I never really gave much thought to owning one of these, but this one kinda fell into my lap. One day a few months ago, a friend of mine who works for a tow company asked me if I had any interest in it for $400. I told him maybe, but I'm broke. See if the owner of the tow yard will take trades. So a few weeks go by and I happen to be at that tow yard for another reason, but I decide to look at the thing. It's got a busted left T-top, the interior is trashed, tires are junk, engine runs rough and the grille is gone. I tell him to see if his boss wants my Romanian AK for it. A few more weeks go by and I finally get a phone call saying the deal is a go. I say great, tell him I'll throw in a couple hundred rounds of ammo if he can tow it out here (about 17 miles). BTW, the AK cost me $225, I let it go with 2 extra 30 round mags ($40 value) and 200 rounds of surplus ammo ($40 value). So basically I gave $305 for the car.

This is how it was as-recieved:


I tinkered with it a little, but it mostly sat for the first couple weeks, as I was still wrapping up my '51 pick-up. But once the '51 was done, I set to work on the Aspen. First order of business, clean the interior. Yuck! Half eaten mini drumsticks, chewing gun, cigarette butts, exploded ketchuppackets, you name it. After a few hours with a shop vac, a bottle of formula 409, a scrub brush, a roll of paper towls and some armorall, she cleaned up pretty good. The picture is more recent, and shows all the parts I had tofind and install(Seat covers, Instrument cluster, AC & Heater control, Dash panel, Visors, mirror, chronometer, new Pioneer deck & speakers and an aftermarket console, whichI painted to match)


Next, we tackled powertrain. It is a 318 that was equipped with lean burn (but a non ELB 2 bbl carb). It had a miss and would backfire through the intake, which I discovered to be a flat # 7 exhaust lobe caused by a stuck lifter (the inside of the engine looked like it had been sprayed with bedliner. I suspect a Penzoil motor). I did the basic tune-up (plugs/wires/cap/rotor/PCV/fuel and iar filters) and changed the oil. Then I ordered a 360 truck cam, head gasket and timing cover gasket sets, T-stat and a couple other sundries and sent the extra #593 truck heads I had lying around off to be cleaned andmilled 0.030" to get compression up a little. Once they got back, I ported them and port matched them to the 4 bbl cast iron police interceptor intake I also had lying about (ported the intake, too). That night I took the heads home, lapped in the valves and reassembled them. Next morning I threw the heads into the car, grabbed the extra timing set I had and drove the car down to the shop, then proceededto tearapart the motor. About 4 hours of the 9 I spent doing the work was cleaning the aforementioned crap out of the valve covers and timing cover. Got everything back together and installed the conventional single pick-up distributor and ECU I had picked up earlier in the week from a bone yard ($25 for both) and the new Edelbrock 1405 600 CFM 4 barrel with electric choke (and all new fuel hoses). Then changed all the fluids (trans had been slipping, fluid was consistency of water) and drove her home. She's no race car, but it'll out-run most any sedan out there. Takes off a little slow (tires are 2" over stock, gears are 2.76's), but pulls hard from 15 MPH on up. I estimate the mods left me ~ 190-210 HP and high-200's for torque (stock was 145/235).

For anyone wanting to eliminate ELB, the 5-pin ECU's are very easy to wire in, and the standard single pick-up distributor is a drop in.

Had to wait another week for my tires to show up (Firestone Firehawk 225/70-14's), so I went to some other bone yards andfound the driver window regulator (mine was missing several teeth toward the top) and ordered the fender emblems on E-bay. The following week, tires arrived, so I drove it in again and mounted them. At this time, I also installed the window regulator, new brake hoses, front pads, front grease seals (repacked front wheel bearings),4 KYB shock absorbers and a Cherry bomb in place of the rotted old muffler that was clogged with chunks of honeycomb from the catalytic converter. The new tires (and custom grille, ala expanded BBQ steel, 3/4x3/4 channel and a mig welder)made all the difference in appearence.


So I've got about $2,200 (including the orignal trade value) and 35-40 hours into her, but she's gonna be a decent little driver. I expect to get about 16-17 city/20-22 hwy for fuel economy. Still waiting on the left T-top and speedo cable, and it's gonna get 3.55's and asure-grip posi soon. After that, just hammer out a couple nasty dents (L/F fender, Deck lid) and get her painted, and shell be better than new! Much more fun to drive thanmy '99 Intrepid.

Never saw myself owning an Aspen, but I kinda like this little car now. eventually I plan to go 8/3-4 rear, 727 trans w/ shift kit and 2,200 stall and a 408 stroker with Edelbrock MPFI. But that's another $7k I don't have right now.

 

it looks good..what did you do with the "teeth" grille?

 

Nice car, I like that "teeth" grille also...
Have you had any luck finding a replacement top yet?

 

Roundfile. They were awful.

Actually, it just showed up this afternoon. It was a fiasco. Not only are the T-top cars uncommon, but there were 2 different sizes for early and late models. The replacement top I got did not have the tabs to secure in the center bar (must've come off a '77), but some 1/8" by 3/4" aluminum and two-part epoxy fixed that.

Got the new speedo cable today too, but already broke it. I had replaced the Cluster (speedo bell was seized on the magnetic dirver) and the chewed up drive gear. Installed the new cable and it snapped. Come to find out that the output side of the cruise control is missing the retainer clip for the square drive output, and the gear inside got pushed back against the lower gear's flange, which has four little tabs that bound up the top gear[sm=headbang.gif]. Worked fine with the upper cable disconnected, but once installed, it pushed that gear back into the tabs. So another 20 bucks and 6 or 7 days is shot onthat one. Oh well.

 

For what you have into it, it looks pretty darn good. Looks solid and very presentable with what you have done so far. It's also something that is not all that common, either. Good score- like what you've done with it!

 

Nice, you have done an awesome job so far

 

Well, I sold my Intrepid at the end of October and planned to use the Aspen as my daily driver. Wouldn't you know it; three days later, the Aspen's tranny let go. I decided this would be a good time for a complete powertrain swap, and set my sights on a Magnum 360 w/ overdrive trans from a RWD truck or van. After a couple weeks of trying to deal with folks on craigslist and getting nowhere, I stumbled across a 440/727 combo, complete, that had recently been pulled from a '78 Winnebago. Two days later on Friday the 14th, the engine and tranny were delivered to me for a grand total of $690.

The following Monady, I set to work on the swap. Had the 318/904 on the floor in about 2 hours, and that's when the scope of this project hit home. Getting an RB engine into an F-body is no small task. There are clearance problems in every direction, the biggest one being the driver side exhaust. Necessary modifications to put an RB engine into an F-body with power brakes and power steering include:

-Obtaining a dual diaphragm brake booster, such as the one for a '76 big block Cordoba

-Cutting or beating back the HVAC bulge on the passenger side of the firewall.

-Beating back the passenger side inner fender

-extreme modification of the driver side exhaust manifold to clear the gearbox and starter; In my case, cutting off the downturn and fabricating a steel intermediate section that bolts to the bottom of the chopped manifold. A very tight fit:



-Obtaining spool-type big block motor mounts and elongating the holes slightly so that they will fit into the F-body subframe.

-C-body or similar oil pan, cut and rewelded to clear the F-body subframe.

Other more minor modifications were required, but that was the big stuff. I also had to build a plate on which to bolt the transmission mount to the existing crossmember, as the F-body trans has a spool mount and the RV 727 has a flat rubber mount. The speedo cable just barely squeezes past the crossmember.

Once the engine and tranny were installed, I threw a measurement from the giant fixed yoke on the trans to the itty bitty pinion yoke, and 2 days later I had a really goofy looking two-piece driveshaft.

On Decemeber the fifth, the Aspen was once again able to move under it's own, much increased power. The following tuesday, I took her down and had 2-1/2" duals installed from the manifolds back with an H-pipe and 40 series Flowmasters. The Thermoquad carb that was on the 440 was junk, and rebuilding it proved a waste of $30 and two hours time, so I yanked the cast manifold and replaced it with an Edelbrock Performer and 750 CFM Edelbrock carb I had on hand.

Future plans include putting an A-body 8-3/4" posi where the puny 7-1/4" currently resides, swapping the RV engine for the other 440 I have, which is in the process of getting some 10.5:1 pistons to match the 484/284 purple cam it has, along with porting and port matching the 906 heads and adapting a 5.9 Magnum fuel and ignition system to the RB engine (short of having another $3k to do Edelbrock MPFI), and a host of other alterations.

But for now, I have a 440-powered F-body capable of over 150 MPH with the 2.76 gears and still getting around 15 MPG-all for a total investment under $5,000. I'm pretty happy with the results.