Resurrecting a '71 Bonneville
 

The post '70 cars don't seem to get a lot of love here, so I'm going to post details on how I'm bringing back this '71 Bonneville 4 door car.

A little background. This car appeared on a big car Facebook group a few years ago. The guy wanted more money than an engine-less car is worth, but I did negotiate and struck a deal with him as I wanted it for parts. Once I got it home I determined it was too nice to cut up and would make a decent low-buck driver that I could drive around and not feel guilty if someone dinged the doors or if it had to do snow duty.

He ended up delivering it to my house in East Tennessee from very rural Kentucky.

http://www.slyagent.com/71bonne/1st-topofhill.jpg

The quarters obviously need some attention but the roof under the vinyl top isn't awful in appearance as it has been replaced in the past and there's no bubbling under it. The interior also did not show signs of retaining water.

I like it. :) I had a '71 Catalina two door hardtop for many years - my dad bought it when I was in high school, and I bought it from him. It was a great car, but eventually the rust from too many Minnesota winters killed it.

The car was originally a 455 2bbl car per the emissions sticker. The seats have been redone and the dash isn't in awful shape. It has a restoration\custom builder house tag in the door jamb indicating who painted it and did the seats sometime 20+ years ago. The trunk isn't great but isn't too bad either and of course has a load of stuff in it.

For some reason someone pulled the frame mounts off of the car. Fortunately they were in the trunk. The mounting hardware was missing so I supplied some coated grade 8 bolts to do the job. Bonneville\Grandville and Catalina\wagons used different frame mounting points, the rear set is for the Bonneville and the front set is for the Catalina. Which also makes the frames different as the mounting points for the crossmember are different (further back in this car) and the fan shroud\radiator mounting is longer.

The guy I bought it from bought it from a guy who bought the car for the engine (and tranny) for his Trans Am naturally. When he stripped it though, he didn't cut anything. The cooler lines for the transmission are still there and not ruined, the harness isn't cut at all, and no broken bolts or damaged holes anywhere. Someone obviously cared about the car at one time but it has sat for at least 10 years. The rear driver's door and front passenger door are frozen and the hardware to operate them is broken as a result. The latch assembly and rods will all have to be replaced once I can get them open.

I put the car outside to drop the engine I had in, a 350 2bbl for the time being with my spare rebuilt TH400 from a '74 Catalina wagon I used to own. It took me almost a year to get to it as I was battling cancer, so it was sad to see it under cover all that time. I will say that it's been rewarding to work on it after the fact.

I had put an engine and tranny combo in with my cherry picker and load leveler before in a '71, but that was a Catalina. I had neglected to remember that in addition to the front beak being 3" longer, the motor mounts are almost 6" backwards. So my cherry picker and load leveler did not clear the nose. I had to go in from the side after removing the tire and transmission crossmember to get it in.

Next time I would suggest pulling the nose, bumper, and maybe core support to have plenty of room.

I put the car back in the garage now, and it's getting all of the accessories added to the motor. I found a radiator I bought for another project in my stash and put it in the car, it fits nicely despite the plastic tanks. I found a set of Grandville battery cables and pulled them apart to clean all of the surfaces and check for corrosion and they are in decent enough shape to use. I even found one of the factory plastic loops that wasn't broken to route it through because I'm really a sucker for those little details.

I'm also airing the car out to get rid of that lack of use smell it has.

This is pretty much a low\no budget build I'm doing using spare parts I have lying around. I have a set of exhaust manifolds that have 2 broken bolts in that I'm going to attempt to drill out and re-use. I still need to blow out the fuel lines and tank of any nastiness that's inside and fill with high quality ethanol free gas. The guy also included a new $600 driveshaft he had made with the car, so I need to install that and get the wiring sorted out, then it should be pretty close to trying to fire it up. I know the engine and transmission will run as they came out of running cars recently.

Yup! These are really nice driving cars. I've had multiple wagons for years and they really are nice. I love the 4 door lines too, the 2 door cars always looked strangely long to me while the 4 doors look just right.

This car has had undercoating applied to the floors and frame at some time in the past, it's flaking off but where I see the actual metal it's in good shape. There is one small spot on the rear floor pan with a dime sized hole, which means the rest of the floors probably have some pin holes too.

I have a set of power windows in the shed I'm going to install for this car too!

My motivation for getting it running is two-fold, I'm losing my house due to loss of job AND I'm relocating across the country for a new job. A runner is a much easier car to move than one that doesn't, especially on the giant hill that is my house.

Ben M. - Congrats on the very cool Bonneville! I love the 4 dr hardtops too! I've had mine since 1985-ish. It has 56,000 miles on it now, but bought it with 39,000. It still wears its original paint and interior and, like yours, was originally a 455-2 bbl. I bought a '71 Grandville for $100 and stripped off all the good stuff off and junked the body (rusted badly). I swapped the big valve heads and top end from the Grandville and left the original 066 cam alone, added dual exhaust and have been driving and towing ever since. It is a great cruiser on the highway, but bit of a gas hog. It was an old couples car and they traded it in on a new Crown Vic. Watching your progress with great interest!

Dennis

Nice! Blue. 4 door hardtop. Great combination, and even a factory 455 car, almost as good as it gets.

I say, this is a perfect car to build a 455 HO.

I like the look of the 71 Catalina's & Bonneville's, Yours is better looking than my 71 Catalina Sedan. Glad you decided to keep it, and that you are feeling well enough to get back to it!

Job well done, Ben!!! Of course, it's nearly done!!!

An old neighbor of mine had a 71 or 72 Catalina. I never cared for the cars back in the "day". I like them now. I had a 64 Bonneville 4 door hardtop for about a year. Neat car. Long story how it's life ended...not my fault???

Ben, you going to get the AC going???

Dennis, your car is awesome!!!

Ben, Wish I was a little closer, to help. Although I like to work alone, myself...
Mostly joyous for you that you are Sooo much better, healing and CAN work on your car!!!
I had multiple kidney stone surgeries, and problems from last Sept through March, I felt terrrible, most of that time. Thank You, Lord for healing ME, also!!!

If I had the HO manifolds I'd throw them on right now. If I can't get the broken studs out maybe I'll just order them from RARE and go that route... I might just do that anyways to save hours of drilling and tapping only to find them cracked... The car does need exhaust, why bother getting new exhaust for logs only to change it later?

I am going to flush the AC system out and re-build the hoses and re-o-ring it with a used compressor. I won't necessarily get the AC functioning now but I will get it ready for it, just put a new Pro6TenA compressor on it and charge it and it should work if nothing is wrong.

I’m glad you saved it.

where are you moving to?

Here's a thread concerning an example of a 1970 455 XF/64 455 Bonneville, blue 4 door hardtop., looking for someone to adopt.

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...d.php?t=839213

I would do it, but currently over-extended, with my cars in storage until we move to a better place perhaps later this year.

I'm moving back to the bay area in California. I plan on living in the Santa Cruz mountains. This car is smog exempt and thus perfect.

Oh I saw that one and would have loved to have it, but between that "only a mother can love it" '70 front end and being stricken with cancer and financial insecurity due to job loss (but now that's over here in another week or so) I had to pass on such a car. It was awesome and I love it though, a true factory big car with muscle.

Ben M. - Let me know if you need any pictures as you work on the car (except A/C since mine doesn't have it). What vintage 350 is that?

Dennis

It's a 1975 350 with 6X-4 heads on it. I put an 067 clone cam in it and it moves along quite nicely. I built it back in 2007.

Neat project! Glad to hear you’ve beat back your big C and that “our” big C seems to be on the wane also. I’m the age that I grew up riding in those 71-76 big cars (my dad bought new a 71 and 73 88 and then a 75 98) but don’t know much about them. I was surprised to read about the difference between the shorter Catalina body and the longer Bonnie version being up front. In the 65-70 generation (and back to 54) the extra length was all in back. For example the 69 bonneville has 3” of extra wheelbase and 3.5” of extra rear overhang compared to the Catalina. The floor pans are identical so there was zero gain in interior space, all the difference was in the trunk. So in 71-76 it was up front? Funny how in both cases you never gained interior space!

Actually ONLY in 1971 & 1972. In 1973 and on all of the front sheet metal and frames interchanged between cars. I have no idea why they did it that way.

Rear glass is different between Catalina\Bonneville and the Grandville cars. The Grandville has a flatter sloped rear glass piece while the Catalina\Bonneville has a wrap-around style. This means roof and upper quarter panels are different as is the package tray and trunk filler panel between the glass and trunk lid. Trunk lids are the same!

It boggles my mind that Pontiac felt that a higher level of luxury trim on their big cars was justifiable from a cost and sales perspective in this era. Having the Bonneville Brougham trim remain the top of the line would have made more financial sense, and is what they went back to in 1976 due to the Grandville sales being quite under expectations.