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.
My '78 Apen T-top coupe
