Chevy Impala SS Forum banner

My 96 Impala restoration

8K views 14 replies 5 participants last post by  nnferno 
#1 ·
I have a long history with my 96 Impala but I've only owned it for just over 3 years. It all started in 1997, my buddy, Mike and I were at work and had talked about buying an Impala. I found an ad in the local paper and pointed it out to Mike. That day he went to look at the car and ended up buying it. The car was his baby, always garaged and he did some light mods (Stereo, lowering, body bushings, trailing arms, driveline) to it over the years.

Fast forward to around 2006ish, I had sold Impala #1 in 2004 and was B-Bodyless. We needed a new car and my wife who knew Mike was toying with the idea of selling the Impala contacted him and bought it for me without my knowledge. It was very cool and I was excited to own another Impala. Unfortunately the next day gears 3 and 4 went out on the transmission. Mike and I decided to cancel the sale rather than dispute the repair and possibly hurt our friendship. I was without an Impala again.

Fast forward to around 2009ish my wife attempted to buy the Impala from Mike again. When she contacted him he wasn't 100% committed to selling the car (remember this was his baby) but ended up agreeing but he said it really needed a detailing. My wife paid for the detail and Mike dropped it off. Unfortunately when Mike picked it up it looked so good he couldn't sell it.

Finally in 2013 I had sold my truck and contacted Mike. I said I had cash in hand and if he was ready to sell I'd take her off his hands. His wife had been bugging him for years to get rid of the car (I think she was jealous of their relationship) and he sold it to me for the final time. I'm pretty sure I saw tears forming in Mike's eyes as I drove her away. The only thing I've changed since that day was adding 2010 Camaro 20" wheels.

I have a bad habit of going through cars after getting bored with them and recently I'd been thinking about selling the Impala. I wanted an updated daily driver with more spoiling features. The Impala’s original seats needed reupholstering and the paint had been fading for the past year and getting worse. Then the transmission went out again!

I started looking at replacing the Impala with a newer car but the impala value was so low in its current condition I considered dumping $4k into getting the tranny fixed, new seat leather, and paint just to sell it for more. But then I decided to go a whole different route and keep the Impala.

Here is the list of restoration/mods planned:

T56 transmission
New seat leather, in black
New carpet, in black
Change the whole interior over to all black
Buick Roadmaster auto HVAC mod
Cadi Rain Sensing wipers mod
New cowl hood
Langness spoiler
Smooth bumpers
Repaint
New stereo (current one is 19 years old)
New alarm (current one is 19 years old)
New window tint (current tint is 19 years old)
Stealth brake bolt mod
Air pump delete
Antenna delete

My Impala is unique because it did not come with the twilight sentinel lighting, auto dimming mirror, passenger sun shade vanity lighting, or a power passenger seat. I’m adding all of that too.
 
See less See more
#3 ·
#5 ·
Since the door panel trim is made up of two pieces there is a gap/seam between the two pieces I didn't like. So I glued the two pieces together and started to fill the gap so it appears to be one solid part. This is proving to be a lot of work, filling sanding, filling sanding, filling sanding. They are almost done with eliminating the seam.
 

Attachments

#6 ·
Creds on a lot of work put in, and planned! Bondoing the trim looks like a mountain of work for the impact - I would think the better opt is just step 1 gluing. Black seats are neat, especially if going with a non-black carpet. The only critique is needs more silver thread for the SSes. Micro accents would make a giant pop.
 
#7 ·
Thanks, I had thought about ordering the seats with a different color for the SSes but since I'm not keeping any of the original gray I didn't think it would look good. I think all the work on the door trim will be worth it only because its the small details that sometime make a big difference.
 
#9 ·
real nice work! did you use epoxy when you glued the pieces together or something else? Off topic but regarding the RM HVAC swap post you put up- i wound up using the switch behind the stock ac panel for the defrost. no need for the impala relay anymore. i spliced necessary wires to power the hvac from it.
 
#15 ·
I just finished up the T56 swap, oh boy is it fun to drive now! (Not that it wasn't before) the roadmaster HVAC is complete and working great! Huge thank you to Mike Fetcko for all of the help on those.

I've almost gotten the whole interior changed over to black and I really want to put it all back in but it's headed off to paint this week.

I picked up the new black seatbelts, re-webbed. I've added a few more future mods. My custom shop is going to shave the wheel well trim, do a minitub, and do some Lumilor paint for the emblems.
 

Attachments

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top