My '72 Grabber build thread

[John Holden]

I am starting this thread to ducument the restoration of my 1972 Maverick Grabber. I bought the car on August 6th 2011 from an old neighbor who had moved away. The car actually has low miles but it was sitting under plastic tarps for the last 10 years and the moisture from being under the plastic and the mice have done quite a bit of damage. The interior is completely shot. The body on the car is extremely solid with very minimal rust except under the cowl. These pictures show what the car looked like when I brought it home. The engine didn't run but turned over. The duraspark had been wired wrong. It had a weiand manifold with an adapter and a Quadra-jet carb that spewed fuel from the vents.

[John Holden]

The fuel tank fuel lines and fuel filter were all filled with rust. It's a wonder the fuel pump even worked. Between the time I brought it home and 8/13 I swapped the carb for a holley 600 vac sec that I had reworked for a previous car with center hung floats and secondary metering block. I filled the carb through the vent tubes and it ran much better. I had to run a jumper wire to the duraspark module but at least I know it runs! I used to own a maverick that I raced from the mid 80's until around 93 or 94. I've been poking around on this site for several years because I really missed my maverick and I wanted another one. The car in these pics has been my inspiration for the last few years.

[John Holden]

I got a free parts car from a friend from which I got a manual steering setup, disc brakes, jaz racing buckets, and a whole bunch of other stuff including a set of Bobcat taillights. Cleaned up the floor. Welded a few small holes somebody drilled for seats and fixed a couple of very small rust holes and sanded down some surface rust before giving it a coat of POR15.

[John Holden]

Got a new tank from Advance Auto Parts and welded in a competition Engineering sump. After removing the lower dash and air conditioning/heating box I could see there was some rust damage to the cowl that needs to be fixed.

[John Holden]

Drilled the holes for the Bobcat taillights on 9/7. On the weekend of September 10-11 I got teh disc brake conversion done, door hinge bushings and pins on both doors installed, and drilled out 130 spot welds to remove the upper cowl panel. There were some huge mouse nests in there and a whole lot of rust. I guess I will have to modify a mustang cowl repair panel for the passenger side and just patch the drivers side. I honestly think removal was the hard part though. I also pulled out the power steering linkage and installed the manual linkage.

[John Holden]

Here are some pictures of the cowl.

[franktf]

Looks like you have made some good progress, but that cowl area is going to be a project itself.....

[John Holden]

A little more info on the car. It's an automatic but the trans doesn't work. Its full of fluid but the car doesn't move. I want a manual trans anyway so I'm just going to swap it out now. The parts car had the pedals, bellhousing and frame bracket. I picked up a z-bar from someone in the classifieds on this site. I have a flywheel and disc and I just need a pressure plate. I also have a toploader 4 speed trans. I am putting Hooker 6901's on the car because one of the exhaust manifolds is cracked (good excuse anyway!). I really want one of those 9" housings a guy on here was selling. I have a nodular case, 28 spline and a 31 spline traction lock units and a few sets of gears of varying ratios to choose from. I bought a complete weatherstrip kit from Auto Krafters. I need a windshield. The rest of the galss is in very good condition. The car had a vinly roof but I welded in the moulding holes and i'm not putting vinyl back on. For the engine I may swap on a set of ported and shaved 72 heads with larger valves and screw in studs. I have a solid lifter ford motorsport cam I may put in it just for the sound effect. Basically I am just throwing parts I have laying around onto this car to get it running and driving. I want to paint it and have it running before winter. Then I will drive it until my falcon project is finished. After that I want to cut the shock towers out of the maverick and install a mustang II front end and a 4V 351 Cleveland and more modifcations. That's my plan.

[John Holden]

Originally Posted by franktf

Looks like you have made some good progress, but that cowl area is going to be a project itself.....

Hey Frank, the cowl is probably two more days of work. The drivers side will be easy but the passenger side will be a bit of a challenge. I've done this before on a mustang but it was easier because the repair panels are made for it.

[Comet Fever]

You have a project there no doubt. That is the fun of it. Challenge!

Look forward to your progress.