I've dreamed of owning a Buick Grand National ever since I was a little kid, but in all of these dreams, never is the car just sitting in the garage. I Bought my Buick to drive I Want to rack up a ton of miles on this car, but there's one little issue. My Grand National is borderline unsafe. It's 36 years old and much of its steering and suspension is original or really worn out.

So much play. The car has 142 000 miles and it's a miracle that some of these parts have lasted this long. We already added a table full of performance parts to increase horsepower by adding more fuel, increase the airflow and increase boost pressure fed into this 3.8 liter. V6 And the car runs well.

I Mean it runs really well and so now it's time to complete the package and make sure this 80s icon can handle well and put the power to the ground for many more miles and years to come. Hi! We're kicking this party off in the rear and let's remove the wheels. I Will be replacing these wheels, but don't worry I'm going to keep the exact same style. They're just going to be newer and lighter.

All right. Wow, these things are heavy And these tires I Believe they're 20 years old 2004 19 year old tires and they're not dry rotted that bad though. like they look decent, they're just a little hard. Yeah, don't worry, we'll give these a proper send off at some point.

I'm keeping these wheels all right, All right. So we're going to basically disassemble everything First, the parts are on their way. Normally I don't do that, but I just I just can't wait. Um, but we have to remove these nasty old shocks.

We're gonna be replacing all the shocks and in this case I don't even need to take the nut off. Both of them are missing the nut. So yeah, that's all we need to do on the bottom. This is so crazy.

That's it. So we were getting some clunking noises in the rear and it's possible that's what that was. Although the shocks are really not that bad though, that's good. You know, you know why they're not that bad.

Why? Made in Japan Just like part of Peter Being a full-frame vehicle, we don't even need to get in that trunk to remove these shocks. All right, there's one. You got it. Oh, wait a minute we got lines we got.

Air Lines That's right. You can tell this is a really old school build when it has these airbags in the rear springs. I actually had them on my Trans Am for a long time I Don't remember if they're still on there or not. Um, but they are for drag racing.

You typically don't really put too much air in the left hand side. You put it on the right hand side because when you launch and the engine torques, it kind of does one of these so you want to have it a little bit stiffer on the back right so it leaves straight so that's kind of the idea. but I don't know I might get rid of them because I'm not really going to be doing too much serious drag racing and with modern technology shocks, you kind of don't need them. All right guys.

This is going to be our pile of old parts so as this video progresses, this will get hopefully a lot bigger and then we will roll it out for the Metal scrappers. All right. So I'm gonna pop these Springs out and a lot of times with cards like this with a solid rear axle, you can take the shocks loose, then essentially manhandle the Springs out and we'll take off our Airline. There you go, All right.

Grand Nationals Always have kind of a lowered stance from the factory, so I am curious to see if these are lowering springs that looks like a very 80s little tag there. though it is possible the Springs are just worn out and they're sagging that that could happen too I don't know why I'm doing this like I could tell anything at all basically trying to compress the spring. you're not that strong Alex I am that strong Peter You can do it Peter Mine was already out by now I did it with my bare fingers. You must have stronger fingers Peter Always makes fun of me for being weak and then look at this.

Look at this. you did it. Peter Good job. Almost there.

Almost there. Oh geez, oh my goodness, let me see if my little Italian fingers can. Oh look at that. but did you just do it? Yeah what? Oh, watch out.

Really? we go like this in Italy a lot. So I got good pictures. Hey, what are you talking about? It's like I'm good at pinching stuff. All right, All right guys.

we're going to go ahead and take these lines out. I don't think I'm gonna go back together with the airbags. we'll save them. they're still probably good.

Um but we can take all this stuff out of the GN and they really? they just had this fish through the frame rails like so and we're I mean we're gonna get a ton of good vacuum tubing here. this is oh yeah. I'm making money on this deal. Look at this.

they use the factory clips. not bad. go right back together. Bam And usually guys with airbags Pride themselves on where they put the little valves because you fill them up just like a tire so there's a valve somewhere in there.

We gotta go find it. Okay, cool. Now if I was a super cool Grand National guy from the 90s modifying my car I would totally have the valves where Peter we have a behind the license plate. That's right.

let's see so I do have custom plates on order for the Grand National Oh that's slick I Never noticed that they did a great job with this. Those are just like the stops for I Think they turned them into the stops? Yeah, no way. Wow. I Kind of feel bad now.

Great job. Grand National For something, we'll use them on something. Yeah. I Filled this car up a bunch of times.

I Never even noticed this. Oh yeah, they drilled this out. Got that guy out of there too. All right guys.

In hindsight, I should have just left those and cut the lines or just left the lines as well because these are the rubber stoppers. So if we don't put anything here, these little screws will make marks like that that was already there from before. It was probably just barely touching it. So anyway, a little a little foam for now and we'll have to find.

I'm assuming some kind of rubber plug to put in there GN Guys, let me know what what goes right there. Oh and check it out. I Still do have the airbags on the TA Here are my little trick valves through the license plates sleeper status you don't even know. All right here we go.

Yeah, that works. Yay! All right guys! As you can imagine, a lot of the play that's going on in this steering system is because of joints like this. They're pretty much all like this. Look at how old the stuff is, it is just developed a layer of crusty goodness.

I don't I don't even know. All right. So we're going to replace a ton in the front end and this kind of old school car has cotter pins. We're getting to the point now where there is a whole generation of mechanics out there that have never had to deal with cotter pins at all.

like they've probably never even seen these before. Oh You know before we start taking things apart, let's make sure that steering wheel is straight and the play in this steering wheel is not cool at all. Well, these two look cool in your dope. Grand National Oh, hang on Peter you ain't seen nothing yet.

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Rusty Cotter Pin number two coming out. sometimes you just just gotta break them there. we go replacing all this so we don't really care too much about it. Across the old outer tie rod sleeve inner tie rod.

this is probably the same one for any G-Body And it's like this little guy was lucky enough to get on the Grand National Well, the Grand National Tour. Look at that man. you don't deserve the scrap pile. but you're getting the scrap pile.

You think I could do one hit wonder? Yeah, yeah, do it. Now it's your turn. I Don't know what I was thinking. that was the weakest that's gone.

Peter Here's a softball for you. Have you ever paid the hammerschlagen? No. dude. this is all right.

One arm though. One arm only. that's Oh, did you destroy the car though? Something Okay, great. hold on.

let's do a forensic review of that. Oh yeah, it sounded like that. Okay, all right, we'll let that slide. Wow.

We definitely need to wash this car though. I Had to drive it here and it was snowing. so of course this salt and we did wash it. But look at this.

I mean you really got to be careful. In the Midwest, we're gonna have to blast everything. All right. We've been here for like eight minutes trying to get this socket off.

Oh, there we go. We have standard tools too. That would be way too easy. Alex All right I Gotta redeem myself here to the pile.

It goes all right here we go. One arm, one hit. Don't hit the intercooler shroud thing one of these days. Alex is a weakling Oh I Thought we were getting like a real song.

You just made that up. Yeah, it's pretty good. Thanks. That could be your one hit wonder right there.

Alex is a weakling song. Yeah, there you go, All right. Our pile is getting bigger all right. So the idler and the Pitman on this car are in good shape.

They have no play whatsoever and they have Moog parts so these are probably replaced not too many miles ago and we'll definitely clean it up. But you can see here there's no play at all so this would be a waste of money to replace these. The center link is fine, this guy was replaced also. no play whatsoever so we don't have to do any of that.

Next up we're going to be replacing the sway bar end links and the bushings. As you can see, they are cracked and very old and this will cause poor handling as well. So let's get new ones in there. Okay, this is probably about 5000 degrees now I did hear a little hit the water all right so we can kind of pry this bolt down like that.

There we go. Yeah, needs a freshening that's for sure and there are lots of pieces to these. Kind of gotta basically build them when you get new ones. Luckily, these are the same for like millions of cars.

I've dealt with these similar style sway bar end links on a bunch of old GM stuff. So anyway, I'll show you how they go back together when we get the new ones smoking. Oh, let's bring it to the wire sizzling. She's a scorcher.

Oh, this one's just gonna come out gently. No persuasion needed. The other one. oh this bolt.

just oh my gosh, this has burned me. Look at that. I have a tattoo now. Oh nice.

That's kind of a cool tattoo. like I'm okay with that story. that's a Grand National tattoo. Yeah.

I'm down all right. So I'm gonna say three eighths? No, it could be a ten I already forgot which four I just pulled this from two seconds ago. It's not the tools, it's just my brain. It's just horrible.

These header bolts. Oh yeah. Wow. look at they are.

they're 12 point. Oh dang dude. these are totally header bolts they used is that factory. There's no way if it is that is so cool.

Oh wait, no they're not 12 points. Oh, this one is one of them's 12. one of them is 12 points. God I wish that was Factor that'd be so GN Like let's use some awesome 12 point header bolts to hold in the sway bar.

That's so cool. I wonder if this is the stock size or if someone put a larger one on? This is a pretty decent sway bar. This thing's thick. Yeah, these bushings have seen way better days, but hold on.

What are these made of? Are those poly? It might be. Yeah, it doesn't look like rubber. Yeah, these might have been polyurethane bushings they installed back in like 1992 back when polyurethane was invented. Yeah, and they ordered it like from a magazine.

Remember going through magazines to order car parts Cars? Yes, all right, this is. We're gonna reuse this so it's going near the pile. It's not back in the pile. Yeah, we're attacking these front shocks next.

and they have two nuts on the top so I have to break free the lock nut. That was pretty easy. and I Gotta say, sometimes it really stinks working on older cars, especially from the Midwest because of the rust and the age. but this just has the age.

It has no rust. this thing is from Colorado and aside from meaningless surface rests like this, it's It's really nice all right. So we have to counter Hold the top of the shock and then we can break free this nut here. All right.

It comes to a point where you can't keep the little wrench on the top so you just got to hold it by the threads. Which is fine. We're replacing this shock. anyway.

There we go. Oh, it's not that tall? Yes I am that. This is perfect. That's where I need to be All right.

So these are the easy ones right on bottom and then bloop. CJ codes Nothing I can decipher. Yeah, they seem to still be in good shape. We're just going to get way better ones on.

Doesn't this just look like an old font like this is from the 80s or 90s? Or yeah, probably designed in the 70s. It was a little old and the tooth at the time gas adjust. That sounds like something an old guy would say. Yeah I got these gas adjusts on mine like the Mad Men marketing team came up with this: hey KYB I got a great idea for you gas adjust.

It's gonna be the new craze on all the Grand Nationals and it was all right. We're gonna go ahead and take off the brake calipers because we're going to be removing the entire spindle since we're removing both of the control arms. if One's Gonna Get Stuck it's always the bottom. Oh yeah, we're good.

Thank you State of Colorado for not using rock salt. This will give me a good opportunity to clean up all these pins. and Hardware yeah and these pads got a decent amount of life in them. The rotors are brand new on this car are these different pads.

they're red Ebcs or something. Yeah it could be like high performance pads. I mean look at, look at how small the braking system is on this car. it's pretty crazy and drums in the back.

People back in the day didn't care about stopping, they just died I just wanted to go I Must say the brakes work fine. but uh yeah, at some point in the future we might have to upgrade these. I At least put disc in the rear. the thing is with 15 inch wheels.

We're very limited on what we can do with brakes, so all right guys. next up, we have to remove the coil springs so we have a coil spring tool like so it looks like a medieval torture device. It could be used for that as well. All right.

So before we use this tool, we're going to apply a little bit of Grease here to the washers and this is just some high temp grease and we're going to get some on the threads too just to make this easier on them because we are going to use an impact which is something you're not supposed to do but I like to get my projects done and not spend forever turning bolts so we're gonna cheat All right? So we hook these guys on here and then this tool fits here all right. So from here we're just going to tighten this long bolt. It's going to pull down those hooks and pull the spring down and compress it. All right with the spin Jack in place, we can remove the lower control arm bolts.

Now we can use the gun once it's broken loose. There you go. look at these threads. This is going to clean right up.

Beautiful. Just a wee bit of persuasion. All right. Ah, look at this guys.

this nut is totally loose. I Just want to remove the cotter pin. Okay, glad we're doing all this, that's for sure. Glad there was a cotter pin there.

Yeah! I've always kind of wondered I'm like you still got to tighten the nut down and like it'll be fine. What do you need the cotter pin for this? This is. This is what you need it for. Get out of here cotter pin.

You've done your job. Thank you I Want to replace you with someone much younger and prettier I Don't want to go save me? There you go little buddy. We have a huge pool of water here because we started pressure washing some stuff yesterday night. Uh, and then after we get these arms off, we're gonna.

We're gonna go to town too because while you're in there, can I take this off with my fingers? Oh wow, Yeah. look I mean we were getting a clunk from this side. Definitely could have been a loose ball joint. Wow, It's not like the joint itself is necessarily loose, it's just it wasn't fastened.

You can see here, we have no spring pressure. The spring is basically attached now to the lower control arm with our tool, so you never want to try and remove any of this without compressing the spring. otherwise it'll shoot out at you and it could be I mean it could literally kill you. Okay, let's swing this out of here.

There we go. Okay, and how are these bushings? Yeah, they're pretty pretty cracked up. All right. Next up, we're going to remove the spindle and look at this kind of stuff.

Guys, you see this. this is welding rod and we see this throughout. basically the entire Grand National frame. and from what I understand this is just normal on these old cars.

They just kind of did they weld by hand or something I don't I don't I don't know. but I mean from what we can tell, it's never been in a wreck like at all. I mean it's got a clean Carfax Not that that means anything on such an old car, but just looking over everything. It's got old stickers from like the 80s and stuff.

Um, but yeah, this is just all over the place. like here. We're all the way at the back now and you can see that again. same one on the other side of the frame right there.

This is hilarious. We blasted this with the pressure washer. Look at this. This is all original.

All of this for some reason I'm happy with the bad welds. It's just kind of cool. like it's vintage I don't know. It was funny when we rebuilt my wrecked silver.

Tesla It had similar welds on it and it's a newer car. so not saying too much about Tesla right there. This is heavy first having such a tiny rotor. This is a very very heavy spindle, but this is going into the wash rack for a cleaning.

The rotor has absolutely No. Ridge It's like brand new so we don't need to replace that and there was no play in the bearings. I Think they adjust on the brakes probably a few thousand miles ago in like 15 years ago. so we're good there.

We'll just give it a good cleaning. Wow, look at how bad these bushings are. Yep, we definitely were getting a lot of noise from here. that could have been part of it on this joint is just all kind of bound up.

okay. this is the best day ever. Do you love your Grand Nationals so much? I mean I've always loved it, but I love it even more now. I'm falling even more in love with you.

That's creep. No, it's not creative. I'm falling even more in love with you. Let's see who is it? Lifehouse I Would have never guessed that in a million years.

Lifehouse If you're watching, let us know in the comments. probably not watching at all These two weirdos on YouTube in your song, well replacing a rusty control arm. We love those guys. mate.

everybody is oh wow, look at all these little twins. Lots and lots of shoes is the same on the other side. Nope, there are Notions whatsoever on the other side. There we go.

I'm so glad we're replacing this stuff. All right. let's bring it to the pile. Yeah, this pile is.

it's getting pretty big. We still have the other side to do as well, but the car is getting lighter. Our pile is getting bigger. That means progress.

Not that this really will do anything to a spring flying at you, but it makes me feel better. Springs Are dangerous all right. So we have to remove the spring compressor tool. Just be mindful of what you're doing.

Don't ever look at the spring. Head on. Just stay away. Stay far far away.

There we go. Okay, cool spring is off and I'm just so curious if this is an original spring. You know, Like I said the car, the car does look kind of lowered but I don't know? What are these tags? 1408.0051 What does that say? d y Oh here we go. D-y-t All right.

We just got done disassembling the driver's side as well. Lots and lots of Gunk here to be cleaned up on the frame that is for sure. but with that side taken apart, here is everything. Here is our pile of really really old parts and we did find out that these Springs are original so those are 36 year old Springs with 142 000 miles and that could be part of the reason why this car is just so floaty.

So everything here is very very worn out well except for the rotors and spindles. We're gonna save those, we just need to clean them up. But here's all the old stuff and here's all of our new stuff set up on a table. just like the last Grand National video where we had a table full of perform men's parts and uh yeah you know kid.

Candy Store I Mean it's just the reference isn't more true than right now? I Mean look at this. So we have aluminum replica Grand National wheels so these are much lighter than the factory steel wheels and the Finish is a million times better. So on the original Wheels the black will wear out and it's very difficult to mask this all off and paint it. so these are brand spanking new.

Wheels We have brand new Mickey Thompsons all the way around. Uh, these are eight inch in the front and I went with 10 inch wheels in the rear so they do have a massive deep dish I'm not sure at the moment if I like this or not because from every angle you can't really see what the wheels look like. but we have massive 275 Mickey Thompson drag radials in the rear. so I don't know.

We'll get these on the car and kind of see what's going on. So the wheels are from Carbonperformance.com They've been around for like 40 years selling turbo Buick Grand National Parts It's pretty crazy and I got a bunch of other stuff from them including this little guy here, the curbin's guide to the 86 and 87 Turbo Regal Hang on I Gotta flip through a couple. Pages For you guys, this is basically a plethora of information on these cars. but I think I figured out exactly what I'm going to read my kids every night before they go to bed.

This is insane. All the information you never want to know is in this book. so very excited about that and I won't go over every single part right now. We'll do it as we install them, but we have a GNX suspension brace.

We're doing Bilsteins. We're doing brand new. Springs We're We're doing it all. So anyway.

uh with that, let's go clean up the frame and then we'll start installing this stuff. this. Grand National is going to feel brand new when we're done. We already did this spot there.

This is going to be good. It's so thick. Oh my gosh, this is crazy. 36 years of gunk.

goodbye. Thank you for protecting my frame. Wow, look at that. Oh man.

all right guys. this is definitely one of those things that you can get super carried away and uh yeah, we are completely ruining like the whole shop. Look at this. I mean dust and dirt and dirt is getting literally everywhere.

This isn't. Yeah, this isn't worth it. So I did a really quick blast on the passenger side. You can see the frame was painted black and so we got most of the dirt and everything off of here.

But I think this side had a power steering leak for a long time and it kind of just took away the paint in this area. So I made sure to clean up the areas that are going to be difficult to pressure wash once we have everything assembled. but this does look like a job for outside. Even once we get everything back together, we can just take the wheels off, put it on jack stands, get the gas pressure washer, and just go nuts everywhere.

But I'm gonna I'm gonna spend more time cleaning my shop than cleaning the frame if I continue to do it inside. So this is good enough. we'll dry everything up right now. Um, and we're assembling.

Oh wait, no, we still have one more part to take off, which we'll do right now. It's this: Look at that ton of noise coming from the steering. This is super loose. This boot is destroyed.

We got to fix that. All right. First things first. we have to remove this plastic cover.

just kind of slides back. and yeah, this rubber joint in here is probably super worn out. All right, we're gonna break this, not loose here. All of this is definitely an original part.

I'm gonna say there we go now. she's nice and loose I Love these tiny little Sonic ratchets. all their ratchets are super fine tooth I Love these tools. Okay, hopefully we can find that.

Oh no. I'm gonna drop it up. Wait, hold on I'm coming for you little buddy. We didn't wait to dry anything I just I Can't wait, we're just gonna work.

I I Hate stopping in the middle of a project for really anything other than that. I I Have to pee really bad. I'm not doing it I'll hold this pee all day and we have an 11 mil on the other side. Why are all steering shaft bolts 11 mils or something weird I Don't understand that at all.

This is the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night. All right that bolts out. Look at that. Look at that 80s blue.

Loctite It's like in style. that's 80s blue right there. All right now. we should be able to slide this guy off.

coming off slowly but surely. come on now. All right there we go right off. easy.

I Just gotta pull it off the top. almost. Let's do this this now. This here has gotta be the original 36 years of turning.

so this is a rubber disc in here. It's a rag joint and you can see how bad this is. This will make for a ton of slop it can make for knocking noises. I Mean we had all of that all right.

So we got here from Carbon Performance is a lower steering shaft from a Jeep I'm not sure which model Jeep Jeep Guys let me know, but this shaft happens to be the same length and the same threads and everything should bolt in perfectly. And then we get rid of the rag joint for a traditional U-joint which is going to last much longer. but we do have to make one modification. It's just easier to show you the instructions.

But as you can see here, if we just go ahead and slide that Jeep shaft on, we're not going to be able to get the bolt through. So we do have to make a notch that looks like that on the car and then it should look like that before we get to notching, we're going to go ahead and replace that bearing right there with a brand new bearing. And this is hilarious. It's for 1969 to O2 GM Cars This kit fits virtually every GM car during that span of time.

That is awesome. That's efficiency. GM Great job, All right. So it looks like we have to remove this C-clip here and that is a lot easier said than done.

We're working in some really tight spaces. There we go. Goodbye C-clip and it's funny now. I can't actually see in there I'm using the camera that Peter's holding to see what I'm doing.

This is definitely the way to do it though. Okay, so there goes that. All right. we're getting there.

It's getting getting kind of loose. All right. let's get the seal completely out of the way. Okay, come on baby.

get out of there. get out. Oh yeah, here we go there. we go.

Get this out of the way. Okay, all right, so we need to do now is just grease up this bearing. It's already pre-greased but we're just gonna add a little bit more with our purple ice cream spoon and call it a All right. Then we need to tap this into our new white collar.

All right. So that's that. So from the factory, there is no roller bearing. it's just these rubber seals.

That's it. So this is a big upgrade. Uh, for stability, you'll probably notice a lot less flop in the steering wheel. you know, kind of like up and down.

Everything's just going to be tighter now that we have this bearing. All right. So now we're going to slide on our new piece with our sweet new bearing. There we go.

and this is going to lock into these tabs here and Center it All right. So this only goes in one way. so we're slotted in properly there. All right.

So next up we have this metal retaining cap and I've already pre-loaded our new clip on there and I believe this only goes on one way as well. All right. So we have this retainer nice and flush. Everything is super tight.

Look at this before it was just wobbling around like crazy and we have these lined up so we got that bam bam look at that upgraded all right. So we're gonna go ahead and install this new lower shaft. So we have this shaft installed all the way at the end and this is telescoping so you can see it comes out a little bit and I've extended this exactly where it needs to be. So now we can make a little Mark where we need to grind so that the bolt can pass through.

All right. So we have the steering shaft out of the way and we're just going to use a little Dremel bit now. All right, here's what it looks like after we ground it down a bit and now we just slide this guy back on hopefully for the last time and we'll throw a little bit of Loctite on the bolt and hopefully this goes through. Yay! We did it all right.

Perfect! This is awesome! We installed the upgraded bearing the upgraded Jeep shaft I mean maybe the Grand National is gonna handle like a Ferrari like a 19. 50s Ferrari with gearbox? I don't know if that's even a thing. All right bolts are in on both ends and we are done here. All right.

We're gonna continue going back together now. this should go smoothly. knock on differential cover. Um, but yeah, we got rear springs I'm hoping I could just muscle these in like we did with the other ones and so what we're installing here are just factory.

GM Springs Oh, it's so close. Oh come on baby. Oh yeah Bam Ah boy. A real boy.

So I really like the factory ride height of the Buick Grand National We actually will be probably lifting it slightly because the old coil springs are really worn out. Check this out. Look at how much these things have sagged and lowered over the years. That is not good.

That is definitely part of the floaty ride that we're getting from this car. So cool! Yeah, the rears aren't that bad. yeah a little bit, but either way they still have all of these original GM stickers We ran the numbers and these are. well.

you can't see these numbers but on the fronts they were original. All right. let's get the other side in as well. This power stance.

power. Oh man, this one's harder. Yes, because that one's pushing down. now it's doing one of these.

That means like a little bit of I need a stretch for the power stance. Oh oh this is gonna hurt. By the way, I think I'm something bad is gonna happen because you kind of gotta like you gotta bounce it. you know what if what if I what if I helped if you pulled that down, that would help.

Okay, oh wait. oh now it's stuck. I'm gonna do that whole thing over it and the coil went inside. Oh damn.

darn all right. ready. hold on Peter Ah wow, these look pretty nice. All right, we're gonna remove this exhaust hanger.

It's just kind of getting in the way. There we go. Yeah, this is not being used at all I think it's gonna make the shocking salt easier. All right.

So we're replacing those gasomatic shocks or whatever they were called with some nice Bilsteins. Look at that. Cool, all right. So we got to remove these lower mounts so there's a nut on the inside.

How did that Not just that, needs a hammer. One hit wonder for sure on this one. I'm even gonna use the little baby. Wow! You're really confident.

Watch this not be a one-hit wonder. Gonna be a one-hit wonder. Watch. Bam Dang! swinging for the fences.

One hit wonder out of the park? That's right. All right. we got some new hardware for that lower. Mount All right.

so we're just gonna put this side in like that. Wow. I Just hit my head on this point right here. What? What is the purpose of that? I Should grind that down? That's dangerous.

All right. Anyway, no more complaining. Let's get some Hardware on. All right.

So we need to push up this rear end housing so that these line up because they're at full extension right now. Yep, there we go. All right. we'll tighten up the bottom one all right with the Bilsteins bolted in.

I Bought a tubular rear shock brace that we're gonna bolt in the top and this is going to add some rigidity. This isn't going to add any creaking or anything negative at all, it's just going to kind of give us a more solid feel to the car. All right. So we just got to slide this in on top of the frame and this thing is a very tight fit I Must say.

but we're almost there. I Lined up. Yeah, Yay right there. Okay, all right.

we got the bolts through, lock, washers, and nuts on top. All right. cool. Get rid of our spin Jack and we are done.

We are done in the rear. Look at that Bilstein's new Springs We got the upper shock brace in there looking good. Let's move on to the front. I'm using the trough of water on the floor to clean parts with one of my old t-shirts.

That's that's where we're at right now. We're just hustling. we are hustling I Have to go to one of my kids plays in like two hours and I really want to get this done. This is this is what we go through to get you guys videos I Just I Want to do it all people I want to do it all.

Oh man look how dirty I am I'm gonna have to shower like three times before I Go to this play I Want to be the stinky dad at the play, right? Am I kidding I'm gonna be the stinky dude. We're going back together with a brand new upper control arm, new ball joint, new bushings we transferred over the bump stop. This looks much prettier than the old one. Okay, yeah, now that these bushings aren't totally shot, these are actually kind of hard to do.

You can't just flip this whole thing up unless we loosen these, which we can do all right. So these shims. Right now we're kind of just guessing the alignment shop will add or remove these, but they were evenly spaced before and the shims just going right there and then we'll just screw on. Or not, All right, we're just going to loosen this up a little so we can access the bolts.

All right there we go. Now, we get to the bolts a lot easier. All right. So now, we just need to bring this down and we were right there now.

once the car is lowered, we'll tighten these fully because you want to tighten control arm bushings when all the way to the car is on. Otherwise, you're going to twist the bushing every time you lower the car. you need to put it in a natural state. All right, let's snug it up.

Okay, all right. Upper control arm is on all right. I Cleaned up the spindle a little bit and I'll get our new nut on. All right.

We'll install our cotter pin now. All right, Cotter pins. In all right, we have a brand new lower control arm as well. New bushings, new ball joint.

Uh, this was like a hundred and eleven dollars or something like that. We could have done the ball joint and the bushing separately for uh I think it would have been about 70 dollars. So for a little bit more, we got a nice new arm that's freshly powder coated. I'll I'll take it.

You got to line up the castle nut with the hole in the ball joint. almost. Oh okay. I went a little past, but that should work all right.

We got our cotter pin. I'm just I want this to look pretty for no one to ever see it? Well, okay, all right, that Cotter pin's not going anywhere. just let's just forget that ever if you look at it from this. yeah, that looks good from there.

Front coil spring time and we're gonna slide this into the frame first. There's a rubber Mount up there as well. It's lined up pretty nicely. All right.

So now we're gonna stick the tool back in through the bottom of the lower control arm. put one on there. Um, I'll get our tool here on the bottom. Like So all right.

Once it's compressed a little, we can start lining it up. So as we compress the spring, I'm also pushing up on the bottom of the control arm so we're keeping these lined up. Just make it easier. All right.

So we're getting a little bit of anti-seize here on the shoulder of the bolts. Oh, where are you almost there? Bam. She'll say that's fine. All right.

So we got those bolts in. Let's get this guy out of the way. We'll also loosen and tighten these up on the alignment Rack or at least tell the alignment technician to do that once it's at the proper ride height. All right now.

at this point, we can remove our spring compressor tool and then we'll trade this guy in for a Bilstein shock. All right, here's our new Bilstein front shock. We already put our little cup here and our rubber isolator so we'll send that through so we'll use our little screw Jack to compress our shock and make life easier. It's good enough.

I'll get this guy out of the way now. This one should be much easier now and here. on top we have a rubber isolator and then we have our top hat and then a pretty top hat. So this is literally just for decoration.

It's very thin and then we just have one lock nut for this. but the bill seems you have to hold the shock with an allen and then you can tighten up the lock nut. Obviously this is much easier because we have brand new parts. All right, that's good.

All right. We're gonna go back together with our new brake pads so the inner one clicks in like that and the outer will go like so all right, get your breaks going on and I cleaned up the pins so we can grease these up as well. Okay with none of the steering stuff attached. We have so much room.

Next up we're doing the tie rods and we got a new center sleeve as well. So I'll do is we'll transfer this guy over here and we're gonna try and match the old one as best as possible. So we get the alignment kind of right for the alignment Tech All right. And then this side is reverse thread all right.

So we matched this up pretty close. the alignment guy should be almost there and so let's get this side in. So we moved this a little over so it's easier to get this guy in. All right, where's that All right? I'm gonna skip this guy in here now.

Now we have room. Oh, look at this guy in two. Get in there good. Okay, all right guys off camera.

We put this side together same as the other side. so now we can attach our outer tie rod All right. We can now grease everything and you don't need too much. You don't want this stuff coming out of the boot, but these were completely empty.

There we go. You can see it starting to inflate a little. All right. Next up are the sway bar bushings in the front, so we have to pry these caps off like so and then these will have a slit in them so they can be replaced easily.

So these look like the polyurethane bushings for better handling. We're going with a normal stack replacement made in the USA and it actually seems to be much stronger than this old one. I Could have gone polyurethane on everything on this car, but I'm never going to break any handling records with my Grand National, so I rather just have it be, you know, kind of quiet and not creaky in that department and just handle well like a stock car. All right.

So we're just going to snap this guy on like that, putting our cap back on. We'll repeat on the other side. this is hilarious. So I cleaned up the bolts that hold the sway bar in and I thought these were 12 point or some of them were 12 point.

Nope, they were just so gunked up and I used a 12 point socket on them that we made them look like a 12 point. but they aren't. They are six. Yeah, we washed off the other six points.

I'm like, wait a minute. Where are those 12 point bolts? We lost them? I'm like, oh, we always. we cleaned everything at once. That's hilarious.

Okay, all right, Sway Bar is going back home. Start one on this side as well. I'm not going to tighten those up all the way just yet. Let's get the links in all right, here are the new sway bars.

These look so good. a little complicated, sort of on how they go back together, but I'll show you guys really quick. gotta hold it all in your hands. Ready to go.

Looks like you've done this time or two time. thousands thousands. All right. Then we're gonna slide this long bolt in here.

Okay, and then you got your bushing and your metal cap. We'll slide that slide that on up. We have the long sleeve, slide that metal cap. another bushing.

Now we're going to move this sway bar up a little. That's why we don't tighten it all the way. Okay, feed that down and then you have the rubber here on the control arm. and then another rubber bushing.

Another cat. All right. And then before we tighten up the bottom, we're going to slide this other side in too. Rubber bushing.

got our sleeve and another bushing. All right. Cool. Now we're actually going to drop the sway bar back down with the sway bar.

Back down. you're just going to see a few threads. the beginning. You kind of got to smush the bushings a little bit.

There we go. It's that side. Yeah, Then we can get the nut on this side. All right.

now. we can go back together with the sway bar. so don't tighten anything until all the bolts are started. Thank you! Getting a good smoosh out of that bush and this is going to be so tight.

This was the other sway bar bushing. Look at how bad and floppy this was. This definitely needed to be done all right now. We can tighten up the links.

That's pretty much all you need. You don't have to smush these bushings too much. Once the car settles, the bushings will level out perfectly. so we'll just do the same on the other side.

All right. Next up, we're cutting some zip ties off so we are going to replace this bar here, which is aftermarket. All right, there we go. So this is a front brace that someone installed a fine piece.

I must add. Nothing wrong with this whatsoever. but I Ordered a brace kit for the Front Bottom that includes tubular pieces. There's multiple pieces and I just want them all to match because no one will ever be able to see them from underneath the car.

But that's what we're doing. So here's one of the other cross pieces. Now we're gonna install that there and then through our lock washer back on. Put one on this side.

All right. Then we have a couple bolts going into the frame. We just made our own threads. That's what the instruction says to do.

A lot easier than I Thought Okay, now we actually found some new Hardware in the Box for this. All right. We're tapping out four holes so we can properly fasten this air dam where it should go nuts. Just zip tie it like that.

It should be right there. All right. We need to get some black washers, a little mix and match here. But anyway, we are.

Uh, we're done with the suspension underneath the car. Yeah, we got everything going on here. We got our braces in the front, we got the brace in the back, and we have a bunch more braces left on the table that we need to brace up once we lower the car. It's gonna be the most braced car in the world, but looking good.

Very satisfying to get all those old crusty Parts out of here. I Know we still need to clean up the frame and paint it and all that kind of good stuff, but we will right now. It's function over form at the moment underneath the Grand National So anyway, let's lower it and continue on. All right.

So next up I was going to install a GNX style X brace in the trunk. That's four of these guys and I don't think I'm gonna do this anymore I read that the GNX actually has it welded in and these would bolt in and they attach to here, kind of run them in an X like that and like this and then on the other side and I gotta drill a bunch of holes into the car to do this and that's not even how the GNX had it. So I don't know me know in the comments section if these Bolton ones are worth it I think if anything I would just do exactly what they did on the GNX and then maybe we'll do that when I eventually take the body off and restore the frame and stuff. but I don't know.

A little more research is needed on this one, especially before I start drilling holes. same thing in the front. We have these two little bars and these require you to drill a hole in the fender and then it lines up like this. They're going from the fender to the core support.

I Don't know what really this is doing honestly, especially because I'd have to drill into my nice Fender So let me know GN guys is is this and the trunk one worth it? I Don't know. All right. Something that is worthwhile in this corner is getting a battery hold down in I Got a nice Factory reproduction piece and I'm gonna get rid of the little handle here in the most violent kind of unnecessary way possible. It's kind of just an eyesore.

I Don't like it All right. Banish this to the pool of water. Let's put this there this there. get some hardware for it.

Sweet. That's good. I Really like the sticker either. Foreign.

We don't need to know that this battery is now almost four years old. Brand new battery that looks much cleaner and look at our turbo cover still looking pretty our satin black intake tubes. it's getting to be a good looking engine. All right guys.

There's a little bonus. before we Bolt the wheels on and go for a drive, we're gonna straight pipe it and here is the reason why: this has very very old and rusted out. Mufflers This one has a hole in it and who knows what the insides look like. They could be all clogged up and destroyed so we measured it out.

It's the exact same length as pipes you can get at the auto parts store so we're just going to swap these out. See what she sounds like? Who in the world installed these clamps like this? This one's kind of loose. Like why? why are they facing us I mean I would think clearance but you could always put it on the side. Yeah, you could just do the side.

make it easier. Look at it, see that's not doing anything. Okay I loosened these from the top two. Well, that's good.

We got all the clamps loose. This has been on forever, so this will be fun. We don't care about these Mufflers get them out foreign, we don't need you. Wow.

This thing's super heavy too and it's a straight through design. Okay, all right, probably not going to sound much different. Yeah, look at this old writing on here too. Applied technology I Don't know.

it's the pit bull. All right. So these are our new mufflers. They are, uh, efficient and help with emissions? Yes.

and safety. And safe there for safety. Yeah, so the only thing is, uh, we need to make one end fatter like this end. So let's do it.

Pipe fatifier on trade? Yeah. I Think all my like all the bones in my body just kind of cracked at this I Actually feel good? Okay, Oh yeah, we'll make that work. Okay, it helps. Heat definitely helps.

Now you can really see the step in there. This should be enough. now. it's great.

It's perfect. All right. All right, we're going back together. These stickers are a pain in the butt like you.

You basically just got to burn them off. All right. I'll install our makeshift rear hanger. All right here we go.

Our straight pipes are complete finger prints and all. I Don't know if this will sound any better, but before we find out, we gotta, we gotta bolt these on. All right guys! Moment of Truth here on these rear wheels I am torn whether I'm going to like these or not because of the massive deep dish. I Usually like deep dish wheels and deep dish pizza, but in this case I really want to see the Grand National wheel like I Just really like this right here.

so I don't know, we'll we'll see it's yeah, it's pretty much only straight on yeah. like once you get to here you can't really tell what it is I'm a little worried about that so I don't know and then these aren't really fat I mean the car's not that fast like these tires could go like sevens in the quarter mile so it's like I either. I don't know what's I don't know I don't know guys. Great! Fitbit though it is.

Yeah, that's the thing. These cars spit. a 275 10 inch tire with stock suspension. Like perfect.

So it's like they've been four attacks they did. The solution for having too much tire for the amount of power is to just add more power. Yeah, so we can fix that. That's not a problem.

All right, we're gonna be really careful because you need kind of a thin wall socket with these. I want to scratch up the black? All right. let's work these Once we get on the ground and now we have caps that just snap in. It's beautiful.

Look at that. I'm starting to like these again. I forgot this kind of sticks out so it does. Yeah, you know what that that kind of changes things all right.

The floor might look disgusting, but this car is looking very pretty. Oh wow, that has a lot of Tire in the rear I Uh man, if I stick with this I have to make this like at least a 10 second car. You can't roll on a 275 ET Street unless you're minimum 10 seconds I don't even know if the car could physically spin these These are really good tires. Yeah, Oh, this looks good though.

All right, she's sitting a lot higher. like the the extra Tire in the back makes the whole thing pull up. Yeah, it is sitting higher for sure. I mean we still got to jounce the new suspension and the Springs have to settle and whatnot.

But wow, yeah, those Springs were worn out like crazy I don't necessarily like this though. I don't know. Anyway, let's torque some Wheels start this up. get it outside.

All right. everything is torqued. Let's hear this thing all right. it's a little little different I don't know.

Kind of the same. Oh yeah, it's got a little bit more in there. Yeah, it's deeper. Yeah, yeah, it's nice.

which is I mean I feel like that's better. Like this is way better. Yeah, yeah actually and it's not. It's still.

I Mean guys, this has no exhaust. Man, it has a catalytic converter. but no Mufflers no resonator, nothing. And I mean once the title's down, it'll still be pretty quiet.

So anyway, uh, let's drive it. Oh oh, this is nice. Now we still need an alignment. We we eyeballed it for the toe so it doesn't really pull like it drives straight.

Uh, but the steering wheel obviously needs to be adjusted and then they'll add and remove shims and whatnot. But we can still drive it like this for now. I Kind of want the springs and everything to settle so the ride height is where it's pretty much going to be now. when I turn the steering wheel, the car actually turns.

It's immediate too. Yeah. I mean everything had play like everything was worn out. Is that is that weird breaking clunk still there? Oh come on dude, that's nice.

Look at the brakes are awesome now. Oh this is. oh this is really good. Maybe this does handle like a Ferrari now with those gigantic sidewall drag radials.

Oh here's here's some train tracks. a Regal for you baby. Still got that. Turbo Power But yeah, it's not loud at all.

It does sound a little throatier though. Even with these fat drag radials, this thing takes the turn so much better. Now this is so nice. Oh, and there's like dude, there's no play like at all in the steering wheel that's from the bearing.

Gosh, that's awesome. Yeah I Know it's hard for you guys to experience this guys. but aside from the wheel being off I mean we really eyeballed the alignment pretty good. I Mean it, it drives straight as an arrow.

This will be a very easy alignment for whoever gets it. I Think what I might do is get another pair of the eight inch wheels. They only go seven, eight, or ten. A nine would be nice, but it doesn't exist.

I Think I might do another set of eights with some non-drag radial street tires like a 255 or 65 and then these will just be the ones for the track. I Think that'd be a good combo and then these rear wheels and tires are basically going to force me to do more modifications of the car. Oh no. I know poor.

Alex because yeah. I think the car has to be at least a 10 second quarter mile car for this to justify them. Yeah, although otherwise you're a poser, right? it's like up badging it's like I don't know where right now I Mean it's probably just like a solidly in the 12s, like a mid 12 second car. something like that.

All right. After driving around for just a few minutes, here's what we have in the rear. so the Springs have settled down. This is the perfect ride height and let's see.

I Was worried that as you start to move away from the car, you can't see the design of the wheels. but that center cap definitely helps. It does. This looks really good.

I Do think I'm going to polish these. Uh, so they look Chrome I Like the Chrome look a lot better, but these can be polished. So during the detail video, we're going to polish out the car and we're going to spend like 40 hours paint, correcting, everything, putting the badge where it needs to be. We're missing the 3 8 turbo for the hood.

uh and we're gonna really just mint this thing out. We might do a light tint on the Windows as well, but yeah, in the front. I Think we could go lower. So in the detailed video I might start that one off with getting lowering springs just for the front.

but this is just kind of how they look like because they're 15 inch little wheels, you know? But uh yeah, a little low in the front should be good. Wonder if we can even break these tires loose? What do you think? Peter question Well it is cold right now. It's kind of cold, but we have gigantic drag radials. Let's see, do a little stallop.

Yeah, there was a moment where I think they spun for a half second, but not even yeah. I Don't know. No. I think it's just dead hooking.

You know this car has a little bit of Turbo lag. kind of a lot of Turbo lag. Yeah, um, so yeah. it's just as soon as it kicks in, it feels powerful and I don't think there's any chance it could spin these.

Maybe maybe a little bit. Oh yeah, she's nice and tight. Yeah man, it's it's a dream to drive right now. This is awesome.

It's still got that kind of Buicky sort of feeling. Yeah, it's a little flow to it, but no weird knocking noises. You know, the tires hook really well. I think they hook so well that we're we're picking up like rocks.

Oh yeah, you can hear that. You probably could hear it too. Yeah, like especially when we floor it. you can hear something.

It's all these little rocks that are getting stuck. We're in a very the infrastructure here in Illinois and the streets. It's not the best. Somehow all those taxes don't go to.

Yeah, where are those? Where are those taxes going? I Have no idea. but they're not going to fixing the roads, that's for sure. There's just rocks. Literally.

look at this. look at just a pile of rocks. This is a gravel road. It's not supposed to be all right guys.

So lots of decisions to be made here. Do I get the eights in the rear for the street I think we do but then I gotta look at the ride height. So if I'm gonna do anything I should get those Wheels first and that's pretty much how I would be driving the car most of the time. then these would just be for the track or having fun on the street or whatever.

So yeah, I think I got to make that decision. It'll all be in the next video though. when we do probably like a 50 hour detail and just mint this thing out and then the car will will be done. And yeah, so I think I'm gonna hold off on the alignment until I get the lowering springs possibly all the way around I Don't know.

but anyway, here is the Grand National with a rebuilt steering and suspension running perfectly and now driving perfectly and looking very very intimidating. So that'll do it for this video. It is freezing but ring is around the corner. all the cars are coming out.

We got a bunch of projects we're finishing including the Grand National So I hope you guys really enjoyed this video. If you did, give it a big thumbs up, share the video with your friends, subscribe if you haven't already, and most importantly have a great day. We'll see all of you in the next video please And made a big mess. Oh I don't like it for some for some reason.

I'm kind of when we rebuilt my 2015 Tesla they had the symbol. It was funny though when we rebuilt my Tesla it was funny when we rebuilt my wrecked silver. Tesla Oh, we do have a new one. Oh, it's in the water Okay But in the words of my friend: Robert Schneider you can do it I don't think I can do this.

Maybe the Grand National is gonna hide I mean I don't know if you believe me I reckon I'm right. fixing to reckon boy oh my. God look at that and wow so we'll also tighten. We'll also we'll also loosen and tighten these up All right.

ready? All right? So with the rear all right with the rear Bilstein with the bottom of the rear Bilsteins? All right Here we go. Our straight, All right Here we go. Our fingerprint? Yeah, all right here we go. Thank you.