Hello,

  I stopped by the body and paint shop on Friday and they are still working on it.  They are taking their time and a good portion of the car has been primered and block sanded.  They pay more attention to insurance work because it is a more profitable portion of their business.

  There's still PLENTY to do around here with the remaining parts, pieces, wheels and trim.  The hope to get my transmission back from the rebuilder today was for naught.  His repair shop at home is not heated and things got down to 19 degrees F earlier this week.  The alligators around here dig even more deeply into the swamp mud on those days.

  I have declared all five of the original Pontiac Rally II wheels that I acquired now finished. I have four wheels in a 15 x 7 inch size and one wheel that is a 15 x 6 that will be the spare in the trunk. They will look good with a nice whitewall.  They were media blasted down to bare metal and I had to use some Bondo Glazing Putty to fill a few cosmetic rust pits, especially along the air pressure sealing edges of the rims. The glazing putty is the same red material that I used on the gouged out metal areas on the most damaged long rocker trim. I used an Ames stencil kit to mask off the correct areas and an Ames kit that had the correct Argent Silver paint plus the dark grey paint. The finished wheels are all now fully painted and shot with a clear coat to toughen up the finish. The three wheel pictures show the best of the worst and the worst of the worst before I had them blasted. Finally, all of them look exactly the same.

  The headlight trim rings are also all finished with the chrome paint except for the clear coat they will need.   All in all, I am happy with their results.  Sure, I could have shipped these off to be redone in real chrome metal at a vastly increased cost and at some risk of losing the bezels between here and the chrome plating facility.  There's no way I was going to do any of that.

Rick

 

Hello,

 As is my usual Friday routine, I stopped by the paint and body shop late yesterday for a look at the Catalina.  Improvements do occur from week to week though I will soon consider this as "Paint Jail" . . . . . .

  The transmission came home Thursday night and I paid the Texas rebuilder a total of $1300.00.  He said the valve body did not need rebuilding and had never been reamed for oversize bushings or valves. He simply put new, very slightly oversized valves back into the valve body to compensate for wear in the valve bores. He kept the original separator plate but gave the valve body a steel ball (replaced the plastic balls with metal balls) on top of the plate and some kind of reinforcement (???) in the valve body under the plate. All new valves, pressure manifold switch, solenoids and internal wiring harness. The exterior of the case got a clear coat paint job. All of the required wet and dry air valve and clutch pack application pressure performance checks were done during the rebuild.

  This new fluid pan was built for an early 1995 4L60E transmission or a late 700-R4 transmission.  We discovered that a pan fluid filter for my junk yard 2002 model year transmission won't fit a late 700-R4 pan but that was easily solved with buying a suitable and inexpensive 700-R4 filter. We poured half a quart of synthetic Valvoline Dexron 6 fluid into the newly rebuilt torque converter (lubes an internal TC bearing) and he taught me how to properly seat the torque converter onto the input shaft.  Doing this correctly with the TC is quite critical.  Approximately twelve more quarts of fluid will soon make their way into the case.

 It also got two new aluminum pistons to replace the old plastic pistons.  He gave it a new (used) tail shaft cover to replace the dented cover and it is these last two items that raised the finished price from $1200 to $1300.

  I am also "polishing" on the front bumper to remove tarnish and rust and I'm using crumpled aluminum foil, soapy steel wool and water to bring the chrome shine back.  The left side of the bumper is nearly complete and I will take pictures soon. It'll get a clear coat on the front and back bumper once polishing is complete.

 Late yesterday, I shot the back sides of the Catalina door panel cards with a heavy layer of SprayMax "Glamour" 2K catalyzed clear coat to future-proof the panels against rain or a heavy car wash flood.  Not that I suspect they will ever see much of a downpour chance.

Rick 

 

Hello,

  My painter called today with good news.   The time for some Verdoro Green Poly paint draws nigh.  The Cat has improved its location in the shop and now sits next to the paint booth.  With any luck, I will have it back a week from now.

Rick

 

Hello,

  These paint people really know how to heighten the drama of painting a car.  It has been painted in a light black guide coat to assist in block sanding and they have begun to paper the car.

Rick 

Hello,

  And we have the beginning first coat of green paint and it greened up even more solidly (less mottled) after these pictures.  The car was too large inside of their paint booth for the painter to maneuver around with the gun, the hose and himself to easily reach all of the car's nooks and cranny tight spots. This is outside of the booth. Many more coats of green went on and there should be plenty left over at the end.   

  At least two coats of clear coat goes on early tomorrow morning. The hood also still needs paint - top and bottom.   The engine compartment will also get a coat of hot rod chassis black.

  Rick

Hello,

   And the clear went on today.  Still need to paint the hood and the front / rear valance panels below each bumper.  

Rick

 

Hell yeah Rick! Lookin good buddy 

Awwwwwww👍👍👍👍

nice Rick 

Looks great!!

Progress....

Waiter! There is a fly in my paint! 

That green paint is now smooth as glass and will get a little more sanding tomorrow with compounding and final polish.  I am still on track to bring it home early next week and then more hard work begins.

  Those bumpers are so heavy and massive that the tides in the Gulf are influenced from here.

Rick 

Hello,

   And a drum roll please . . . the Large Zucchini On Wheels has done its time, paid its debt to society and has been paroled from paint jail.  I got it home on a flat bed earlier this evening.   Now the real work begins.

Rick

 

Excited for ya Rick! 

Same here !!!

very exciting !!!

Now your fun begins !!!! 
dont forget we love pics rick 👍

That’s great news! Don’t scratch it!

Home sweet home.  Awesome. 

Awesome! Looks great!

Hello,

  Before I get real serious about setting the engine and transmission in one last time, I need to make sure that I'm done with any other things to be replaced within the engine compartment.   Such as the original 1970 power steering gear box. It leaks power steering fluid and has that horribly weak internal torsion bar force that allowed your Grandma to drive these vehicles with one pinky finger.   These vehicles did not have that firmer, more confident road feel that today's cars and trucks have. I'm about to change that and for at least one of these things, I need to sit down within the engine compartment - at least, its vastly easier sitting there.

  I'm installing a GM Saginaw power steering gear box out of a junk yard 1995-98 Jeep Grand Cherokee (JGC) - a 25-dollar JY part.  Jeep bought these gear boxes from GM rather than build their own and in all of the important fitment aspects, they are easily adaptable to this GM B-bodied Catalina.  And I've already done this swap in my A-bodied El Camino which gives me the greatest of confidence here. I did ship this JGC steering gear box off to Hector "Carhex" Carillo (on Facebook) for a quick rebuild, internal adjustment and new seals.  The old and the new steering boxes have the same Pitman arm sweep angle such that the turning radius will be the same for this vehicle. Both steering gear boxes are about 3.25 turns from full left turn to full right turn but the steering ratio is 12.7 to one with the JGC box - about 14.5 to 1 for the 1970 gear box. 

 As you can see in the pictures, the outer mold line is nearly identical for these two castings.  The distance between the large mounting bolt holes is precisely identical but the newer gear box only has three bolt holes whereas the 1970 box had four holes.  No problem - Pontiac only had three mounting holes through the frame and only used three bolts. And these same 1970 bolts work perfectly in the bolt holes of the JGC steering box - same exact thread pitch and length required.

  I will need to remove the 1970 Pitman arm from the original gear box for reuse on the JGC box.  The Pitman arm spline count and shaft sizes are the same on both boxes.  The spline count and size of the input shaft and rag joint in the JGC box is different than the input shaft and rag joint of the original Pontiac gear box. No worries - a Dorman 31011 part number rag joint makes this adaptation to the steering column shaft very easy. The original 1970 rag joint needed to be replaced anyway.

  The hardest part of this upgrade / swap is taking the original gear box to a machine shop to get the Pitman arm nut removed and to remove the original Pitman arm.  It took a 40-ton hydraulic press to remove the Pitman arm on my El Camino and I suspect this one will be every bit as tough. I'm not buying a 1 and 5/16ths inch socket for a one time use that will simply occupy space after this. I will drop off this gear box at the machine shop on Monday. Putting the original Pitman arm onto the new JGC box and tightening down the shaft nut is easy, of course.

   I don't have the old Pitman arm off yet to look and see if there is only one way it goes back onto the new JGC box.  This was the situation with my El Camino which makes it so much easier for the mount "clocking" of the Pitman arm to be correct for vehicle steering.  This helps with making the number of turns to the full left and right the same, the steering wheel being "level" and to make for an easier front-end alignment. Getting the steering wheel to be perfectly level with a front-end alignment will still likely to be needed but its best to be close with the Pitman arm spline placement to begin with. In any event, I will split the 3.25 turns here for lock-to-lock and put 1.625 turns into the gear box and mount the Pitman arm to the gear box output shaft there.

  The original gear box rag joint used a flat, brass grounding plate and connection to aid in electrically bonding the upper steering shaft to the gear box and electrically to the rest of the car chassis - for best horn button operation.  I'd love to reuse the brass grounding plate from the original rag joint, but it is not removable and I'm not sure that throwing sparks with the death wheel to slice it apart would do any good. But I might try that.  However, it was easy enough to solder two lugs to a heavy wire and make a suitable grounding substitute - this worked and still works on my El Camino.

  Now that I have partially torn my way into the Catalina's fifty-five-year-old steering components, I'm considering the purchase of a new center link, idler arm and two tie rod ends.  I think I will go ahead and do that because I will despise myself later if I don't and it needed it. It's a safety thing, too.

It took a two-pound sledgehammer and my large ball joint splitter fork to get the original box out - I was not very nice to these steering components doing this.

  Edit:  Forgot to mention.  The high-pressure power steering hose is different here coming out of the JGC gear box.  But so is the fitting at the LS engine power steering pump.  I was going to need a different high-pressure hose anyway.

Rick

 

Nice upgrade Rick 

Smart upgrade. I did a similar thing in Lucy. A third-gen quick ratio steering box for the IROC Z and WS6 TAs bolts into the A-body cars.

Edited April 6, 20251 yr by Frosty

Good read, great info!

Hello,

  With my wife's assistance, the new / rebuilt Jeep Grand Cherokee steering gear box is in but I need to tighten up a few bolts.  It took me a few minutes to remember that I needed to loosen the steering column just a little and pull it up into the passenger compartment about 3/4ths of an inch to get the slack to make it fit.  And this job was a lot easier when I did it on my El Camino.  First off, I was six years younger.  And secondly, at that point with my EC, it had no front fenders which made straddling the frame the best course of action for ease of mounting.  I could get to the bolt heads and did not need an assistant to install the box and turn the bolts.

  The hard part of the job is complete.  I need to push the steering column back into the firewall and install the two large bolts at the rag joint.  The brake lines need to be massaged back into place and I can loosely place the original Pitman arm back onto the gear box output shaft.   

I can also lay in my power steering hydraulic lines, at least temporarily to get things sorted. The toughest part is done.  Now onto removing and replacing the steering link, idler arm and tie rod ends with all new later this week. 

Rick

Hello,

  And I'm back from the Detroit area family visit with a side trip to the Pontiac Transportation Museum in Pontiac, MI.  That is an interesting place and we got the tour of all three phases of the museum building.  They have a lot of nice cars and the gift shop got a considerable heap of my money.  My grand daughter and I had a great time though I am fairly certain my youngest son and my wife would not characterize this place quite the same way.

  And finally, the last missing piece of anything for this car safely arrived in the mail last week inside a long piece of Schedule 40 PVC pipe - my driver's side rear quarter panel, waist high, 87.5 inch long, piece of trim.  It was gone when I got the car and none of my parts car sources had it.  The passenger side was there and either side fits the other side. 

  It took me finally discovering the Pontiac part number for this piece inside the pages of a 1970 body shop book.  Once I knew the part number, I simply typed it in as a Google search term and there it was at Borth Auto Parts:

https://borthautoparts.com/   

I could not believe my luck at finding it. The price was $175.00 plus $50.00 for shipping - I think the long PVC pipe musta' been a freebie.  This is a New Old Stock part and is in perfect condition. Now it appears that the small plastic mounting clips for the pieces of trim (all six pieces) that are supposed to be copies of the originals are not.  With some effort, I can make them work but I also have other mounting ideas that are also suitable.

Rick

 

 

Awww, very cool Poppa Rick