Hey guys and gals, So i finally bought a 1977 Maverick for $200. I originally was looking for a Grabber but $200? Yeah so pulled the plug and it is looking a lot better than i thought. Not much rust sonce it was a souther car and stored for years. I do have a question. Can i make this car look like a grabber with the hood,grill and bumpers?. Or they are different in many ways? Thanks. I already pulled motor and transmission out 6cyl. Already bought a 351C and both 2v and 4v heads to be build. Still chasing a c4 and 9 inch which shouldnt be hard. All the rest will come with time. Will post pics tom morning.
If you want small bumper on the rear there are a few bolt holes to drill and a few bolt holes to fill to get the early style quarter extensions and rear valance to fit. The big bumper fenders will need to be notched to get the small bumper front valance to fit. I got my '74 looking almost like a 71-72 Grabber minus the stripes. Just remember that Maverick parts changed from year to year and sometime they changed before the year was over. There's a lot of small parts that won't swap out between early and late. Do your homework before buying replacement parts
from Atlantic Canada! Lots of people have made Early-Grabber clones from later, big-bumpered cars. Like Jeff said, do some research. The search function on the Forum is very helpful. Try searching something like "Bumper Swap". There is also lots of Operating Experience on this site with 351C installations into these cars... Looking forward to pictures!!
Hey guys thanks for the heads up on the parts and for the advice, ive done some swaps and research on the 351s i should be ok i guess for now. Car will be gutted out soon and hopefully get to a good %70 done before i deploy. Any advice is welcome. Again my idea with this project is a mid 9sec -10sec sleeper. Will be flat black, and drivetrain will consist of a blown 4-71 351c 4v with a c4 and 9inch with 275slicks and around 4.56 ratio. So yeah lots of work amd time ahead of me. Wish i could afford to swap the parts from my 5.0 lol.
from Northeast Pennsylvania Originally put a 351C in my car without cutting the shock towers but now it has been stroked to a 393 and there are no shock towers
I like where your going with the build, it sounds awesome. Although, from my experience, the words "sleeper" and "BLOWN" don't usually work together lol. But I'm sure whatever you do will be cool. And thank you very much for your service!
