The Impala Project

I ran into an ad on Craiglist a few weeks ago. The guy was advertising reproduction 64 Impala fenders and full quarter panels at heavy discounts. I called a few days after seeing the ad and found he got the scratch and dent stuff from Dynacorn. He usually does the car show circuit but since it was a slow year, he was selling them online.

Shipping for reproduction body panels is not cheap and only raises the chances that they’ll get seriously damaged, so I talked the Mrs into going along on the Labor day weekend and spend a night in a Bed and Breakfast nearby. That was a no brainer. She was all over it. We drove up on Saturday and came back Sunday with the parts.

The guy seems to do this as a sideline and his inventory is constantly changing. He never knows what he’ll have cause he only gets the reproduction body panels that can’t be sold for retail.

The 64 Impala quarter panel I got had a simple dimple in it but otherwise looked brand new. He was off on his inventory. He thought he had quarter panels and fenders for both sides of the car in the trailer and I was prepared to get them. He only had the drivers side. He had a 64 Impala hood sittin in the garage that had a barely noticable crease in it. I knew I could fix it so I took it.

Search craigslist in the Pittsburg area for 64 Impala parts and you surely find him.

I’ve been sidetracked the last couple of weeks so there hasn’t been a lot of Impala Project work.

My brother inlaw came here from Seattle a few weeks ago to work for the summer and his car died. The timing belt tension wheel mounting stud snapped off. I drilled out the remnants and put a new stud in place.

Continuing with sifting through the collection of 64 Impala parts, I’m getting ready to take some things from some quarter panels and front fenders. To start with I’m making templates for the holes the Impala letters and logos on the quarter panels mount to. Since a lot of new full quarter panels don’t come with the holes already punched, the templates can be useful in re-creating them correctly.

You can look for these as a downloadable item in the near future. I may decide to use them as a newsletter signup incentive, or once I’ve created enough of this 64 Impala stuff make it a members only library.

Stay tuned.

dirty engine front

Now that I’ve got a pile of parts out of the way, I need to move on to another collection of parts. Last year I bought an LT1 350 with a 4L60e transmission behind it. I had to pull it myself which was no big deal, and I plan on putting it in my truck, an 86 GMC Sierra Classic.

The problem with the 305 in the truck now is that it’s gutless. GM made a really bad decision to put such a small engine in a work truck with a 2.74 ratio rear end. Bad move! The truck only gets 12 miles to the gallon and I’ll bet it only got 15-16 mpg when the truck was new.

dirty engine rear

So the first step is to clean the engine. I picked up a power washer from Sears on Saturday (July 4th, 2009) and unwittingly got it on sale for $40 less. It’s a Power Washer 1850 PSI Electric Powerwasher®. I didn’t use it, but the power washer came with a detergent container that didn’t require a wand attachment. Just plain old high pressure water seemed to do the trick. Look for an upcoming review.

The engine isn’t all that dirty. It has enough grease on it to make it look grungy, but the only place the grease was caked on was at the front of the engine around the accessory mounting brackets. The intake manifold has a thin layer of grease that looked more like blow by and it seemed to cleanup nicely.

clean engine front

After cleaning up the engine and transmission I did a quick review of the engine compartment on the truck. The engine compartment looked like it could use a cleraning but it had little to no grease in it other than the engine. I didnt bother with it.

After that I thought the driveway could use some help. In the last couple of years since it was poured the tree leaves and dirt in general had colored it a dingy brown. The pressure washer seemed to take care of it well other than the grease spot my Plymouth Neon had created. The grease spot came up, but I was still left with a stain that was noticeable as engine oil.

clean engine rear

So now you can look for some upcoming articles on the engine swap. I’m going from a carburated 305 to the multiport electronic fuel injected LT1 350. Stock this engine has 260 horse power, about 120 more than the 305 had new, so I’m expecting the truck to pull better and get better mileage.

Before I do the swap I’m gonna put a new timing chain and fuel pump on it, adjust the valves, and replace the engine gaskets in the process. If you haven’t guessed, I don’t like leaky engines. I’ll need to find a couple of gas tanks from a fuel injected 87 model year as well, since the fuel injected 87’s had the submersible fuel pump. The carburated 305 has the classic side mounted fuel pump at the front passenger side of the block.