Thread: Grandpa’s Grand Prix

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Hey all, haven’t been on in a while and getting ready to start a new one. The young man that plays drums in my band inherited this 77 Grand Prix when his grandpa recently passed. He’s not a car guy so he asked me if I’d help him get it roadworthy again. He doesn’t want to break the bank so we’re just going to freshen up all the mechanicals, fix the rusted out quarters, and put in some decent interior. The car hasn’t run in many years but after tinkering with it for a few hours we had it running and the engine sounds pretty good. Interesting car, it was ordered with the 403 Olds instead of the Pontiac engine options. Should be a fun project and always good to help keep a family heirloom on the road.

Neat car. The 403 Olds was not a bad engine.....owned and worked on a few over the years it's also a drop in replacement for that horrible olds based diesel GM was fond of putting in everything. A lot of the Pontiacs that were built in and especially those sold in California had the Olds engines because the 400 Pontiacs wouldn't pass California emission standards. I've seen a fair number of Firebirds of that era with the 403s out here in AZ.

Should be a fun car when it's done.


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Those Grand Prix's were classy back in their time! Good for you helping the guy bring his Grandpa's back!

Neat car! I had a '75 Gran Prix, what a road trippin' car it was! Good luck with the new project, looks like you're starting with a keeper, anyway. Helping a friend rebuild his Grandpa's car must damn near qualify you for saint hood! The last cars I remember my Grandpa's having were a '53 Studebaker my Grandpa Gunderson had, and a '56 Ford two door hardtop that Grandpa Severson had! Dang, I'd give anything to find either of them today!

Thanks; it’s fun to do something a little different after mainly working on 40s and 50s Mopars. My wife is happy I’m building something with someone else’s money! Lol!

We did some more tear down today; should be time to break out the power washer pretty soon and get rid of some sludge.

Nice to see you tackling a project again, I like watching how fast you get these things done!

Got the motor out today and will do some power washing tomorrow. Lots of mud on the frame And front suspension; I think grandpa must’ve drove a lot of dirt roads.

Looks much better after a good degreaser soak and power wash. Nice surprise; most of the steering linkage has been replaced and everything is tight. So we’re going to disassemble, paint, replace shocks, springs, a few rubber boots and bushings, and put it back together. And all of the brake parts, of course.

Doing a little housekeeping. Just got all new control arm bushings and brake parts delivered; as soon as we get the suspension together we’ll get the motor on a stand so we can open it up and take a look.

Looking good, that's some good progress! Going to be a really first rate cruiser!

Thanks; it’s also nice having a helper and he’s not shy about getting dirty even though he’s pretty green on mechanics.
The front end is ready to put back together so should be hitting that over the next week. He was trying to decide what to do about interior as what’s there now is garbage from top to bottom.
We lucked out and found this 75 Grand Prix parts car with really cool custom seats, a decent interior, good quarter panels (much needed) and a ton of other parts we can reuse.

Awesome project you are in to Pat! Nice progress and what a cool score on that parts car!

We tore the motor down today, no big surprises. It was rebuilt at some point as it had a 20/20 crank. Cylinders and bearings look good so we’re just going to change all the seals and gaskets, put in an aftermarket cam and lifters, plus a new oil pump for good measure.

Nice score in the parts Grand Prix, that interior stuff can get out of hand in a hurry. You and I would get along good with the mechanic side of some things. Sometimes it's not worth putting a crazy lot of parts money and extra work into something that won't get 5,000 mi a year put on it.

Yeah, I’ve really gotten away from dumping loads of money in a drivetrain. As I get older I find I’m just as happy with a good running stock engine in a project.