The Boring Malibu

My wife got a text a few weeks ago, from a former co worker, about an old car he wanted to get rid of. I asked her to have him call me, after looking at the pictures, and we talked, and he said he'd sell it to me cheap. So I bought it, with visions of doing a LeMons Rally with it, then p***ing it on.



He even delivered it. The car was last registered in the 1980s, and was his college car before he entered the service, and then it got left at his folks house...they recently p***ed, and now it's mine.

I've been tinkering with it...tires, water pump, fuel pump, master cylinder, wheel cylinders, tank removed and new sending unit and rubber hoses, new belts, etc. Cleaned a few things a little bit. Got it driving. And now for the fun adventures!

 

I got the dash lights and idiot lights to work, after taking out the cluster and cleaning all the printed circuit contacts with sandpaper. Now I can tell when it's low on oil, or overheats, or the engine dies and the alternator stops making power...and also when the high beams are on.



The lights are keeping me busy. Some of them worked, some didn't. No turn signals, and the switch felt funky, so I got a cheap new replacement, and now they work. Still no haz flashers (which none of my other old cars have), seems the flasher can is bad, so I ordered a new one. Headlight adjuster nuts are plastic and stripped, so I got some cheezy replacements...the driver side works ok, but when I adjusted the p*** side, the headlight bucket, where the adjuster screw goes in, came apart. So I get to weld that up, and try yet again.



The engine makes a nice clacking noise like a rocker is falling off...maybe I'll have to fix that.

I'm flushing out the cooling system, in preparation for installing the new radiator. The old one has a few pinholes that squirt a little water out when it's full enough.

Yesterday, I noticed that the right front tire was getting low. So I went to the tire store, they found the leak, rust holes in the wheel. Got an old used wheel from them, now it's all better.

Then on the way home from the tire shop, I ran out of gas. The gas gage seemed to be not quite working, it seemed to be creeping up on FULL. I had put 5-10 gallons in it, but I guess I drove it more than I thought. So after my wife rescued me with a gas can, I set about to figure out the problem...the gage works when shorted it shows Empty, the sender has resistance..but when I went and filled it up all the way, the gage went down to EMPTY. The dang new sender is backwards! what fun.

 

This is the good door panel. The rest of them are trashed



The seats had mexican blanket covers on them, so they're not too bad, really.


This is the rusty wheel. If you look close, you can see the bubbles where the air is coming through to the left of the white chalk mark.

 

I parted out the same car, even the same color in the 80s. Still have a scar from it on my arm.

 

This one avoided getting crushed. I don't know if that's a good thing, or not!

 

They were not very good cars back when they were new for sure! Most of them rusted away by the early 80s around here, if they actually lived long enough to rust away.
I suspect pulling the valve covers could be scary, a rocker that fell off would not be a huge surprise, nor would the rocker being in self destruct mode be much of a surprise.
The car should be a huge success at the LeMons Rally, if anyone remembers the high level of quality these cars originally had. It might also be the hardest ride you have had, to complete the entire rally with (not counting running out of gas in the Volvo).

 

Actually it's a really nice driving car...especially compared to most of the other ones I've taken on rallys!

I have some ideas of making some drastic changes to the car for the Rally. Since it's not a valuable/desirable car, and cosmetically it's in bad shape, and it was cheap, I don't have much of an issue with cutting it up, etc.

Think Oregon Trail....what would be appropriate? in a stupid, LeMony way?

 

Cut the rear of the roof off and replace with a covered wagon top

 

that's one of my ideas!

kind of a 19th century El Camino

 

Like on Max's falcon in beyond thunder dome lol

 

If you did that it'd appeal to not only lemons drivers but post apocalyptic junkies lol

 

@gene-koning These actually drive really nice. I had a '73 Chevelle (2 door) in high school. They tended to rust pretty fast up here in the rust belt, so there's not many left. But as far as handling, I wish all my cars drove like these do. I'd be tempted to use that as a DD.

 

I've never owned one, but from my memory from back in the service station days (73-early 80s), these cars were not real reliable either, a lot of them didn't last long enough to rust out. But sometimes the memory doesn't give a very reliable picture either. Not many of the mid 70s through the late 80s cars were good.

 

If they only got 100k miles on them (mine has 107k), then they were OK.

but this one did have a serious issue, PO provided me with the receipt for getting the transmission rebuilt at AAMCO in Tucson, with 75k miles, in 1979, so it was only 5 years old at the time. $617 total, back then, was a LOT of money! and it's just a TH350.

 

I pounded the snot out of mine with no issues. Of course, I added air shocks and chrome reverse wheels (rear only, couldn't afford fronts), and an 8-track player. 350 2bbl rated at 145 HP and was surprisingly fast. It would bury the 120mph speedo, and I beat several other (teenagers) cars in the quarter - including a 390 T-Bird. The only loss I had was to a same year Pontiac Ventura with a 350 2bbl. Just couldn't take him off the line.

 

2.73 rear end gears....not really set up for drag racing!

 

Neat car , I had a 76 chevelle 350/th350 bench seat column shift that light metallic baby blue colour with matching interior .

Beat the snot out of it for a year , gutless wonder but was reliable as all get out and go for the couple hundred bucks I paid for it!

they drive nice from what I remember.

 

Times were a little tough in the late 70’s when my parents had the clone to that car. Bought from the local autowrecker. Mom would let me pickup the car after school and cruise with my friends, as long as I was at the office door when she got out of work. It was a gutless gas hog that wouldn’t hold a hubcap for anything. It was replaced by a VW diesel in 1978 as things had got a little better on the farm- seems like a perfect car to “customize “.

 

The current paint scheme makes me think of AZ Downwinder issues, or a Navajo Uranium field car.
I could see a big Joe Dirt tank stuck in the back trunk/window area.

 

or a really esoteric reference, just needs day-glo paint.

 

the malibu in repo man was a 4 door! but a decade older.

neat idea

btw, I got rid of some of the clattering, both #7 rockers were loose. But there's still some noise in there, maybe I'll crank up the stereo and ignore it.



Also installed the new radiator and a cheezy temp gage.

 

The screen capture pictures of the 'real' Malibu from the movie didn't have any reference.
I figured it would have been a reference/joke few would get. The diecast had the wrong car but did have the movie reference.

let's go do some crimes. Yeah. Let's go get sushi and not pay.

Not cheap, though.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBMRAK/?tag=atomicindus08-20

 

It's one of my favorite movies

 

Couldn't find a gif of the scene in the office when Otto gets his first pay.
Guess a screen shot will have to do.


75 bucks for a quart here. Thin it and roll it on!
https://www.walmart.com/ip/4-pack-1...5-Glow-Specialty-Glow-In-The-Dark/17107565895

 

Are the post 72 Malibus still a full frame car ? I can’t remember.
Dan

 

That was the time of soft cams in Chevy's. I would suspect that is why the lifter is loose.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Chevelle#Third_generation_(1973–1977)
The ch***is design was new, with a sturdier perimeter frame, revised ch***is/body mounts, larger 8½ inch rear axle, wider 6-inch wheel rim width, revised rear control arm bushings, increased front and rear suspension travel, adjusted shock absorber location, and revised front suspension geometry.

 

I enjoy bringing the dead back to life. That's usually when I found out why it was parked. Jim, it appears to be a pleasant diversion.

 

There was a time in my life when I would get a car in that condition and fix what needed mechanical give it a coat of color and drive it for a year or two. After that I would sell it and make a few bucks on it. Damn that was a long time ago. lol
Now I drive them until they look like that.