My Blue 1976 2 Door Maverick Project

Basic Car Info: 1976 Maverick
Engine: 250 CID
Paid: $950

EDIT: 5 Months ago i didn't know anything about working on a car other than I wanted to learn. Since then through this forum and other miscellaneous reading I have learned ALOT! Through all of the input from members here I feel like I can learn to do anything to my car if i take the time.


I have always wanted something that was unique (for the most part). When I bought my 95 Camaro - 1st Car - which has aftermarket bumpers, tail lights, turning lamps and hood I thought that would be satisfying enough. While there are very few that are similar it still doesn't cut it in the uniqueness category. How many 95 camaros were made? I would assume millions.

For the past couple years I have been fairly interested in older cars - camaro's, mustangs, chevelles, nova's etc. But these too are rather common it seems (at least in my area). I recall from my time working at Arby's back when I was 16 my manager had a 4 door Maverick that he had high hopes for. I couldn't recall what it looked like so I googled it and was blown away by what appeared in front of me. Pictures of quite possibly the coolest Cars i have ever seen in my life.

These Mavericks (maybe comets in the future) were the car that I desired. So needless to say the search was on. Being 20 rarely has financial benefits but I have a decent amount of money since I joined the National Guard back when I was 17. I knew i wanted one but the availabiliy in my area is seriously lacking. In 6 months, starting July 2009 I saw only 2 available for sale in my state. The first one a 74 grabber which had serious body cancer and hadn't moved in 22 years. It took quite a bit of reality checking from my father and uncle to convince me not to go down that road.

Second car I came upon was a Blue 1976 2 Door Maverick with what appears to be a redone Interior - Bench seat in front and rear seats. My eyes and excitement got the best of me and I skipped over very important factors when examining this machine.

1.There is rust that has eaten through both rear 1/4's and rust on drivers front fender.
2.Passenger Torque box and floor pan are shot.
3. The exhaust has a break in the pipe underneath towards the center of the vehicle.
4. There was an oil leak when I bought it
5. It had problems running and would die if you didn't pop it into neutral and rev at stop signs/lights.
6. The engine bay -especially valve cover, that side of block, and everything else in that area - was covered in so much oil and gunk I couldn't believe it. I didn't even know my valve cover and engine were blue.

This all equals to my new project purchased January 1, 2010. What a great start to a new year Pictures below are what it looked like before I took half the engine out to begin work.

Updates to come

 

So I have been working on the Maverick for about 3-4 days now and have a couple pictures of the car as it begins being dismantalled.

Some of the old rusty clips that hold the fenders and other parts on have proved to be a task as they keep breaking. Took me and the old man nearly 20 minutes to get one off after it broke using the ratchet and a pair of vice grips. Where can I buy new clips?

Day 1: Removed rear bumper after left side of bumper frame broke from being so badly rusted. When it was being lowered off the flatbed to be put into the garage the bumper hit the flatbed and the pressure was just too much I'll post pictures of that later. Also removed left and right plastic trunk trim pieces - upper and lower and tail lights. As you can see in the picture there is some surface rust in that area that will be needing cleaned up. Black spray paint on passenger side door is from bad ass little neighbor kids before I moved it from my old duplex into an appartment garage where my sister manages.

Day 2: Removed front & Back bench seats and the interior panels. Really amazed at how nice the condition of my interior was before starting. Dash pad has 1 small single vertical split in it otherwise very nice. Front bench is in astonishingly great shape. Rear one has very very small tear near top drivers side along with sun-fading. We started to pull up carpet and noticed a pool of anti-freeze on the front passenger side floor below the carpet but resting on the padding underneath. Bad heater core? We shall see

On day two I had to make a couple different runs to the auto store to get some Allen Wrenches and Star wrenches to remove front inner bench seatbelts (stars) and seatbelt panel (allen). The seatbelt panel was a serious headache. I definately need a better tool set.

Day 3: This day was ridiculously hot but we worked away non-the-less. We attended to the carpet to begin - removing it and storing it in the garage to be cleaned up later (still excellent shape ). The padding was dingy looking so we tossed all of that. At some point it looks as if the padding was replaced under the rear seat because there was a thin layer of plastic melted to the floor back there. After cleaning this all up I will be laying down sound-deadner every inch it will fit in. Before that can happen we need to patch a fat J shaped hole in front passenger floorpan. If you look in the interior pic you can see it somewhat.

I decided I wanted to remove the fenders so we went about doing that. After assessing the situation under the fenders we called it a day.

Day 4 is tomorrow: We are kind of hopping around a bit in what we are doing. We have to wait to do the major stuff until we move the Mav to a place that has power (this appartment garage does not). We are planning on attending to the rust that was beneath the fenders - using solvents and rust remover brushes to clean it all up then coating it with some duplicolor truck bed liner. I have done some reading up on it so we will be certain to cover engine/holes leading into engine bay interior.

Part 2 of Day 4 will be removing the exhaust. Now, I am by no meens a exhaust expert nor mechanic in general but I know someone definately F#&3D up when they put this exhaust on and they must have plain and simply just not cared. Its like they were like - lets
this under the car cause no one is ever gonna see it. I will post at least 2-3 pics soon of what I am talking about.

I will post more pics when I complete day 4 in general

Excited

 

Interior Dash Pic, Small floor Rot, other shots

Pics are a little awkward because I couldn't see when I was taking them - garage was too dark....Flash did most of the work

 

Seems like you got quite a bit done. Keep at it and one day it'll all be finished.

 

Yea I can only hope. I could have been doing this when I bought the car 6 1/2 months ago. I put it off until just recently and dearly regret taht. I am heading off on a deployment to afghanistan in about a week. So my work will be cut short I am afraid.

 

The $h!$#Y exhaust

 

The broken rear bumper and a glimpse of my seats (better pics later)

 

Love that color combo! My Aunt bought a new 76 4 door that color blue with a white vinyl top. It was a sharp car for a four door. Looks like you have a pretty solid car to start with there, I have seen much worse restored. Since the park bench [big bumper] rusted off, I'd replace it with a small one. Good luck on your deployment and thank you for serving our country! May the time pass swiftly and you can get back stateside to enjoy your Maverick.

 

Nice project.

 

Thanks for the kind and encouraging words. It always helps knowing there are people who support us

I am definately replacing the rear bumper with a little one like you suggested. I just have to find one and figure out how to make it work first

There are a couple 70 mavs (1 2dr and 1 4dr) which the owner is trying to sell but refuses to part out. I would consider it if he wasn't asking $1200 for the pair when the 2 dr has no title and the 4 dr has no engine and the overall condition of each is crap.

Do you have to swap the fenders to do a small bumper swap?

 

12:32 P.m. and Day 4 is off to a rocky start. Can't find my right hand man (dad) anywhere (or maybe i'm his right hand man?)

Hopefully I get ahold of him soon and we can head over and dig into it no later than 2:30 and put about 5 hours in. I'll update later.

 

On the rear, all you have to do is change the fender extensions , bolt on a small bumper valance, and drill four holes to bolt up the small bumper. On the front, you need the small bumper valance and bumper and the gravel pan, unless you want to cut down the plastic one you already have [that is what I did]. If you use the early style gravel pan, you will either have to cut a notch in the front fenders, or notch the gravel pan. You also have to drill 4 holes through the frame rails, 2 each side, to bolt the bumper brackets to. There is a template in 71gold's gallery pics that shows the location where to drill the holes. Lots of info here about the swap. It really changes the looks of the car, better IMHO.

 

Nice looking car and project you got there. I'd like to thank you for serving our country also, good luck and stay safe
Bossed

 

Thanks your support is much appreciated

Thanks for the bumper info ford84stepside. I will hopefully be able to find some small bumpers and do the mods when I get back home. I am however haveing problems identifying what exactly a gravel pan is. I think I have it down but does anyone have a picture of what it looks like?

 

Yesterday (Day 4):

Didn't locate the old man until 5:00 and didn't start on the car until 6:00. That would have given us roughly 3 hours of daylight but we only lasted until 7:30.

Cleaned trunk of misc. tools & equipment that was living back there. Pulled up padding and trashed it. Assessed trunk rust issues. Overall not too bad. Some tar buildup in random areas for no apparent reason. Scraped a little off and there was nothing below it.

Grinded area in front of doors, slightly behind wheel well area of all rust and paint. Layed on a couple layers of RUST ELIMINATOR I purchased from local auto parts store and covered that with about 3 layers of Duplicolor Bed Liner. Results are to be determined. It was a rough spray to get an idea of my wheel wells final results considering I have never used this stuff before.

Day 5: This was a little more progressive. I stopped at a Menards and picked up a different type of rust/paint remover for my drill that is far better than a basic disc. I will post pictures when I can, its seriously amazing.

I started grinding down the trunk to remove the heaps and globs of tar, knock off the surface rust and prep that area for what I consider finishing. With more rust eliminator and bed liner. I am eventually going to throw some sound deadner over top of that aswell so it will match the cars interior when that gets done

In between grind sessions we removed the exhaust which took more than a couple times where we stepped away and had a cool down sip of our drinks to think about it and calm our nerves. Beer for the old man and Dr. Pepper for me - one of us had to drive and he made it apparent it wasn't gonna be him lol. When we had all the brackets removed from the underside we started to disconnect the pipe bolts in the center of the exhaust. We didn't do it sooner because it was difficult to get a socket that in at the correct angle. A couple bolts broke and made our task difficult but in the end we prevailed and the exhaust went to the trash I already have 70 inch shielded patriot side pipes which will be going on once the car is squared away.

Following this we felt we had accomplished something so we called it a day (about 3 1/2 hours total of work and pondering).

Tomorrows goal is:
1. Drop gas tank
2. New Rear Shocks
3. Finish Grinding Trunk (needed areas)
4. Grind underside of trunk/Area where the gas tank fits up into
5. Apply Bed Liner inside trunk & Rubberized undercoating under trunk.

Realisticly I don't know how much of this we will accomplish since we probably won't begin until 2:30. But hey, always good to have a game plan


NOTE: Trunk picture is before I started working on it, grinding out tar and rust. I will take some after pics when I finish it up and then more pics after I have coated it nicely Picture of the bed liner is only a test section. Soon I will coat everything that is to the right of the picture - I don't even know why I partially masked that side.