Project B Type: LeSabre w/ Bonneville front end

[Alibi]

Original post here: http://www.pontiacbonnevilleclub.com/fo ... 4464&hilit

Anyway, as some of you know I stole the good front end off one of my T Types to use on the other so now I needed a good front end.... and I just happen to have some friends with a dead Bonneville with a good front end. This is the desired end result:



I don't think I'll be able to swap the rear header due to a difference in height with the trunk lids (finding a 2 door Bonnie trunk lid to swap over just isn't going to happen) or the door cladding but the rest of it should go over OK.

First I had to get the car going so on Friday I put the intake back together and charged my battery and dumped it in the car... but I didn't have a good IAC valve laying around so I used the crappy one I had but I went to Lowes and got some O rings and some new screws. I put those together and the IAC in and slowly made my way over to my friends place with the parts car.



I made some good headway today. I'll let the pictures speak for me first...





I got further than that but it was dark so I didn't take more pictures. The Bonnie bumper is actually on the LeSabre now and everything is bolting up fine. The biggest problem I have right now is getting the hold down mounts for the LeSabre hood off. They're on there with some funky sized Torx bolts that I managed to strip so I'll probably just drill the heads off, pull the hinges, and then try to unspin the bolts that are left or just drill it out and retap the holes. No biggie either way.

After the front end is swapped over, I need to get a good battery in the car (I have two to choose from so I just need to get both tested to make sure they're fine) and get a good alternator for the motor. The motor was running really rough on the way over and it stalled out a couple times and I had to get a jump from my brother. Also, the speedo decided to quit halfway over too after I heard a loud "ping" from the front right side of the motor where the speed sensor is...

So I'm tempted to swap out the entire drivetrain from the Bonnie into the '88 and save the '88's transmission to be rebuilt for the '89 and then just junk the motor since its knocking anyway. Hmm.... sounds like a project for spring though.

[Alibi]

I got lots more work done today! The T Type has the Bonnie front end on it now so I think I can officially call it the "B-Type"

First I had to get the stupid hinges off from the Lesabre setup. The T40 torx bolts stripped out on both sides minus one... Arrrrrgh! I had to drill out the tops and just leave the leftover studs in place. On the bonneville hinges there is a hole in the center that I'm going to use as a basis for a new bolt hole in the LeSabre body but for now its stable enough. I wire-brushed all the corrosion off and spray painted it.




Next I had to add an extra support plate from the Bonneville. The holes are already there on the LeSabre so I just had to add some threaded clips and bolt them on. Piece of cake.



But... then I realized the Bonnie bumper didnt fit right on the LeSabre. Then I noticed that the bumper shocks were different (LeSabre on the left):





They bolt up to the LeSabre just fine though so no worries. I'm keeping the old ones just in case I need them for the '89 though.

Next was fitting the bumper up again... and success! Fits like a glove. I decided to leave it off though so that I could go ahead and get the fenders on without hassle. They went on unevenfully after the stupid LeSabre mounts were off. One thing I noticed about the bonneville is that the front end uses WAY LESS fasteners. Makes my life just that much easier though.



And then the bumper on and bolted up with the lights and grille:




And then the hood went on. I had a few minor fitment issues that were resolved by moving the fenders in and out and the latch over a hair but otherwise no big issues. I bought new hood lift struts a couple weeks back with a batch of parts from RockAuto so those went on too.





And here are the Bonnie rims that I'm going to mount to the LeSabre.... one of the tires has a leak but otherwise they're fine. I'm going to get the one leaky tire fixed and mount them maybe this week. I do need a couple more centercaps though so if anyone has some laying around I could certainly use them!



And the tail lights...I don't think I'll be able to use them but I'm going to cut off the rear of the car with a sawzall if I do figure out a way to weld in the rear in the future.



Next on my list is the interior of both cars... I will be gutting both of them and then I will start repairing some rust in the LeSabre and some wiring issues and then the carpet and rear seats from the bonnie are going in. I'm not sure if I can use the dash yet but I'll see after I pull it apart to see how much of the electronics are the same. If they are, then I'm going to paint the Bonnie dash gray and put it in.

[PRD2BDF]

That's seriously awesome.

Now I want a project car

[driverjohn2005]

wow, good work!

[Alibi]

This has actually been a lot of fun. Its coming together a lot faster than I had expected too!

And on a side note, I just snagged these off ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/PONTIAC- ... 0312562621

$32 for a set of NOS caps... I just can't beat that with a stick!

[RJolly87]

I was actually amused how easily it came together with such good results. I say paint it white, as that was a really good color on that gen, also not too hard to keep clean. Second choice would have been the medium garnet red metallic, but it is hard to keep clean. And I believe you should hold out for SSE body parts, and make them fit with cutting and stuff, and same with taillights. I figure you might as well go all the way

[Alibi]

I'd love to use SSE parts but those are few and far between when I can get all the SE parts I want for free :D

I'm kinda leaning towards white myself due to ease of paint and whatnot. Doing the engine bay is going to be a pain but meh, its not like its a show car or anything....although I may take it to a couple just to confuse people

I really want to use the tail lights but I don't have access to a welder. I can cut them off just fine between my sawzall, dremels, and my air cutter coupled with my 30 gal compressor but just no way to re-attatch them. Maybe in a few years though...

[95naSTA]

HOLY CRAP!

That looks sooo freaking good.

I can't believe it worked out that easy. Awesome job man.

[wjcollier07]

Holy crap, that looks friggin amazing. too bad that bonne didn't just happen to be MGRM (not like the odds were against you either)

bonneville coupe, coming soon, indeed.

hmm, wonder how easy it would be to swap the dashboards. too bad the door panels wouldn't match it though.

[TenGHz]

Very nice. I was hoping you'd actually do this project.

[Alibi]

MGRM? I'm not familiar with all this Bonnie-Speak

I really hope I can swap in the dash too! It would be super cool with the center T Type shifter. I'm thinking about re-doing the door panels too so I could make them Bonnie-ish-er too. I'd probably just go with grey vinyl for an overall grey interior though...that would probably be another spring project but maybe not if I get bored over winter break or something.

Something like this: http://lesabret.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php ... a&start=15

[white06lacrossecxs]

I have always loved the tail lights on the 87 era bonnevilles.

[wjcollier07]

MGRM, Medium Garnet Red Metallic. http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f229/ ... G_0387.jpg

The color of my past 89; the color of your 88.

[Alibi]

Ooooh, I see. I've just referred to that as "maroon" I guess

That would be kinda easy to paint since the rest of the car is already that color... but I don't know how well it would work with it being a repaint (and a fading one at that). Hmm.... I think some photoshopping may be in order after I get some more of the parts on.

[Alibi]

Lots of progress to report :D

First, Brown Santa came and left me a present on my doorstep... they are my set of NOS center caps for the Bonnie rims :D



I got a little bit of work done on both cars the last couple days. I have focused on getting the dash boards out of both cars to examine whether or not I could use the Bonnie dash in the LeSabre. I'm about 90% sure that I can as of now. I'm going to have to do a little bit of re-wiring to get some of the backlighting to work but otherwise I think most of it should swap over just fine.

Here is the backside of the Bonnie dash out... overall I'd say neither dash is easier/harder than the other to pull. The bonnie dash had a few less fasteners but there were a couple that were harder to get at vs. the LeSabre dash but still... overall not too bad and I think all the tools I used were a 10mm socket, 7mm socket, 13mm socket (on the bonnie to drop the column to get at a couple bolts... didn't have that on the LeSabre), a screwdriver to pry apart electrical connectors, and a large pair of pliers to yank the rubber grommet for the P brake release cable loose.



Heres what the LeSabre looks like without a dash in place:






Note that there is a good deal of surface rust on some of the brackets but I don't think its anything worth changing out. The rust is just from having a leaky windshield.

And now for some Bonnie stuff... I'll try to point out some differences.

First, the HVAC lines. On the LeSabre, the controls are manual so theses lines run to a manual selector on the dash cluster. On the Bonnie it had a digital display (which is already claimed BTW).



The next difference is that the Bonnie has an extra vent hose. I'm not sure how I'm going to make this work on the LeSabre so I may just not bother hooking it up at all... or maybe a T junction of some sort on one of the other junctions? I dunno... I don't think its a deal breaker though.



Note all the extra relays for the Bonnie... I dont think this will matter on the Buick but I just thought it was interesting to note the extras for the extra electronics.



Here, note that there isn't a verticle lip on the metal mount above the column. There is one present on the LeSabre but if its in the way I'll just Sawzall it off so no worries there either. Note that I had to drop the two 13mm column mounting bolts to get at a couple bolts but otherwise the column doesn't have to come out. For the LeSabre, I am going to go ahead and remove the column as I need to install a new non-wobbly one anyway.



Just the bonnie digital HVAC controls.



And then there is this dangly part. I've never seen it on either my LeSabres or any of my other past H/C cars... I'm assuming its for the the steering wheel radio controls?




And as a last teaser here is a shot of the Bonnie dash just kinda layed in place in the LeSabre... I think its going to work! And it looks pretty awesome with the LeSabre shifter there :D But... What COLOR should I paint the dash? Gray? Black? Lower part black/gray, upper part body color?

[wjcollier07]

so..you're not swapping the steering wheel, or climate controls?

[Alibi]

No on the climate controls... too much crap behind the dash that I'd have to swap over to try to make it work with my current manual setup...But I haven't really looked into it too much.

But I think I may try to do the steering wheel controls. I've got a spare column out of a floor shift Bonnie with a decent gray leather wheel so I may gut the original column shift column for its electronics and swap them into the other column.

Will the steering wheel controls work on a newer pontiac CD player with the equilizer?

[TenGHz]

Great progress, keep it up!

[Alibi]

No pictures with this update but just a few points.

1. I got the column yanked out of the LeSabre but I need to put a new lock cylinder in the "new" column so its going to have to wait till at least tomorrow.

2. The dash is nearly 100% interchangable after swapping out the wiring harness for the manual vs. electronic climate controls. No issues with changing the wires... I did leave a cabin air temp sensor in the B dash though because it was too much of a pita to get out and its not hurting anything... BTW, that's what the extra hose is for so I don't need to worry about that anymore.

3. Since the dash fits fine... I found a small problem... the LeSabre center console is too tall... the SSE Bonnies with the console angled down to give clearance but the LeSabre console is a straight rectangle so it won't clear. So... I'll just have the yank the whole assembly and try to source a SSE console... I posted a wanted ad for one too BTW.

4. I put a layer of paint on the Bonnie dash so I'm hoping to put it in tomorrow along with the column so I'll take pictures then.

After the dash is in and working I'm going to yank the seats and start de-rusting the floor pan and taking care of some really corroded wiring... after that I'm going to try to use the Bonnie carpet or my extra crappy aftermarket carpet, put that in, put in the rear seat out of the bonneville (blue, but meh... they're in good shape vs. my LeSabre seats), and then it will be time to figure out what to do with the crappy front T Type seats.

[spidey3479]

Wish I had your time to work on the old girls! Keep it up I am enjoying this immensely!!