72 "The Blue Burb of Happiness" Project

[Burbaholic]

OK, here are the latest pictures from last night. Sorry about the poor cell phone quality. I have temporary valve covers on so as not to scratch the good ones while finishing assembly.

The gauge package makes me want to drive this thing all night long.

[WH0DAMAN]

Very nice!!! Love the guages.

[Burbaholic]

Weekend progress - I got most of the accessories mounted on the engine. I used plastic adhesion promoter and painted the distributor to match the valve covers. I had to remake the A/C mount somewhat to fit the new Sanden compressor but it looks fairly factory. The remaining stock brake booster and master cylinder kind of look like a big turd now. Maybe in next years budget?

[Burbaholic]

The new radiator support is in and most of the braces installed. I now need the bottom radiator support brackets as I didn't realize these don't come with the support. I also made a mount to tuck the transmission cooler behind the front bumper instead on zip tied to the grill as the PO had it.

[Burbaholic]

Just for fun, I thought I would throw up a picture of my home shop and my 48 Chevy coupe I finished last year. Enjoy!

[ERASER5]

I love your burb! But then you screwed up and show me your shop. Now I have to hate you. Dadnabit! My shop will never be that nice.

[Burbaholic]

Eraser5 - Just so you feel better, the shop is pretty messy with all the burb parts laying around. Do you suppose I can talk my wife into cleaning it?

[Burbaholic]

Getting close to have the burb running again. We finished up the new Heartthrob exhaust. All the pipe and mufflers were ceramic coated at my work where we are developing new coatings. It looks pretty cool and hopefully will be durable as well. The radiator is back in and all the fluids have been topped off. My bud Garry had to work today or we would have had it running.

I should have another update with more pics and maybe a video of the first start.

[Burbaholic]

Engine was test fired and sounds awesome. I did have a water pump gasket leak so had to drain it back down and replace it but all in all a success. I will try and get some pictures up later this week. The video needs some editing before I can post.

As Grandma said when she rocked over the cat's tail...it won't be long now.

[Burbaholic]

OK, the water pump leak is fixed and everything checks out motor wise. Next on the list to finish:

- install front grill
- finish smoothing bumpers and get to the plater
- run rear A/C hose and crimp all hoses
- wiring (cruise control, A/C, seats and speakers)
- sound deadening and insulation
- carpet
- seats

[Burbaholic]

Next item checked off the list... the front grill is installed. I used a fusion flat back plastic paint to black out the original egg crate.

All the under-hood wiring is complete and the harnesses are tidied up. I can finally move to the interior and finish some wiring before sound deadening and insulation.

[Burbaholic]

I finished welding in the bolts and smoothing off the back bumper. Once this was done it just looked like the exhaust should exit the license cut-out so I mocked this up and liked it. All this will now go to the plater for polish and chrome.

[jmedero]

That's sweet!!
Posted via Mobile Device

[ThreeQtr]

That really does look sharpe!

Though I'm sure you have the answer figured out, where now will your license plate go??

[Burbaholic]

I was waiting for the license plate question. I have a 1972 vintage plate and Nebraska requires only one of those either front or rear.

[Burbaholic]

I finally had time to start finishing the interior over the last week. First I started with the under floor wiring to the rear speakers, A/C fan and seats. I put down sound deadening material on the large panels. I use a product called quick roof sold at Home Depot. It works the same as Dynamat at 1/5th the cost. It's butyl rubber membrane with aluminum scrim and self adhesive. It keeps the sheet metal panels from emitting noise due to resonant vibration and you don't have to cover everything 100%, just enough to dampen the vibration.

With the installation of Vintage Air, the fan switch in the dash contol panel does not get used. To keep things clean, I used it for the rear A/C and didn't have to add the factory rear switch in the dash by the headlight switch. It just made sense to keep all the A/C in one spot.

The combination of Vintage Air and the original rear unit work fantastic. This easily cools the big space.

[Burbaholic]

Next step was the insulation. I used a close cell foam with aluminum scrim on both sides. This product works nice and is easy to form to the floor contours. I covered the entire metal floor portion as the plywood floor in the back doesn't have much heat transfer.

You can see in the second picture that I unsulated behind the door panels as well.

[Burbaholic]

I had already worked out the mountings for the first two rows of seats so it was time to start on the 3rd row. I wanted to keep them removable as they were in the Buick Enclave. For those of you just jumping in here, I bought the entire interior from a 2012 Buick Enclave with 700 miles on it.

The front mounts hooked over a rod and then the back were bolted through the floor.

After some head scratching, I decided to modify some recessed cargo tie-downs to use as the front mounts. This would keep a flat floor after the seats were removed.

First pic shows the 2-piece 3rd row set-up and the second pic shows the front mount that slide over the rod.

[Burbaholic]

After deciding to use the cargo tie downs for the 3rd row seats, I had to get up some courage to cut a nearly pristine plywood floor. I measured several times and drilled some 1/8 inch pilot holes and stuck nails through to make sure I was in the location I wanted.

Because of how much this weakened the plywood floor, I did several things to add strength back. First I made sure that at least two of the bolts from the cargo ties went through a cross member. I also make a steel plate that sandwiched the cargo ties and the plywood floor. I ran a bead of silicone on this before installing it underneath to seal the plywood cuts from the elements.

First pic shows the pattern for the tie-downs, second pic shows the detail of bolting through the cross member and the third pic shows tie-downs mounted. I heated the ring with a torch and flattened the top slightly to fit the slot in the seat mount.

[Burbaholic]

This is the reinforcing plate I made to go under the tie-downs and strengthen the floor.

[Burbaholic]

Now that all the seat mounts were build the carpet could be installed. I marked all the holes from the bottom with an ice pick and then used a gasket punch to remove the carpet where seats and belts bolt to the floor. This worked great and didn't leave areas where the carpet could start to unravel.

[Burbaholic]

The 3rd row seats went in smoothly and fit just right between the wheel wells. The close-up shows how the cargo tie-downs worked. I'm really happy with how this turned out.

I only have to take out 4 bolts and the seats remove for a flat cargo floor. For quick storage room, the seats fold flat with the release handle on the rear.

[Burbaholic]

The front seats had a similar mounting system with a sloted foot in the front. I made some mounts using square key stock and angle iron. The rear of the seats then bolted through the floor pans. I tried to use as many of the original reinforced mounting points as I could and where I couldn't I used nuts welded to large heavy fender washers under the floor pans.

[Burbaholic]

Here is the second row seats installed. Although these had a really sophisticated slide and fold track system that would have been awesome to use, there just wasn't room with the step up in the floor. All of that was removed and new bases made from square tube and angle iron to allow these to span the raised floor as the original seat did.

I also tried a 2-tone on the door panel with a color matched product. I think it ties the seats in better and makes the titanium gray interior look like it should have always been there.

[Burbaholic]

Front seats and the console complete the installation. Even though the center console is from a Silverado pickup, it looks like a match to the seats with the same titanium gray color code from GM. Room for 7 to go cruisin'.

There is some detail work to be done later. I need to make a transition piece between the dash and the console where I hope to install a touch screen radio. The front seats have GM's active cool system that is run by a computer under the drivers seat. Although there is no way to make the computer work, I managed to discect the active cool pieces and will be able to make them work manually with some switches and 12 volt fans later.

A 72 Burb with air-conditioned seats is cool in more ways than one.