1978 Pontiac sunbird safari wagon 2.5

[SOLSAKS]

DANG !!!!! a super dooper Nice Job !!!!

[lleelduo]

The door weatherstrips are bad and have leaked water for some time it looks like. The door sill plates have turned into a white powdery mess and corroded away. I did some looking on ebay and found some that sold for WAY too much. Being on a budget, I began thinking of an alternate source. I looked at various a,b,c and f body cars to see if anything could be adapted. No luck there. I looked closer at the old ones and they are a straight set of bends to a aluminum sheet. I have a friend that does HVAC work. I took the old one to his shop and showed it to him. "NOPE" the bends are too close for my stuff to do. We shot the bull for a while and as I was leaving he said to leave the old one and he would see what he can do. He always likes a challenge. 2 weeks later I came home to find sill plates, all bent up, setting on my front porch. It cost me a case of beer. All I had to do was mark and countersink the screw locations. This summer I will polish them a bit, and put some Fisher Body stickers and clear coat on.

[lleelduo]

As Monty Python would say "And now for somthing completely different!" Thought you might like to see my other "project car" I bought this car back in 1986 and it was rust up to the door handles, I think. lots of time and work. Enjoy

[72 SS PNL]

nice work on the wagon !!

love the SS imp vert !!! need more pics

[NixVegaGT]

As Monty Python would say "And now for somthing completely different!" Thought you might like to see my other "project car" I bought this car back in 1986 and it was rust up to the door handles, I think. lots of time and work. Enjoy

Damn. Is that a for real 427 conv.? That's pretty cool. The work on the Astré is looking great.

[lleelduo]

Spring is finally here. I have had the car in storage since december of 13. Bringing it home to the garage this week end.

[ol55]

Nice Cars! Looking forward to more on the Safari

[lleelduo]

I decided to put the Formula steering wheel on the car. I had one on my first brand new car and loved it. The car was a 1974 formula firebird. I found a original but rough wheel on ebay for $35.00. I took the original wheel off. the new wheel had the foam padding on the wheel coming off, and the brushed aluminum in the spokes would need rebrushed. I sold the wheel back on ebay for 40 bucks. I kept the mounting hub, horn contact, and horn button for my project. I bead blasted the hub and repainted it with VHT wrinkle finish paint. This matched the original finish very well. I cleaned the horn button and contact, and vinyl painted the horn button for a better finish. I found at Performace Years Pontiac a "Second" steering wheel at a good price. The wheel is new, made for a firebird. They had a batch if them that the anodizing on the hubs were supposed to be gold, but they came out silver with a very, very, very slight gold tint instead. I got a 300.00 wheel for 85.00, and unless you are looking hard you can not see the gold tint. I removed the firebird emblem from the horn button and replaced it the pontiac crest one from a GTO formula wheel.

[lleelduo]

Here is the finished wheel installed. I also dropped the dash out and lubed the speedo cable. I had found a original clock on ebay and put it in at that time. While the dash was down I took the dash name plate off and installed the RTS Radial Tuned Suspension name plate. I am in the process of collecting the parts to do that too. I have both front and rear sway bars and still need front lower contol arms that have sway bar link mounts.

[lleelduo]

More odds and end to work on. The back glass on the wagon hatch is held in with a chrome lock strip that speads the gasket and locks the glass and weatherstrip to the body. That chrome lock strip is plastic and has gone bad over the years. Every time I would walk by my car that bad plastic chrome strip, all broken and dull, really botherd me. I could not find a OEM strip, at a respectiable price. I started looking for an different solution. I talked to the local auto glass shop owner. He said he could come up something that would work and install it for about $100.00. That was too much. I looked on the forum and found reference to other Ideas. A post refered me to a website for english cars that use the same kind of lock strip to mount there windshields. More diging and I found The Roadster Factory. They specialize in MG and Triumph roadster parts. I ordered the windshield loc strip and clip for a TR-6. With shipping less than $20.00 It was the right width and looked close in the mounting barb that went into the weather strip. After about 2 day of breaking out the old strip and cleaning the weatherstrip mounting grove out, put on some silicone and a rubber mallet. Popped right in and looks great

[lleelduo]

My car has the deluxe vinyl interior in carmine red. The seats were ok, but the vinyl had turned dark, it had cracked some, and looked worse the more I looked at it. After I did the rest of the interior they looked downright bad. I looked in the parts manuals and found that the seats in my car were the same as a Firebird with the base vinyl interior. The covers and pads are avalible as reproductions from PDI interiors, and sold by several web sites. I bought mine from classic indutries for $225.00 for the front seats and drivers seat foam pads from year one for $149.00 on sale. This is how I did It myself. Here are some pictures when i started. There are some good video how to's on youtube. from fbodywharehouse. I recomend you watch them.

[lleelduo]

Be carefull when removing the seat backs. The spring clip retainer washers are not avliable any more. Pry them off and put on a flat surface and hammer back flat and save to reinstall them. Remove the back stops and take the back assy off. Remove the bottom cushion back trim and cut off all the hog rings. The front edge of the cover is wraped under the frame . Turn the cushion over and press down on the frame to compress the foam. The cover will come unclipped from the channel. Pull the cover up, and cut off the hog rings that hold the cover to the pad frame wires. Remove the old cover.

[lleelduo]

Be sure when you install the covers to mark a centerline on the pad and the back side of the new cover before you start hog ringing the cover on. keeps it centered. Make sure you have a good hairdryer to use to heat and smooth the cover as you strech and install it. Smooth the wrinkles and puckers out BEFORE you install the cover and pad assemblys to the frame.If I had to do it over I would have replaced the seat pads on both seats, not just the drivers. I tried to save some money, It looks good,but the new pads make the drivers seat look and feel so much better.

[lleelduo]

More stuff I did over the week end. On my old Monza wagon I had put the spoiler off an 1990 S-10 pick up. I liked the look of it. I decided to do the same to my Sunbird. The sunbird has a droped center valance were the Monza had a straight valance panel. I made a paper template of the center of the valance, and used a utility knife to cut it out. Then a little trim and fit. I used the fender brace mounting bolt at the wheel well to mount the back corners. I put self tapping screws into the valance to hold the front edge. The center section is kind of weak after trimming. I made a simple "L" bracket at the center and then mounted it to the valance panel also.

[lleelduo]

I also put on a set of sport mirrors I got off ebay. Striped the paint off while I had them dissassembled to clean them up. I replaced the glass and got new gaskets. I will paint them when I paint the car, so just primer for now.