78 caballero

[The ghoul]

Bad day at the junk yard DEFINETLY is not better than a good day at work.

went to the yard yesterday at lunch and found 3-4 likely cantidates for steering shafts (jeep upgrade)

so today I cut out for lunch a bit early with a set of tools and go for it.

I get the first one after a long struggle and the top universal is locked up.

So I set to work on the second one after I get the steering box clamp loose I glance up and notice this

Fore ground is the the shaft with the frozen joint, sitting across the passingers side of the engine is a shaft some one pulled and left there!
I thought it was my lucky day... Then I noticed the abandoned shaft had mangled splines and appeared way longer?

Oh well, looks like the shaft I pulled out of the second car will do nicely...

At least the boss isnt here today and the shaft only ran me $10

BTW

older jeep charokee floor shift tilt steering columns look identical to G body ones with the exception of the bolt patturn to the firewall.. Even the electrical hook ups look the same.

So as long as it meets the firewall at about the same angle, and the shaft length is the same it looks like all you would have to do is make an adapter plate, swap out ignitions and possibly do a bit of re-wire and you would have a floor shift conversion column for under $30

thinking about it now I probably should have snagged the one in the scond jeep (had to remove it to get the shaft any how)

ah well, I was a good boy and kept it on the cheep.

 

[BB71Mopar]

Sadly, I have read many things along those lines....
this is my first experence with it so we shall see...
Like I said, Im planning to swap this in a few seasions any way. So if it dosent last no biggie

I did the same thing. I used it and didnt read the directions too well and mostly made a mess...

 

[The ghoul]

Got cracking as soon as I got home today
Yesterday I shot blasted the inner wheel wells at work... I know, kinda harsh thing to do to plastic but I made sure it was on the lowest setting only for about 40 seconds (wanted a rough surface for the paint to bite to anyhow...) I painted one last night so here they are side by side

I then started working on that jeep steering shaft..
I know it's been covered lots of times before but I'll do a quick rundown anyhow.
The right is the 89 jeep Cherokee steering shaft (notice the universal joints top and bottom)
To the left is the stock g-body steering shaft and box (note the sloppy rubber rag joints top and bottom)

So obviously the jeep one is way too long, but lucky for us it was made to collapse in an accident.
So I tried heating it with a propane tourch and smacking the end with a hammer.
That only resulted in a disslocated rubber vibration damper

Then I used some real heat (big f'ing space heater) propain tourch probably would have done the job, but I hate to wait.

As I let that bake I took some gloss black rustolium and shot the frame and some of the suspension bits

Next I removed the steering shaft from I front of the heater and a few good cracks later she was free and compressed to size

Now about that disslocated rubber isolater... I took two chistle tip punches and threaded them between the u joint and the shaft then with one on the ground I drove the other with a hammer..

This got it back into place with enough room for the joint to swivel again; however all the pounding must have distorted the cap carriers because the joint was significantly tighter than before.
If I were to do this again I would definetly slip some wood or something between the u joint and shaft....
I then cleaned her up and painted it along with the the other inner fender.
Because I have an awesome job I have Monday off so with luck I'll get the engine bay wires tucked, and the drivetrain back in.

 

[The ghoul]

Last night I installed the quick ratio steering box (2 1/4 turns lock to lock)
And pulled out the engine compartment harnes.
This morning I starte off by dropping the oil pump rod into the distributer hole only to hear it clunk as it hit the oil pan.... I must have glared at it for a solid 3 minutes before the cursing started.
So off cam the oil pan (lucky the gasket wasn't too badly mangled) set the distributer back the way it was before the tair down (with rod properly placed this time). Dressed the engine with the pan, motor mounts , starter and headers. Finally got her off the stand

As I mentioned before, looks like this was at one time a manual transmission engine and has a pilot bearing pressed into it. So I found a socket that closely matched the diameter of the bearing center (that was loose enough to come back out) that was a 3/8 1/4 drive socket; put a 1/4 drive extension on the socket backwards (so the leading face will be flat) filled the pilot bearing cavity with grease then hammered the socket into the center with a bfh.
(pic is after first wack)

After another cycle she was out and I had a mess on my hands (note the socket on the extension backwards)

Reasion this works and works so well is fluids don't like to be compressed, so when you hammer something into the only opening it creates pressure behind the bearing and forces it out
Sadly, that was about the only thing that went smooth but after removing the drivers header and trans mount I got her in along with the jeep steering shaft.

 

[DeFormula]

Great thread! Love the pics and detail. Hope to see this on the road this spring.

 

[The ghoul]

Great thread! Love the pics and detail. Hope to see this on the road this spring.

thank you very much.
I should make spring without too much drama
only high doller items I should need will be
weather stripping
front tires
plates insurance ect....
at this point the wire work is the only real technical thing left to be monkeyed with and even that is just going to be cutting out AC systems and extending every thing to tuck it....

 

[The ghoul]

Got this knocked out...
Took my real nasty gmc steering wheel and last night got after it with some simple green and a stiff brush.
Results were dramatic!

Just now painted it (again duplacolor fabric and viynal paint)
Very interested to see how long it will hold up...

 

[Mr Mach 1]

This is the coolest build thread ever... Keep up the good work!

 

[1BADAIR]

cool. i had a few el camino's/

BTw the grease method works on old stuff but dont try it on later ls based stuff.

 

[The ghoul]

Thanks guys.

cool. i had a few el camino's/

BTw the grease method works on old stuff but dont try it on later ls based stuff.

Never ran into an lsx one yet...
Why shouldn't you try it?

 

[1BADAIR]

the cranks are gun drilled and sealed with freeze plugs. the grease will knock the plugs in. you will have a major oil leak

 

[The ghoul]

the cranks are gun drilled and sealed with freeze plugs. the grease will knock the plugs in. you will have a major oil leak

holy crap! good to know, thank you!

 

[The ghoul]

Well, it's starting to look like a car again.
I'm pleased with the steering shaft upgrade

And the interrior ant looking half bad either

Soooo happy I got my hands on a stock steering wheel. Much better than that grant.

 

[The ghoul]

My next step was working on the ashtray (Yeup, I'm just that type of guy)
I am unsure how they did it but the bracket cover was bent way back when I got her

First step was to drill out the two rivets that hold the cover to the bracket

Then with a little banging with a body hammer and dolly she was streight enough for me

After some cleaning and paint I slammed two 1/8" rivets back into it to rejoint the cover to body

New rivits aren't really unnessessary as the cover sanwhiches between the dash and bracket, but I didn't want to mess with trying to get the cover to sit square on the bracket.
Little note here, I trimmed the excess off the rivits but that also seems unnessessary as as you can see the tray dosent slide back that far.

So the results arent perfect, but is much better than it was!!

 

[mikesfastss]

This car needs a monte carlo ss steering wheel.keep the updates comin im starting to get motivated lol

 

[The ghoul]

This car needs a monte carlo ss steering wheel.keep the updates comin im starting to get motivated lol

Nah, one of those things to me,
Dosent feel like a camino/caballero without that wheel...

Wow! Looks like I read that one wrong!
Turns out the ashtray is supposed to fit back farther. The "flaps" on the side of the ashtray handle are supposed to slide over the sides of the bracket cover
looks like over time the flaps warped in causing interference with the cover

so I ended up trimming the tabs on the cover that are supposed to finish off the edge

then worked the sheet metal for Clarence and used a dremal to open the Chanel's in the bottom side of the handle...

Works well now...
quick touch up and we appear to be good to go

 

[The ghoul]

Got a little more done today.
Wife helped me haul the tabogen full of frozen pinsol into the basement!

Now hopefully I can finish the interrior bits.
Speaking of interrior I got the glove box fitted and ash trey in place.
Dash cap really didn't fit around these areas and I didn't think trimming it was the solution so I'll learn to get used to the vent bezel not being recessed and I carefully worked the glovebox down in size with a grinder to fit properly.

Noticed this while rolling around on the floor

Looks like the door switch shorted and burned up the harness there?!
I'm amazed I didn't see that when the dash was out!

 

[The ghoul]

got a little bit done
since January (admittedly not that much as hours have picked up at work and i hate the cold)
got a set of shorty plugs in her, corrected cap, and 8mm wire set (i forgot how much of a pain in the ass assemble them your self wires are)

and the paint stripping (using a tabogen full of pinsol) is moving forward and the intirror pieces are just about done

for this weekend I have a set of weather seals, electric choke, and two door hinge pin and bushing sets being shipped to me.

 

[Fryguy302]

What did I miss? WTF did you need a sled full of frozen pine sol for? :lol:

 

[loosenut]

I did that steering shaft upgrade in my GN. Made a big difference from the rag joint.

There are guys who sell them reconditioned and painted for around $40-45 on the Turbo Buick boards.