pics of my wrecked 84 GN project

[Waco84GN]

I had to time to burn after finals at college and I couldn't work on the car myself; so I decided to put the pictures I have of the car online. My dad, brother, and I worked very hard for an entire summer in order to fix the car to where it was driveable. As per my signature the car is being and soon is soon to be going to the interior shop to have brand new black carpet, and new headliner and probably new weatherstripping all the way around. Thanks for taking the time to look at my work. If you have any questions my email address is mccjazr@aol.com. I will try to answer as many questions as I can.

Jerry Berger Jr.

http://community.webshots.com/user/waco84gn

This is my website for the car. It explains the intercooler modification process in more detail.

http://members.aol.com/mccjazr

 

[SPOOLN]

Way Cool

You did a wonderful job on reconstructing/restoring that car. All the hard work will pay off. I really like the way you did the intercooler the way the 86/87s have them. Sharp job!!!
Tom

 

[channer]

Hey... Great job!!


how long did it take to remove the body from the old frame? Where there any gotchas?

WHere did you get that frame from? It is very clean... did you have it prepped and painted?

I need to do a frame swap on my white TTYPE but just haven't tackle the task yet!!

dave

 

[Waco84GN]

Frame

Yes, we tried to get everything ready to get the car off the frame as we could. And then my dad and I basically used a floorjack and blocked the car up off the frame and got it onto the sawhorses in a little less than a days time. The gotchas were trying to make sure everything was free from the frame that was attached to the body. Emergency brake cable, brake lines (going to master cylinder), steering shaft, a/c and heater hoses. I think the only thing that we screwed up was we bent a brake line up when lifting the body up due to it getting caught and us not noticing it until it was way too late. The replacement frame came from a regular regal from a salvage yard. I got the entire car for $150, all I had to do was bring back the scrap metal from my wreck and the old bent up frame. I was like ok I can do that. Anyways, my dad and I spent probably 2 weeks cleaning the fame up. I pressure washed the frame first and then I would pressure sand blast the frame at night by using a worklight from sears. We then suspended the frame and prepped it for paint. We used POR-15 so it would never rust again. Only thing is dont get POR-15 on your hands, it stains your hands for about a week. POR-15 is a very hard paint that dries very smooth looking.

The current progess on th car is the guy painting the car is one of my dad's co-workers. The guy told my dad that I would like the paint job beause you could read the newspaper in the reflection on the door. I was like "I can deal with that Dad!" I will definitely be posting pics when I get the car back here in the next couple of weeks.

Jerry Berger

 

[channer]

HI Jerry,

Great job on the frame. Did you strip the complete frame including the front end suspension pieces before you painted it with POR-15

I have parts car in which I was going to do a straight swap... never thought about painting it.

Did you have any problems with the body mounts!!!

thanks for the reply... dave

 

[Waco84GN]

reply

I left all the original N/A regal suspension on te donor frame as we used the suspension on the wreck. The guy had recently put new coil springs and what not on my grand national. I also got all new steering gear, tierods and everything when I went back together. We had to get the body off the old frame so I could sand blast the a-arms and control arms. My dad also boxed the upper and lower rear control arms and then we por-15ed those as well. The body mounts weren't very hard at all. We basically just started lowering the body back down on the new frame and placed the lower half of the poly bushing where they were supposed to be on the frame and then when we set the body down on the frame we started a couple of the grade 8 bolts that we bought. We then had to determine if the body was straight on the frame. We basically chose 6 points along the body 2 front, 2 middle, and 2 rear to measure from the frame to the body. If the body was off one way or the other we would nudge the body a little bit. Basically put your knee against the car and just give it a slight push. When you get everything even, tighten the bolts down and then check for even widths again to make sure nothing moved during the tightening progress. We tightened the bolts from the middle of the car (by the doors) outwards so it would not try to bow or bend or bind the frame or body in any way.

I think putting body bushings is going to end up being one of the biggest improvements I made to the car. I was almost mad at GM for allowing the car to leave the plant with half of the lower body bushings not even installed. This is a pity that this is common occurence on a lot of turbo regals. People wonder why their regals feel wishy washy and have creaks and rattles. There is about a gap of 3/4" between the washer and the bottom of the frame.

Ok I guess I'm through now

Jerry Berger Jr.