or so.

 

[zdeckich]

Very cool wagon and cool story. So whats the future plans with it?

 

[Tack427]

Fast forward to 2015 I had to weld in a new drivers side front floor pan due to the oem door seals rotting away and water getting under the carpet.
At this point I also got rid of the torn, sun dyed buckets and put in a set of buckets from a 2004 toyota celica gt

And I switched out the column shift steering column with a console column. I installed a Hurst ratchet shiftier years prior to fit where it should in the console.

 

[Tack427]

Very cool wagon and cool story. So whats the future plans with it?

I have front doors to swap and a lot of body work. Then just cruise.

 

[Tack427]

This past winter I located a 4.10 Posi from Craigslist so that got a rebuild and swapped in place of the 3.73. I already had boxed lower rear trailing arms and the new to me rear came with strange engineering boxed upper trailing arms.


Some other things to happen over the years were, Hurst roll control, 4inch Harwood fiberglass cowl hood (I want to swap for a 2inch) True dual exhaust with Flowmaster 50's, Dynamat under carpet, Hotchkiss tubular upper control arms with 1976 Firebird front spindles and bigger brakes, Gm performance serpentine setup, Tint

This is how it sits today.

 

[motorheadmike]

Cool build.

 

[Longroof79]

Hey man, thanks for sharing the story and pics with us...much appreciated.
It's nice to see another wagon on the road to recovery. Keep up the good work!

 

[Tack427]

Under hood pics

 

[1evilregal]

cool story to the car, and love the direction you're going with it.

This may sound odd(and it's just my opinion, so it doesn't really count), but after seeing all these builds in their shiny new coats, I actually dig the faded paint with the few little blemishes...