[bad25v8]

I have been a member on here for several years now, I have posted on other threads a few times and bought a few different parts from several different members. I decided to post a build /repair thread on my latest b body a 96 DCM Impala SS.

This is my 6th B body and definitely not my last! The car is in good solid shape, clean underneath, and has a lot of good parts on it. She definitely needs some TLC, but I absolutely stole this car! A little quick history on this particular Impala, I have known the car for about 10 years now, I helped get it back on the road several years ago when a previous associate of mine picked it up. The transmission in it was bad and I helped him pull it. He had it rebuilt and it was never quite right, went within a year. I told him I would help him pull it and we would rebuild it right rather than take it back to the cheap backyard transmission rebuilder he had build it the first time. He opted out, had said rebuilder rebuild again, I sold him my 2400 stall converter deal went sour and reason I stopped talking with said associate, I still saw progress on the car over the years but haven't been on talking terms with him since. He did a bunch of work on car and had it looking pretty good for a few years. The transmission apparently failed again and he gave up on car and traded it to this guy named Al. Al installs another transmission in it and drives it for a year or so. My cousin (who's always wheeling and Dealing) ends up with the Car 2 years ago. Fast forward to summer 2021, my cousin calls me up about a Black 96 Impala SS he has found for sale that he wants. The deal is though he can't buy the new one unless he sells the current SS. So he made me an offer I couldn't refuse, especially since I was in no place to be buying another vehicle. Thankfully I have a great and understanding wife and while she wasn't happy she still told me we will figure it out and made it happen. Between trading off some parts and working on cousins SS I have less than $2000 in this car!

My DCM 96 SS and my cousins BBB 96 SS
So now that we got that out of the way, back to the actual car, as stated a lot of good parts but needs some TLC. When I got the car she was drivable but not well, go figure, the transmission was on the way out yet again! The steering and brakes were all funky, but the body and frame are super clean and that was my biggest thing, I didn't want rust! I can repair all the mechanical stuff!

This was when I first picked her up!
Well that will be all for this installment, got to get ready for work. Plenty more to come!

 

[Henry '06]

Looks good, put the stock wheels back on.

 

[sherlock9c1]

Welcome Brent! Good to see you posting a thread on here! I need to update my two threads. Been wrenching on the daily driver minivans a bunch lately.

 

[bad25v8]

Looks good, put the stock wheels back on.

TIres are old and dry rotted on stock wheels, and while I love the look of the Impala wheels I also feel the 17's are just too small. Current wheels are 20's. What I really would love to run on this car is a set of staggered 19 Impala replicas. Love the look of 20 and 22's on these cars but I drive this car in upstate NY and want a little more sidewall. Think 19 is perfect size, gives you more wheel filling the wheel well but still allows for a decent sidewall, biggest issue with 19's is tire selection. These 20's on the car aren't my first choice but will work for now. I plan on customizing them a little bit soon.

Welcome Brent! Good to see you posting a thread on here! I need to update my two threads. Been wrenching on the daily driver minivans a bunch lately.

Thanks Joel, your threads actually inspired me to do my build thread, figured if nothing else this will help me keep a timeline on the progress of the car that I can look back on later on. plus I'm sure I can get some solid advice on here too. Looking forward to your updates, I get it on wrenching on other stuff, what little time I've had lately I've had to work on either the wifes SUV or my truck. I'll be doing some more updating on here soon though. Plenty more to post leading up to where I am now with the car.

 

[bad25v8]

Next installment.
So after picking up car I started to assess what work was necessary besides the transmission. As I stated earlier the steering and brakes were all funky, pull when braking, and play and or a hardspot in the steering. (my cousin drove car for a whole summer this way) So front end was first order of business, first thing I find is the steering shaft is loose where it connects to the steering column! Thru bolt is installed and lock nut is tight enough not to back off but not tight enough to actually clamp the double D shaft. Crazy. Tighten it up, drive car, play is gone but still a hardspot. Time to investigate further. One of the many things that were done on this car by previous owner was all new front end parts installed.

these photos are all from previous owners front end rebuild.

 

[bad25v8]

more photos from his front end rebuild.

 

[bad25v8]

 

[bad25v8]

New Powerstop Pads and rotors front and rear also. Awesome! Thorough work! Nope! Not Quite! While I investigate the front end and install my foam bumpstops from previous Caprice I discover the issue with the front end binding up. When front end parts were installed years ago they were never greased!! Some fittings didn't even have the zerk fittings installed! Scary, so I installed fittings in the few that were missing fittings and greased entire front end. While I had car jacked up I took opportunity to address the brakes also, front pads and rotors still decent just everything needed to be pulled apart, rust cleaned up from and greased slides, made sure everything worked as it was supposed to. Can't remember exactly which bearing was extremely loose, but I pulled both out and inspected bearings and races and repacked and installed them and correctly tightened bearings. At this point being this deep into the brakes I had to assess the rear brakes also. First thing I notice is the "directional" rotors on the rear are installed on the wrong sides. I know there is no factual evidence proving it makes a difference but visually it just looks wrong to have the front and rear rotors going opposite directions. Upon trying to free up one of the slider pins it snapped off in bracket so luckily I have plenty of spare parts from my previous b bodies and was able to use one of the brackets I had laying around.

Foam bump stop, original destroyed rubber bumpstop

Job well done!

Bell Tech lowering springs.

I took the opportunity of having the wheels off and swapped out the old dry rotted 275/40/17's for the twenties. I forgot to mention earlier that this car was previously lowered on bell tech springs. While I love the lowered look I learned from my previous caprice that while springs are nice and cheap way to lower the car you lose ride quality big time, especially the lower you go! While the bell techs were better ride than my sprint springs with half a coil cut from the front they were still on the factory rubber bumpstops and the foam ones definitely improved the ride quality. I want to eventually lower it with spindles and install my airbags I already have. Ok back to the front end, after all these repairs and grease to the front end and brakes I test drove her again, the brakes functioned much better but I still had that hardspot. The no grease for years took its toll on the ball joints and I'm gonna need to replace those soon. I couldn't believe after all that hard work and attention to detail you don't even grease all the front end parts you installed let alone install zerk fittings! But the more and more I dig into this car the more I find such detail but also such lack of detail! Lots of good and or new parts but lack of execution! Well that's it for this install. Gotta get some rest for work tomorrow. more to come later.

 

[bad25v8]

Well been a while, life has been hectic so haven't had a chance to post lately. When I left off I had just talked about front end work and all. So at this point I was driving the car daily, than about October last year the fuel pump went out on me when I ran her out of gas, figured at that point it was right before winter anyway so got parked for winter and time to start addressing some of the issues and upgrades I want to do. Car sat all winter without me working on it, finally started working on it in April. Pulled transmission and exhaust.

transmission's out!

old converter

scary! Had car up to 120 plus with driveshaft like this!

broken rear manifold bolts

exhaust

replacement transmission
While Removing transmission and exhaust found more poor work that had been performed prior. Driveshaft only had one u joint clamp installed correctly as seen in the pictures, scary when you consider I've had car up to 120 plus a time or two. The rear bolts on each exhaust manifold were broke off in the head by prior owner, driver side he tried to drill it out but was very unsuccessful, drilled off center then broke tap off in head!

 

[nsaness]

Great pictures, I appreciate being able to follow along with your progress. Huge respect for doing that work in the driveway. I’m not up to that driveway challenge anymore, but I remember it fondly.

 

[bad25v8]

Great pictures, I appreciate being able to follow along with your progress. Huge respect for doing that work in the driveway. I’m not up to that driveway challenge anymore, but I remember it fondly.

Thanks, would love to be in a garage on a lift but don't have that luxury unfortunately so driveway it is. It hurts much more though laying on my back in the driveway, got spoiled before working on lifts in shops for a living, definitely much easier on a lift!

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[bad25v8]

So after removing transmission I figured I'd start working on some of the free repairs and or upgrades. One of those being swapping out the old torn up seats.

I had a set of 12 way Bonnie seats that I had previously had installed in my 94.

The seats were still in good shape but the wiring had been snacked on by a mouse while 94 was off road so I soldered and heat shrunk wires while I had the harness out.

I also pulled carpet and center console to properly run harness for seats, took pictures but they are on old phone and I can't access them at moment, while all that was out I also ran new 0-2 power wire for amps. Carpet was filthy along with center console, while they were out I shampooed, power washed and detailed them, huge difference. Someone spilled coffee or dark soda and it was pretty nasty.

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[bad25v8]

Luckily I had shared photos with my cousin of the carpet and center console cleaning so I was able to have them send them back to me.

Like I said someone spilled coffee or dark soda! Pretty nasty.

center console filthy

another angle

This area was especially nasty, coins and sticky substance was pasted there.

Middle of washing the carpet

Cleaned up and drying out. Much better than it was, not perfect but much better!

Shift nob cleaned up best I could. Dull area is scuffed up leather.

center console all cleaned up.

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[bad25v8]

So as I stated before fuel pump quit on me when I ran car out of gas last October. I plan on installing a cam in the near future so figured if I'm going to be doing upgrades for horsepower I might as well upgrade fuel system while I'm at it so it will be able to support anything I throw at it. This being said I was going to go with the full Racetronix harness upgrade and Walbro 255lph pump, being the thrifty (not cheap) guy that I am I found an alternative fuel pump that was much cheaper than the Walbro and researched the harness and built my own! I ended up going with a Kemso 340lph pump that I found on ebay while doing some research, never heard of them before but researched it quite a bit and nothing but good reviews pretty much so figured I'd take my chance with it. Figure tank is easy enough to drop on this so if it doesn't last long not a big deal and for the savings, was well worth it. Between the pump and building my own harness I saved over $200! I dropped the tank and removed the fuel sending unit and found a burnt up power wire and terminal on original fuel pump and all connections to fuel level gauge and pump loose. These poor loose connections with barely adequate wires and low fuel exposing wires would explain my burnt up power wire. Well I'm now running 10 gauge power wire directly from alternator to pump so won't have to worry about too much current through too little wire. Overkill? Maybe, but again will have no worries and know high flow pump will get full current it needs. I did purchase a bulkhead connector and accompanied connections for in tank and outside of tank from Racetronix but supplied my own wires through work.

New pump and old pump

Old in tank harness

burnt up power wire for fuel pump

Burnt up pump connector

Harness that came with new pump and 10 gauge wires for new in tank fuel pump harness

Crimped and soldered connections for fuel pump in tank harness

comparison of new and supplied wires and connectors

Old in tank harness, supplied harness and 10 gauge harness I built

Pump in bucket with new pump harness

New bulkhead connector

Painted sending unit and fuel filler neck

Painted sending unit

fully assembled sending unit with 4 wire upgraded harness. Fuel pump now has its own 10 gauge ground straight to frame. Even upgraded sending unit wires to heavier gauge.

10 gauge power wire ran through ¼ inch hard plastic fuel line and corrugated plastic loom where line passes through frame and I can't tie it down. Plenty of protection from rubbing!

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[SSandman]

I love seeing these cars being brought back to good health! The progress pics look great! Be sure to take some pics and video when it's up and running

 

[sherlock9c1]

Before you put the tank back up, i'd recommend you spray the whole outside of the sending unit with CRC heavy duty corrosion inhibitor. Then put plastic loom over the lines to protect them from rubbing on the body.

 

[bad25v8]

So it's been a while since I updated this thread, life has been busy/hectic! I got car back together and running/driving just in time for winter, luckily it held off for a few weeks and I got to drive it and enjoy it a little. Man I missed driving this car! I wasn't able to install the rear, repair the front end and install/upgrade the exhaust. The 3600 stall converter isn't optimal with the factory 3.08's but still fun especially when accelerating at highway speeds. I'm aware the 3.73's will transform the car and the converter won't load up and stay on the stall as much. The best description for it's performance is accelerating from a stop at light throttle is equivalent to heavy slippage of the clutch on a manual. Essentially doesn't stop slipping before it shifts out of first and into second. She begs you to get into the throttle cause she's happier with heavier throttle. The 3.73's will allow engine to accelerate through rpm's quicker and less load on converter allowing it to be tighter essentially. Setup still won't be optimum with the stock engine but should be really fun with head and cam swap I have planned in another year or so. I also made my aldl cable and was able to get some data logging done and program and remove a few things. No major tuning yet, need to repair exhaust leaks and make sure tune up is all good before I start tackling that. So my revised plan now is tune up, install rear end and headers. Would like to update exhaust but might be stuck with just adapting what I have now to work with the headers. Also while doing tune up I plan on installing electric water pump and building my own high current harness for the electric fans. After this is done I should be ready to tune. Would really like to upgrade transmission some more but can't quite do that yet but more on that in upcoming installments. I have a lot of catching up to do and changed future plans and whatnot from events that have occurred since my last post.

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