My '95 Caprice Classic STW, "Sally"

[Arquemann]

Caprice made me do an involuntary coolant change today. Upper rad hose didn't feel like holding onto the radiator inlet and let the water pump puke everything out . Realized there was a problem pretty quick as the heater was blowing cold, gauge needle pegged just as I pulled over and shut it off.

Clamp is fine, hose isn't torn, hard or too soft either. Judging by the relatively minor mess underhood, the hose didn't come off under pressure. Weird...
Mom picked me up from the side of the road, I went to get pliers and a couple coolant jugs. Took about 10 liters of coolant and home I went without issue. Warms up normally, blows hot, e-fans work.
I think I'll put on another clamp just for safety. I think the constant tension clamp on there is original.


Also taking the summer wheels to get blasted and powdercoated tomorrow. I said no rush, they'll do them by end of year. Pick and choose from a basic color pallette, 120 euros for the whole set. Not bad at all.

[Arquemann]

I did buy a set of those center caps... Couldn't resist temptation. Hopefully the guy will actually send them and not just take my monies.
Also did some black friday shopping and bought a xenon conversion kit, wasn't cheap but it should be legal.

[Arquemann]

Did a little all over inspection on the car, gotta get the real inspection done before Dec 12th.
Noticed that the right rear marker light was out, and when changing that bulb out, I realized this car has 2 brake/indicator bulbs per side. The top ones on both sides have been burnt out always.
So now I've got 4 brake lights instead of 2, plus the fixed CHMSL and even both the marker lights work now! BAM! Lights!

The left licence plate light has been off/dim/on depending on the star's orientation, so I wanted to fix it. Well, upon closer inspection, the screwheads looked more like burnt chocolate cookies and the lens was broken.
After somehow managing to remove said crusty screws, the bulb housing / lense came out in 4 pieces.
I assembled the housing with epoxy and added some reinforcement plates from some scrap 1mm aluminium sheet.

New bulb in, realized that the plate light socket is total garbage, it's super fiddly and the wires/contacts are loose. Can't do much there.
I screwed the first screw in, the light went out, tapped it and came on again. Second screw in, last turn to tighten and the light goes out. Tap once, lights up dimly. Tap again and it's lit bright LOL
I guess I'll have to tap it at the inspection if it's out.

Since this is a wagon, new plate light housings are pretty much unobtanium, of course. Wouldn't be too hard to change out the socket though, except to dismantle the tailgate, again...

[DerekTheGreat]

Yeah, they'd really tie the.. car together.

[Arquemann]

Well, I'm painting the wheels and I'm going with silver.

Mainly because those rivets are really hard to sand around, took me about 10 minutes to clean up enough oxidation from around the rivet to even consider putting on clear coat at ANY point.
Only problem is there's 96 rivets in total. Not worth the insane amount of work for a barely passable end result.

Dunno if I can be arsed to strip the matte black off the other 3 wheels... The finish on those is smooth, no peeling anywhere and seems to be adhered well, from the one that I stripped it off.


Those winter wheels reeeeaally could do with the center caps...

[DerekTheGreat]

Sounds like my experience with a spare set of turbines I got. I took the best one of the set and tried cleaning it up for spare tire duty. I scrubbed and scrubbed, Dawn dishsoap was the best when paired with a strong bristle brush. But even then, it isn't as purty as the rest of the wheels the car wears.

[Arquemann]

Yeah... I don't think I'm achieving a clean brushed aluminium finish by hand, they might be too oxidized and worn for that.
I'll get some scotchbrite pads first though, the steel wool I used after the paint stripping is quite fine.

I thought about the mediablasting again, but it would remove the brushed finish and I don't think I can re-do that finish myself.
And if I'm painting, why bother blasting either. I'm not spending a few hundo on blasting and powdercoating for a set of old crappy rep wheels.

So most likely I'm going with rattle cans, but gloss black or silver...

[Arquemann]

Got the summer wheels cleaned up to the best of my ability.
Removed all weights since I want to refinish atleast the faces. The wheel barrels are so corroded and embedded with brake dust, they won't come out with just cleaners. Wheel acid maybe, or blasting as a final solution. I'm not going that far.
I took one wheel in to dry, gonna try some paint stripper on the face. I'll have to gauge the amount of work necessary to get the original brushed aluminium finish. If it's too much work I'll just end up repainting them either gloss black or silver.

The faces have some dents on them, nothing too major. The matt paint is smooth, so hopefully the surface beneath is too.


This is the best condition one of the barrels, the one I cleaned the most. Several passes with engine degreaser, HD wheel cleaner and a wire brush.

[Mainemantom]

That blue 67-69 Biscayne looks like a Chicago Police car. They have a unique blue color.

[Arquemann]

Yup, those center caps came on a lot of different things, police spec B-bodies came with those center caps on police steelies. Looks pretty killer.
If I can be arsed to fit those caps on the rally wheels, I guess that'd look nice aswell, since the rally wheel is pretty deep dish.

[DerekTheGreat]

Yah, those ones with the bowtie on 'em. Those would look real good on those steel wheels, if you could get them on there. Remind me of the center caps (Didn't I call them "hub" caps? D'oh.) my van had, only those were metallic silver.

[Arquemann]

Whaddayamean by basic Chevy caps? And on the winter rally wheels or the not-Centerlines?

The winter wheels are the Chevy Rally wheels, 5 slots, hubcap nubs on the inside, near the bolt holes. They don't have the 3 holes for the bolt-on 9C1 center caps.
The fake Centerlines have the 3 threaded holes for bolt-on center caps.

I would kinda like the bolt-on caps on the Rally wheels, but I'd have to drill and tap 12 holes with pretty exact spacing. And buy the caps of course.

These bolt-on caps, which I quite like:


The Rally wheels fit caps like these, which I'm not really into due to the age of the car:

[DerekTheGreat]

Add the basic Chevrolet hub caps with bright lugnuts and the wheels will look just dandy.

[Arquemann]

Next week is gonna get COLD as fck, had to get winter tires on today.
Woke up at noon, ate, did some stuff, dad went to change the winter tires on his BMW and sister went to change the tires on her Jetta. We only have one floor jack, so one at a time...
I got my turn with the jack at 2PM, did the rears and was supposed to grease the joints up front, no grease... Had to wait for dad to get back home so I'd have a car to go get grease, he was at a hardware store but left his phone at home, as usual.

Got my grease, had to tear apart the grease gun, put it back together, cleaned up all the grease fittings on the car, messed with those for a while. Just barely managed to get the tires changed before 4PM, just as it got dark. Didn't really get to snap a proper pic.
The outer tie rod boots are torn, one ball joint boot aswell, other than that, they're just old and crappy.

Dunno if im really into the rallye wheels on this car, but they're on there now and they'll do.
Not sure what should I do with the summer wheels, they're replica Centerline Auto drags, just pretty beat up and painted matte black. I'm torn between painting them gloss black and running them with factory 9C1 center caps, OR stripping the paint and redoing the factory brushed aluminium finish.

[Arquemann]

Found an Allis-Chalmers TL20 and Fiat-Allis 605B in a junkyard, expertly removed a Volvo bumper for a friends project.
Went to Helsinki cruising, came across the friendliest parking warden in the history of man, saw a fire truck hit another fire truck, saw a BMW almost take air on a speed bump, broke into my car with a beer can.
Good stuff.