In the past the fan control has only worked on high and sometimes on low, if you played with the button just right, and then sometimes it would turn off and when it was on low it was so quiet you couldn't tell that it was off unless you held your hand under the vent or began to get cold. I took the switch out expecting it to be bad or in need of cleaning. I noticed that the cardboard backing plate was not tight against the body of the switch because the tabs that are bent to hold it in place were loose.
I bent the tabs tighter and tested the ohms of the switch with the multimeter and found that the problem was fixed. It was about the easiest fix I've ever had. The only issue I had was that one day on the way back home from town the switch stuck on high and wouldn't turn off. I took the switch back out, adjusted it and it's been working good since.
April drove the Suburban on about a 300 mile trip. Right after she got back the check engine light came on. I ran by the local parts house and had them read the code from the computer and it showed a P0161, which is a bank 2 sensor 2 code. This means that the oxygen sensor on the passenger side, behind the catalytic converter had a heater element that was bad. Oxygen sensors must maintain a certain temperature to operate correctly. In order to get them to work before the engine heats up to operating temperature each of the four oxygen sensors has its own heater element. After looking online quite a bit to determine the best way to diagnose the issue, I tested the wiring harness. I had suspected that since I had just disconnected so many wires when I replaced the intake manifold gaskets that a wire connector was probably bad or a wire had rubbed through and was shorting out. It turned out to just be a coincidence and was unrelated to the previous work I had done. The heater element inside the sensor itself had gone bad. I ordered another sensor, rented a removal tool from the parts store, installed the new sensor and everything was back to good.
Upholstery shops wanted about $1,500 to install new, factory appearing seat covers for the '57. This wasn't even in the realm of possibilty so for Christmas Mother and Father, at my request, got me a saddle blanket seat cover for The '57. A 50/50 split-back bench seat has apparently become somewhat uncommon and had to be custom ordered. Mom and dad let me have it early because riding around on the towels and decaying eggshell mattress foam was very annoying, not to mention that installing the seat cover, which is time consuming, is much better in 60 degree weather than 20 or 30 degree weather. I had installed one of these years ago and enjoyed it for the first few days. I didn't realize that what I had bought was a very cheap brand and within about three months it began to rot and decay. It turned into a very fine granular material that began to come apart in your hands and blow in your eyes when you rode in the car with the windows down or vents open. Not only that, it turned into a very itchy substance that would not easily come off your skin even if you simply laid your hand down on the seat.
As you can see, the old seat is pretty much unusable. The brown seat material is like steel wool and if you try to sit on it, it will poke through your pants and into your leg. Also, the old padding wads up and falls apart and gets everywhere. Mice absolutely love this stuff. Every time I park the car for over a month I found about a square foot of this stuff in my trunk.
I bought a new sheet of eggshell mattress foam to help cushion the seat since so much of it had rotted away. I measured and cut it into three pieces and then trimmed the pieces to fit.
It took a while, but I like the end result. The process is kind of a pain, but getting the screws to line back up in the side and bottom panels was the worst part. The company sewed pockets into the front which is very, very useful since I don't really have anywhere to store my registration, remote for the radio or sunglasses. The color and design go very well with the original design of the door panels and rear seats.
After a lot, and I mean several days, of scrubbing and cleaning I finally removed almost all of the old woodgrain. My fingers were literally bruised and numb. I have yet to remove the woodgrain on the tailgate because I'm going to have to hook a car battery to the motors to let the window up and tailgate down, which is necessary to remove the woodgrain trim pieces on the left and right of the tailgate. One of the screws for the woodgrain trim on the gas door would not come all of the way out and I ended up having to drill it out.
I took Adam, the body and paint guy, the hood. Let me be clear. Not the first hood that was wrecked, or the second hood that I bought on the parts clip, but the third hood. The one I had to buy after Adam saw the other one and said it was so bad it wasn't worth fixing. Adam said all the panels on the parts-clip hood were wavy and would cost a fortune to get straight, and even then there was no guarantee it would stay straight after all the materials shrank and flexed. I had to find another hood. I remembered that somewhere around a year ago I had talked to a guy about two hours from Nashville that had a huge stash of demo derby cars and in those cars was a 1971 Pontiac Wagon. He wouldn't sell the car as a whole and at the time I was looking for a full parts car. Also, the front passenger fender was dented, which was a big part of why I needed a parts car. He had sent me pictures of it. I spent forever combing my old and deleted emails and forums posts but couldn't come up with anything in the way of correspondence I had with the guy. In desperation I posted to all of the appropriate places on the internet a very general description of the guy I had talked to: Two hours from Nashville, lots of demolition derby cars, 71 Pontiac wagon. Eventually, someone on a demolition derby forum posted the name of a guy that could be the man I was looking for. I contacted him and sure enough, it was the same guy. He checked the hood and called me back and said it was straight and would be suitable to use. That next Saturday I borrowed Dad's truck and small trailer and we headed down South.
When we first pulled up to the place, in the middle of nowhere, there was a shop surrounded by some older cars. As we got out a little kid about 3 years old, with a Batman jacket, came out of the door of the shop, snot running down his nose, and ran by me and ran up to dad and gave him a big hug like they'd known each other for years. We walked in the shop and there was a guy working on restoring a 1971 Kingswood clamshell. He looked really familiar but I couldn't place it. Dad and I talked to him and I was looking at one of his cars while he was talking to dad and suddenly his voice hit me. It turned out that this guy was Tommy from the TV show Muscle Cars, which is now called Detroit Muscle. It was so unexpected that even after I was pretty sure it was him I was afraid to ask because it seemed so random and unlikely. After talking a while, Tommy showed us a couple of his project cars that had been on the show and we made our way back to where the '71 wagon was. Unfortunately, of all the times, I forgot to take my camera. To my surprise, it was actually a non-woodgrain Grand Safari rather than just a Safari. I'm very thankful to have found the car, but if ONLY it could have had the woodgrain trim. It did mean, however, that the grill would work with mine. The hood was in excellent shape and so was the grill and header panel. The driver side quarter extension was great, but the passenger side fender and quarter extension were dented beyond practical use. The bumper was also dented. They were damaged because Tommy had bought this car to demolition derby so when his friend that he bought it from loaded it he did so with a bulldozer, thus ruining the front parts I mentioned above. That was really, really unfortunate. I not only got the hood but I ended up getting the grill as well, and since the grill was bolted to the header panel I went ahead and got it to because when the sandblasters had stripped the previous header panel it had made the plastic somewhat orange-peeled in some areas. It was able to be repaired, but I thought just in case I better get another one while the getting was good. Tommy was also able to give me the contact information of a great airbrush artist that will be able to paint the woodgrain.
I loaded the new hood and took it to Adam. He gave his approval of the great condition of the new hood, which was a relief.
Since the parts-clip had a Safari grill instead of a Grand Safari grill, I was going to have to find a passenger side grill. Fortunately, this parts car had the right grill and it wasn't broken at all.
I also got a completely intact and unbroken fan shroud. I got the parking light lens and reflector for the passenger side and since the quarter extension was busted all to pieces Tommy just gave me the whole piece. The front emblem is also much nicer than the other two I have, so I'll use it when reinstalling everything.
When I dropped the hood at Adam's he said that the other pieces were primed and ready for paint.
It's hard to tell from the photos but Adam's shop is on top of a huge hill. The view is great but getting up there on the gravel road can be difficult. I have to borrow dad's 4x4 to be able to pull a trailer up it. The '57 won't make it without a good running start thanks to its narrow tires. It doesn't translate into photo but thew view from the top is amazing.
