'89 Celebrity Wagon

[bucket]

I was trying to get Steve Thompson with the 5 speed to get the engine from that Turbo GP that was in a local yard. But he didn't have room for it.

That would have been very cool!

 

[CorvairGeek]

Ran across the only turbo GP I have ever seen March of '16. Complete except for the original stereo. Had come straight from a used car lot to the yard. Went to the crusher still intact, AFAIK. I took lots of pics and let the registry know the VIN.

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[CorvairGeek]

I still have the special paperwork.

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Having grown up in Ohio, the rust free stuff I find scrapped here in the desert still makes me sick.

 

[bucket]

I saw one in Pick-n-Pull back in '06 or somewhere around there. Most of the turbo stuff was gone, except for the rear manifold, the flex pipe and the special plenum. There was one at Marshall's in Circleville around the same time as well, but it had been picked clean.

 

[Rusty Nail]

I never heard of such a thing!

 

[bucket]

Well I got a decent amount done today, but damn I'm whooped, lol. Stupid humidity and asthma. I pulled the front clip off the wagon and the parts car for some swapping. I didn't swap everything over, but removing the assembly meant I didn't have to screw with all the troublesome hardware that holds the bumper caps and the lower apron to the fenders. I left the wagon's hood in place since it's fairly straight and has only the remains of factory paint on it. It also simplified the process of aligning the front fenders.

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Next was the doors. That's mostly what whooped me. Driving out the pins on the front doors is one of the more challenging things on these cars, even with specialty tools. The hinges bolt to the body, but getting at a couple bolts means removing the dash. But I got the front doors swapped and they even lined up pretty well with no adjustments. Swapping the rear doors was easy, you only have to remove the pillar trim to access a couple of the hinge bolts. They aren't the correct doors for a wagon, but all I have is sedan doors to use. Once everything is final fitted and gapped, I'll have to weld the correct window frames onto the rear doors.

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Next I'll have to pull out more of the interior so I can swap the interior harness. The old doors were manual windows with power locks, the new doors are PW and PL.

Oh, and I found the build sheet under the back seat. Apparently the car was purchased through a Chevy dealer in Illinois, but delivered to somewhere in Pennsylvania. It was a fleet car, which I find odd. What company would order the Eurosport option? Although it does explain the base interior.

 

[78C10BigTen]

Im lovin this thread!! My gram had a celeb wagon i grew up in and then my first car was an 87 (same year i was born...) celb wagon. One of the best cars chevy made

 

[Rusty Nail]

Gram!
GRAM!
GRAM!

 

[bucket]

Finally back to tinkering. I started replacing the door opening weatherstripping with the updated design found in the 90's A-body cars. The original type has a bad habit of literally falling apart. Forgot to get a picture though.

I also got the power window/lock harness removed from the parts wagon. Once that's installed, I'll actually be willing to drive the car. I'll drive a lot of things, but I refuse to if the windows don't roll down. I feel trapped, lol.

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[bucket]

Just getting back to this, I'm picking up where I left off last time. I needed to replace all the door weatherstripping, I needed to install the wire harness for the power windows/locks, and I needed to add the 3rd seat option. All of that combined really meant I needed to pull 90% of the interior. I started at the rear and worked my way forward.

The rear floor pan, GM was nice enough to have the seatbelt mounts already in the floor, complete with mounting bolts.

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However, the tabs that the bottom seat cushion hooks into are not on the floor. Those will need removed from the parts wagon. I cut holes in the original maroon carpet, using the parts car carpet as a template. It shows where the seat tabs go.

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Seat, floor covering and side panels installed.

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And folded down.

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Then I moved on to the weatherstripping. As it turned out, I didn't have the 2nd design A-body rubber to install. Well, I have it, I just don't know where it is. The rubber I gathered up turned out to be the stuff I got from a Volvo 960 wagon. I got it 10+ years ago to try out, and here I am. The front door rubbers fit perfectly it was actually the perfect length without having to cut and splice. The rear door rubbers needed cut in two places. It turned out ok, but I'm not that happy with it. It'll do for now.

I did have to cut this extra flap from all the weatherstripping so that the trim panels would still fit around it.

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Continued...

 

[bucket]

Removal started:

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The original middle row seat was a solid back. The replacement seat is s split fold. I didn't realize that I needed a center bracket for the split fold seat until I saw this:

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It turns out, ALL wagons are built for a split seatback. When the body is being built, they literally torch off the center bracket for cars that didn't get the split seat option. I thought that was kind of funny. But anyway, I have to remove that bracket from the parts car too.

I started on getting the door harness installed best as possible without removing the dash, but ran out of daylight.

 

[bucket]

There's one area that the rust is pretty bad. It's the RR floor area and inner wheel well. It's very weak and the seatbelt retractor doesn't have much to support it anymore.

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I really don't want to be driving around much knowing that there's that kind of structural damage. I'll eventually have to pull most of the interior back out again to fix the rust. But I'd rather do it that way than have an empty shell of a project car sitting around. If I get it all screwed together, I'll have less parts taking up space, plus I'll know for sure what I need to keep, and parts I know for sure I can find a home for.

 

[CorvairGeek]

Removal started:

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The original middle row seat was a solid back. The replacement seat is s split fold. I didn't realize that I needed a center bracket for the split fold seat until I saw this:

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It turns out, ALL wagons are built for a split seatback. When the body is being built, they literally torch off the center bracket for cars that didn't get the split seat option. I thought that was kind of funny. But anyway, I have to remove that bracket from the parts car too.

GM assembly plants have a long history of torch work. When Corvairs had factory A/C ('65-'67), the 3 holes for the vents in the metal dash (and elsehwere) were cut out with a torch! Same for the openings for front door speakers with stereo ('65 -'69).
Isuzu Diesel powered Chevettes ('81-'86, 15,000 units per year for CAFE mileage ratings) had torch work too configuring the body to accept an Isuzu powertrain and bigger battery.
I'm sure the list goes on and on, if you happen across some of the lower production cars or options. Seemed to happen across multiple assembly plants too.