79' Caprice Classic

Hello All,

Just found this forum. Here is my 79' I have owned since 95'. It is my first car and near and ear to my heart.

Picture 269 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

388ci stroker that is currently in it.

Caprice 003 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

DSCN4910 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

DSCN4920 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

DSCN4925 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

It is currently waiting its turn for some attention, when I finish restoring my 64' Chevy stepside.

DSCN8864 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

bj383ss wrote:Hello All,

Just found this forum. Here is my 79' I have owned since 95'. It is my first car and near and ear to my heart.



It is currently waiting its turn for some attention, when I finish restoring my 64' Chevy stepside.

Nice looking car.  Thanks for the pics.

I have a '77 and I'm building a '63 Chevy stepside.

That looks like an awesome car! A lot of nice upgrades seemingly everywhere you look but maintaining an overall mostly stock appearance... other than the hood that lets you know there's more than meets the eye. The wheels, smooth bumpers and chrome trim all compliment each other extremely well. Thank you for sharing and I can't wait to see what you have planned in the future.

Welcome to the forum! Very nice ride!

We have a ton of info here covering everything from production numbers to part numbers, to RPO/SPID codes, to part ID sheets, even a couple Fisher Body Service manuals. Feel free to DL copies of anything you want.

Thank you guys for the welcome. I have always loved these cars but you rarely find anyone who is interested in them. Especially the 4 door. They either get it or they don't.

I have a lot of documentation of all the stuff I have done to the car and if you guys are interested I can share. I have a ton of photos but unfortunately they are all 35 mm photos so they need to be scanned in.

I do have a few already scanned and uploaded to my Flickr account.

So here is the story. My parents bought this car in 1985. It was a rental car and had around 80,000 miles on it. The first thing my dad did was yank the 305 and sell it as a boat anchor and put in a rebuilt 350. Then he painted it an awful Light Blue. When I got it in 95' I was 17 and the first thing I did was flip the tires around to blackwalls.

A few photos of when I first got her.

caprice 001 Aug-96 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

caprice 002 Aug-96 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Caprice 005 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

I got in a wreck on the passenger side a car was parked and turned into me when I passed them. Damaged both passenger doors so I went on the hunt and found 2 doors. I primered the passenger side and the plan was to just paint this side and the front header panel where I shaved the hood emblem. I also pulled the hubcaps painted the wheels silver and bought some BFG's with white letters. This is how it looked while I drove it during High School. I also had a cat back dual exhaust that I wasted $255 that didn't sound any different then stock.

Caprice 004 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Caprice 002 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Caprice 001 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

During this time I also put a stock 4bbl carb and intake I bought at the junkyard and cleaned and painted the best I could under the hood. Rebuilt the entire front suspension with Poly bushings and blasted and painted the A-arms and springs Red. At the same time switched out the rearend to one out of an 81 Olds and put 3.42 gears with posi. It has the bigger brakes and 5 on 5 bolt pattern. Didn't take any pictures of either of these upgrades. Not sure why. I took photos of everything else.

Caprice 001 May 97 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

After high school I pulled the engine and did a little refresh. Put an Edlebrock intake, Carter AFB 625cfm, K&N Filter, Accel wires with fiberglass boots, Holley fuel pump, Mini starter with heat shield and Carb Shop HP HEI. Also stripped and painted the headers and put a chrome oil pan. Also painted the entire engine bay. This was around April of 99'

Caprice 006 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Caprice 007 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Nasty engine bay.
Caprice 005 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

For some reason I went crazy and decided to paint everything under the hood Blue. You can also see the whole car has been sanded an primered at this point. Also had the Prime wheels on by this time. I bought them in 97' but never took a pic of them installed.

March 10 001 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

This is the whole car primered. I drove it this way until I painted it in August of 2000.
Caprice 002 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Welcome to the Forum!! My first car was also a '79 Caprice except mine never got that horsepower! Looking good! Great back story too!!

Looking good!

Hello guys. Sorry for no update for such a long time. A lot has changed since my last post. Sold my house and bought a new one with a 3 car garage. Moved all of my stuff out of the big garage I was using at my Mother in laws. I finally brought the Caprice home.

Sadly it hasn't been started in over 4 years but that is about to change. So she had to be towed home.

20170817_103528 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

20170817_093641 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Once I got here home she fit very snug in the garage.

20170817_111816 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

20170817_111711 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

So my solution for that was tuck the front and rear bumpers. And I have to say I should have done this years ago. I really like the way the front looks. It was extremely easy to tuck the bumpers. I was surprised that all for bumper shocks still had gas in them. Only thing I don't get is when I pushed the back ones in they leaked out oil. The front ones did not.

The back no longer needs the filler piece that rotted and fell apart many years ago.

20170903_115042 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

20170903_143210 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

20170903_143223 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

She now fits and I have walking room in front of her with the garage door closed.

20170903_143356 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

I am very close to getting her started again. When I parked her she had lost oil pressure. I never messed with since I moved April of 2013. But I changed the oil and filter and made me a oil priming tool out of an old distributor and primed the motor and it showed 60lbs of pressure so everything looks good. Should get her fired up in the next few days and get her running on her own power again.

IMG_20170831_184124_546 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Bret

So I got her running again. Adjusted the valves and reset the timing. Took her around the block and it has about 40psi oil pressure when it shifts gears @2500 rpm. So the engine is good enough to move around under its own power.

20170910_105112 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Haven't drive the car in so long I forgot how awesome it drives. Can't wait to get some new tires and registered so I can drive her around more.

20170910_121528 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Bret

Nice car. how high is you cowl induction scoop ?. I'm going to get one for my 86 caprice .

The bumper closer looks good.

I would think their the same bolt pattern.

Is all you did was remove the gas shocks and bolt it back?

Are you running the turbo 350 trans.?

It looks a lot more "old school" appearance.

Nice!

P.S.  I like my 383 also.  Pulls nicely.

efladerr wrote:Nice car. how high is you cowl induction scoop ?. I'm going to get one for my 86 caprice .

It is the 4 1/2" outlaw. I liked it when I was younger. It is too big though. I plan on removing it and doing the 2" Z28 style.
"

terry cronk wrote:The bumper closer looks good.

I would think their the same bolt pattern.

Is all you did was remove the gas shocks and bolt it back?

Are you running the turbo 350 trans.?

It looks a lot more "old school" appearance.

Nice!

P.S.  I like my 383 also.  Pulls nicely.

Terry I removed the gas shocks, drilled a hole to release the gas and then pushed them in. I still need to weld them together to make sure they don't move.

Bret

Finally an update!

I swapped in a used/built TH350 to replace my tired broken original.

20190110_093523 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Underneath is nasty. I still have no idea why I painted everything Yellow at one time.

20190110_094243 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Headers have seen better days.

20190110_100138 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Used a trans jack my Grandpa made back in the 60's. Worked like a charm.

20190110_140531 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

20190110_141458 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Nasty thing.

20190110_141939 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Did some cleaning and painting while it was out.

20190110_161059 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

20190110_161937 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

New trans ready to go in.

20190113_131620 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Exhaust cleaned up and painted.

20190113_115904 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Soaked headers in vinegar and re painted them.

20190115_102109 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

20190115_102118 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Headers restored by cleaning rust by soaking in Vinegar and then a fresh coat of VHT flame proof paint. by bjohnson388, on Flickr

20190124_110222 by bjohnson388, on Flickr

Installed.

TH350 reinstalled into Caprice by bjohnson388, on Flickr


Quick video I made of it shifting through all 3 gears. Still need to do some fine tuning with the vacuum modulator. The trans has been broken since 2006. It still worked but no 2nd gear. Would shift from 1st to 3rd. So as you can imagine not very fun to drive. I only have a few more things to fix and she will be ready for daily driver status again. Needs all new tires. They are from 2002 and severely dry rotted. I new fuel level sending unit and the carb really needs to freshened up.

If you click on the picture it will take you to the video.
1979 Caprice Classic by bjohnson388, on Flickr

thanks for looking,

Bret

Very cool. Im looking forward to seeing more.