Fixing up a '71 Grand Safari

You won't see much more, as soon as that wagon finally gets quartered and shared. It even took nearly 56 pages to get the wagon this far ahead. Grizz, get over here and take the first bite

 

So was I! I passed a similar vintage Pontiac wagon on the highway and it made me think of Vetteman and this project. His last post on this thread was in July of last year. Haven't heard from him in a while. I suppose life and it's responsibilities have taken priority.

 

I think he's done with the car, at least in any serious sense. Remember that his wife got in an accident with it and he basically had to start all over again. Also remember that this wasn't supposed to be a hobby car but rather the daily driver for his wife and kids. He mentioned in one of his last posts that he had much less time now with his growing family and new job, so I'm guessing the wagon is on the back burner for now and that he's got something else for the family to drive. You can't repair one of these clamshells overnight, and there is an ongoing need for money as well. He may come back to it down the road, but it could be years.

 

I must've missed that his wife had been in an accident with it. It should be a family project car, but even I have had to drive my project car as a DD, so I see why it might get relegated to the back burner.

 

It happened about three years ago now. January 2015. The photos he had posted of the damage are no longer visible as they're apparently no longer on whatever site was hosting them.

http://www.stationwagonforums.com/forums/threads/april-wrecked-the-clam.35282/

He ended this thread by saying that he was not planning to have the insurance company total the car, although he had considered it, but rather was on the lookout for a complete parts car.

 

After reading his "April wrecked the clam" thread, which ends in February 2015, go back to page 46 in this thread, message #681, where he picks up the story. Over the course of the next year or so, he made quite a bit of progress in getting replacement parts, but the story was never finished, and his last posting, in July of last year, talked about his new job and having far less time to work on the wagon.

There are some photos of the wreck starting on page 46 that are still visible. Here's one of them.

 

Young guy with a young family. Generally things other than repairing/restoring an old car take priority when it comes to time and money.
I don't know him personally, but he always struck me as a guy with his priorities straight. So it wouldn't surprise me if he felt that the responsible thing to do was to park it in the barn until further notice.

 

I saw the car in person when I sold him some parts a few years back. It was a very nice car and he'd spent a lot of time and energy getting it back into shape (especially considering how awful it was when he picked it up). I'm sure the wife rear-ending someone in it on the first day of driving really takes the wind out of the sails, especially for finding that 1-year only sheet metal that is wagon & Catalina-only. He also knows what he's doing, but as said, when you've got 2 under 5 year olds, it really saps your time. Sure, they'll get older but the car is getting older too. I believe he had access to a place to store it out of the elements so it's not like it's going to get parked under a tree down in the holler (we hope ;-) ).

I'm dealing with the same thing with my daughter, I got her a '89 full size GM car and while it's in decent shape *now* I just know that her first month or two of driving once she gets her license is going to result in a collision that ends up destroying the car, which is why I've kept the car "restoration" as dirt cheap as possible until she proves she can take better care of it.

 

OK, so maybe I thought he had referred to a second accident that was actually a figment of my mind. I do know about the original accident, the sheet metal find and repair, etc., but after that, he stopped, and I just remarked that he hadn't made any updates. So I think that's where I am with the thread.

 

I think you are thinking of when she wrecked the Caprice. There were two wrecks, just two different cars.

 

That would explain it.

 

Well, I hope he gets it back on the road eventually. Probably just in time for his oldest to start driving.

 

Hey guys,

Thanks for the heads up on the link. I had actually seen that ad when it first came up and ended up taking a last minute trip two weekends ago. I drove up after work, slept in the back of my Suburban in a parking lot, got some parts off the car and headed back home. The guy was really nice. I managed to get the woodgrain trim off of the car, which was complete with the exception of two pieces, one of which was ruined by someone riveting it straight to the body.

You would be correct in that time is very, very limited. I only get just a few hours on Saturday to do anything, and that includes handling all the chores around the house, so it leaves practically zero time for anything else. If one or two things come up or projects around the house happen that takes out a month or so.

I have all the sheet metal painted on the wagon and I had a lot of the other parts powder coated. They're all stored in a basement bedroom over at my dad's house. I had codes called on me again by some old people in my neighborhood, so I ended up bringing my dad's enclosed car hauler over to my house and storing the car in there for now. Most of the work now involves putting everything back together, however one big project I have is getting new hardware. Many of the bolts are rusted and I'm going to have to get new bolts. They are all in ziploc bags and are labelled. In order to get new ones I'm going to have to take them all out of their bags and put them together to count how many of like kind I need. The way I've decided to organize this project is getting tags with metal wire and labeling each bolt and what bag it came out of and then taking one example of each type of bolt to the hardware salesman that has a truck. He sells clips and fasteners to local dealerships. Once I have those things I can begin reassembly. Once it's reassembled I'll need to continue on the rust repair. There is one place over the corner of the rear passenger door that I've already repaired and I'm going to cut out and repair two small places on the doglegs of the rear quarter, in front of the wheel but behind the door. That's the only places of rust on the car. This was an Alabama car, so the rust issues were minimal in comparison to the vast majority of other wagons I've seen.

I've been on hiatus from the cold weather and once that's done I need to finish up rebuilding the horn on the '31 Chevrolet and then I can begin organizing the bolts. I have to say that finding motivation to rebuild this car immediately after finishing it has been a mental hurdle that has proved to be enormous.

 

Well, hey, we're all glad to see you are still up 'n' at it, so we'll sit back and just be patient.

 

Good to hear from you Vetteman. Glad to hear you are still plugging away at the wagon.
Thanks for the update.