81 Malibu "Uncaged" Performance Therapy project thread

[70rs]

Nice score on the rear John!
Do you have a date in mind for completion? Any events you may run it at?

[NOT A TA]

Originally Posted by 70rs

Nice score on the rear John!
Do you have a date in mind for completion? Any events you may run it at?

Thanks Eric! I think I should have it together sometime in the fall. I'll take it to local Auto-X and dragstrip test and tunes and it'll be my DD again. No road track stuff or LSR events because I don't get to run those as often as I'd like in my Firebird as it is, so the bu probably won't see those types of events.

[NOT A TA]

I should have mentioned the "deal" on this rear in my last post. Right now I have no disposable income for cars. The rear was listed on Maliburacing.com for $350.00 and seller offered to deliver within 100 miles for additional money. I contacted the seller and he offered to meet me half way (we're a couple hundred miles apart) for $50.00. I told a bud about the rear who knows I've been scouring the earth to figure out an inexpensive way to get a rear that will hold up. He offered to pay for the rear and the extra $50.00 in exchange for me doing a brake upgrade/repair and aftermarket AC install on a car. So no out of pocket expense for me.

Picked up a set of NOS chrome steel aftermarket valve covers posted in the for sale section of another forum so there's one less thing I need now! They have just the right plain, old school look. So for 25 bucks including shipping they're the "big expense" out of pocket so far, and arrived today.

[NOT A TA]

As often happens with projects Uncaged got shelved for a while (over a year) while I concentrated on working on others cars to build up a good customer base. So now my "regular" job is working on other peoples cars like ours as a traveling mechanic.

Although I wasn't working on the Malibu I slowly continued to collect parts I need/want for it. I got back to porting the heads a couple weeks ago but caught a piece that flung out of the grinder right in the eye even though I had glasses on. Luckily, a gentleman I'm building a car for is an eye surgeon and fixed me up immediately even though it was late Sunday night on Labor day weekend.

As for an update, I've also gotten started on building the rear. A few weeks ago I took all 4 axles to the machine shop I still work out of part of the time and checked them out after putting them in the washer to clean them up. The outer bearing surface was scored on one and a dial indicator showed one as slightly bent so the choice of which 2 to use was a no brainer. I bought a set of new Richmond 3.73 gears from a member on another forum and ordered a complete rebuild kit from Ratech for bearings, shims etc. The previous owner of the rear had cleaned up the rust on the outside of the housing and hit it with some POR 15 or something but because I want to weld the axle tubes to the center section the paint needed to come off that area. I figured I'd just clean and smooth the whole housing so I started stripping it.

[NOT A TA]

Once the paint was stripped I prepped it for welding the tubes to the center section, additional spring perch welds, and also ground out some questionable factory welds on the lower link brackets to be rewelded. Had my bud Rick I work with (who's a better welder than I) weld it up for me. Yes, I checked to be sure the axle tubes were straight before welding. I will be taking the car to the strip and running it on sticky drag tires and plan on some auto X action with A-6's so hopefully the extra welding will help things stay together and straight.

[Radlark]

Whatever happened with this car did you ever finish it?

[NOT A TA]

Originally Posted by Radlark

Whatever happened with this car did you ever finish it?

I can't finish this car until I finish my Firebird. Some of the pieces from the bird are going on the Malibu. As an example the front spindles from the bird are needed to install the hotchkis front suspension and the rear brakes from the bird are going on the bu. As soon as the bird is done I'll be working on this car again but I have been collecting parts and working on the rear.

As you could see in the pics above the axle tubes were pitted. Since I'm a PT kinda guy I used Ospho, sanded, shot with DP 74 epoxy primer, smoothed pitted metal with filler, and then shot a coat of K 38 high build sandable primer on it. Some more smoothing and it'll be ready for final paint! Will it make it go faster corner better or stop quicker? No, but sometimes mission creep takes over.

[NOT A TA]

I hate doing things twice but sometimes you have no choice. Something caused the paint to lift in the corners, nooks/crannies of the Malibu rear I had in primer. I suspect it was caused by laying a coat too thick/wet.

In any case I stripped it down of all paint in affected areas and prepped/primed/smoothed/primed/sanded till I had it looking the way I wanted to spray it gloss black. I don't usually do my own cars gloss underneath but all the new Hotchkis suspension components are powder coated gloss black so I figured I'd make the rear match.

I used PPG K38 high build primer and PPG single stage acrylic enamel.

[WSSix]

Nice duck!

The rear end looks brand new now. Good job.

[Evan Iroc-Z]

Originally Posted by WSSix

Nice duck!

The rear end looks brand new now. Good job.

Not worth typing it twice, what he said!

Love the duck! He must be a PT fan.