New guy with 1979 factory 4 speed Malibu wagon

Hello, never knew this forum existed but when I found it I figured I’d join. I’m from central Ohio. My dad bought the Malibu back in 1998 or so when I was maybe 11 or 12 as a father son type project with my older brother and I. It’s a fairly oddball car when it comes to options: factory 4 speed, crank windows, bench seat, radio delete, A/C, power steering, and it had the tilt steering column from the factory which a bunch of people on other forums never even knew was available in the older A/G body cars that had stick shifts. The car is far from original now. Back when I was younger we put a very mild/almost stock 350 in it and an after market clutch and drove around to car shows and raced it on occasion. Then my dad bought a ford 9 inch rearend for it and installed a 4.56 gear. Didn’t have nearly enough engine then, so it came apart for a significantly larger cam, Victor jr. Intake, and bigger carb. Then everyone kind of lost interest in it and it sat in his garage for literally 20 years. He basically handed it over to me and it’s turned into quite the project over the last year or 2. I’m hoping to be done with it in the coming months to enjoy it over the summer.

 

Going to try to figure out how to upload pictures next

 

Think I got it

 

I like it! That’s an awesome spec from the factory. So what exactly have you been doing to it over the last couple years?

 

Very cool! My mother owned the same color Malibu wagon back in the day! Welcome to the forums and please keep us updated with more pictures (we LOVE pics here!).....Longroofs Rule!

 

When my dad told me to get it out of his garage, I got it running and went for a quick spin. I quickly realized the 4.56 rear end wasn’t as cool as it was back when I was a youngster so I took the 3rd member out and had a 3.89 gear installed. Next I bought the rims and 9 x 26 MT ET street tires for it and that’s when it really spiraled out of control. The stick shift A/G body cars aren’t very common so I decided I didn’t want to grenade the factory saginaw transmission. I’m 38 and this is my first real solo project but I’m doing the work at my brothers shop so he can give me a hand if I get stuck. I got the transmission pulled and had no idea that the shifters are mounted way forward on A/G body transmissions compared to any of the older stick shift cars. I had already purchased a brand new Richmond super t10 for it and luckily had a lot of help making a shifter and brackets because I wanted to be able to use the original hole in the floor and keep my bench seat. Everything was different between the Saginaw and super t10 so I bought a new flywheel, Mccloed super street pro clutch, and had a new driveshaft made with 1350 u joints and put a new forged pinion yoke in the rearend. Back in the day we had issues with a couple of the electric fuel pumps we ran on the car so I tackled that next. I ripped the electric pump off and just bought a simple mechanical Holley pump. I noticed some moisture on the top edge of the factory gas tank so I dropped it and noticed the original rubber hoses were all pinched and cracked which might’ve been causing my fuel issues. Luckily I was able to find a brand new tank. Next I decided I’d just replace everything by fuel related. The new pre bent factory hard line looked like it was going to be impossible to route correctly because 45 year old body bushings were worn out so off came the body. I work on the wagon in the evenings when I get off work 3 or 4 nights a week so this step took some time after 5 or 6 of the bolts broke off inside the body because they were almost completely rotted away. While the body was off I power washed then frame, sanded it, bought a $90 gallon can of marine grade primer, primered it, then painted it. I did the same for half of the under side of the body where the paint was flaky. I also ran some new brake lines. It was a lot easier to work on with the body off though that’s for sure. I was having a little trouble sliding the new transmission into the bell housing so we threw a dial indicator on it and I ended up buying some offset dowel pins for it and everything went together like a glove. Then lowered the body back down onto the new body bushings and got it all back together. I spent some time under the dash when trying hook all the pedal linkages back up but quickly realized everything was worn out. So I bought all new brake pedal and clutch pedal linkages and a new zbar. By then it was fall and the weather was getting cool so I didn’t think I was going to be able to drive it and I decided for not reason to buy a pair of 195 cc AFR eliminator street heads to replace the cast iron stock replacement heads. Pulled the engine apart and got that done. Next up was some electric fans off of an early 2000’s dodge intrepid and during that process cleaned up a bunch of the factory wiring and ran a fuse block under the dash behind the glovebox out of sight. Last week we put a new set of upper control arms on it. It’s getting close now. The first year we owned this car my dad stored it in a storage yard over winter and someone tried to steal it by busting up the steering column which was common with G body cars but luckily they failed. The didn’t fail at destroying my column however. My brother thought it would be nice to be able to start it with a key again instead of sticking our fingers down inside the column and pulling on whatever lever it was to get it going. This was the hardest part of the entire project. Two different steering column guys had my column for a total of 1 year and 5 months and never touched it. The lower bowl which was busted up they said was non existent. Even guys on the gbody forums said you’ll have to use a bowl from a s10 truck and it won’t be exactly right but it’s close. I got my column back and took it apart. The lower bowl had a part number down inside of it so I spent a few nights before bed researching it. I was able to find an old eBay link where a corvette parts guy had 7 bowls for sale and he said they were specifically for 1978-1980 corvettes only and discontinued. It looked close so I bought one. Sure enough it was an exact match. I made the info known to the gbody crowd and one guy bought the remaining 6. Tore my column all apart and bought some new bearings etc for it but my brother had to help me with reassembling that since he was pretty familiar with working on them. I also had to buy a new speedo cable for the super t10 and tried to put the correct plastic gear in it to hopefully have an idea of how fast I’m going now. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a some stuff but this post is long enough lol.

 

Back when my dad bought the car G body’s hadn’t really taken off in popularity yet. These days I think back to how much more unique it would be if it was all still bone stock with its 263 v8 had we just left it alone. Since that’s not the case I wanted to keep the interior looking as original as possible and I’ve been able to achieve that so far. The previous owner had a brand new headliner put in before we got it. Other than the drivers side of the bench seat that has a little wear and a couple small cracks on the dash the interior is in very good shape.

 

Couple of pictures of my column rebuild. I’m sure some of you are familiar with this but there was way more parts inside of that thing that I could’ve imagined. Luckily the red paint color is still reproduced so I could paint my NOS bowl

 

Awesome! Well that post definitely caught us up on your project. Sounds like you'll have yourself a great little hot rod longroof! Good luck with your continuing progress.....keep us updated!

 

Love the car. Welcome aboard.

 

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I’m waiting on my transmission as of now. I had a 1975 super t10 and a Frankenstein m21 muncie that I was thinking about using in it but after pricing out parts to rebuild either I stumbled upon the brand new Richmond super t10 for a price that I couldn’t turn down (sold from a business not a private seller). I mostly wanted to give rebuilding an older 4 speed a try on my own. Bought the Richmond unit early in the project and it only came with a 1 year warranty. Of course as the project started to get close to being done (well after the 1 year warranty was up) I poured the Richmond recommended fluid in my brand new transmission and it was leaking in 2 spots, 1 being between the midplate. I don’t trust myself enough to split a brand new transmission that I’m completely unfamiliar with so I pawned the job out. I called Richmond first but of course I was SOL. I dropped the transmission off to a guy local to me back in early January. Called him on February 14th and he hadn’t started on it yet. Haven’t heard back since. I’m starting to worry that this is going to turn into another year long debacle like I had with my steering column. This week has been very warm in central Ohio and I’m starting to get the itch to take it for a spin!

 

I hear you, I'm itching as well to get mine out of hibernation! I live in western NY.