Projects Barn find - 1964 Pontiac Catalina 421 early custom car

Looks like marimba red is the same as Palomar Red. Ive always like that one too.

 

A couple of new detail photos as the wheel cylinders, parking brake, lines are all in. Everything in the back is pretty much done. Just waiting on rear brake parts. The crossmember is in as is the engine, we are missing the correct rear mount that extends forward and clamps around the rear end of the tailshaft, that should arrive tomorrow then we should be able to finish bolting up the front suspension.
Radiator guys said the core is good, it tested well, still looking for a lower bung that will fit the bottom of the tank. I'll keep updating as we make progress.

 

A couple more photos of the front of the engine going into place. I know what your thinking...why is that Pontiac engine painted Chevy orange...because that how Bob wanted it to look when he customised the car back in the 60's.

 

Nope, I was expecting it to be red. Lol. Looks good! Randy


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Transmission mount painted and installed.

 

That’s one hell of a tranny mount !!!!!

fantastic car, looking great all the work your doing keep going !!!!!!!

 

Just found this thread and read the whole lot. All kinds of awesome its being saved like this! Kudos mate.

 

Well this just happened over the Easter holidays

 

Looking great! Nice to get the body back on the frame.

 

Fantastic!!!

 

As Bob prepares to move house and workshop from Minnesota to Missouri in August, the car has been bolted back together and loaded with parts for the trip. But it is looking like a car again, ignore the fit as the fender, hood and doors are just bolted on for the trip. But I'm please to see it's a car again.

The wheels are being replaced with steel wheels while those rims go off to a specialist to be restored...more on that soon.

 

You are a busy man! This Pontiac and your '55.

 

I hope your getting those mags redone. They are very nice looking wheels. They look nice sanded and painted aluminum with flat black spokes. Or paint them all silver grey.. If the chrome around hoop is good, you could paint the spokes aluminum or flat Black..

Did you put the door handles back on, great! They had such nice looking chrome door handles those years..

 

The rim are going to a specialist in CA to be repaired and rechromed and polished. I'm recreating the original look of the car from the late 60's, so no black paint...sorry. The door handles are just to move the car around for now, but I will also be recreating the original look with shaved door handles...have a look at the original photos of the car. Thanks

 

Thanks for the comment, the fronts are 14" and the rear are 15", did you notice they are slightly different...not sure why, neither it Bob the owner that bought them back in the 60's.
They are Appliance Performance wheels, and look very similar to Astros but are different...I want to keep as much of the original car as I can, there is a sweet spot in 67/68 for the look of the car that I'd like to keep/recreate

 

Bravo! I, for one, am glad you're having the original wheels restored. A great part of the story.

 

The length you have gone too restore this custom to it's former glory and stay faithful to the era it was built is quite impressive! Keep up the good work.

 

The Appliance plating wheels are definitely different than the new Supremes available, the webbing on the AP wheels is flat between the spokes making kind of a pentagon shape where as the Supremes are rounded.

It's a big expense to have those wheels re-chromed, but it's also one of those small details that will really make the car feel "correct".

 

Restoring a car is expensive anyway, but a few more $ to get it right is nothing in the bigger picture. It's too easy to go new...so where I can I want to be faithful to the original look of the car.
I have posted these photos before, but my rims are both round (front) and flat. (rear)...as you can see by the photo from around 1968.

 

Good to know, I'd not looked into new tyres yet...but I will make a note and make sure I get a set when I'm ready. Thanks.

 

That car has a fully boxed frame. It must of had the heavy duty suspension package.. It's not the convertible either. I've owned convertible Catalinas and they didn't have that boxed frame your car has..

I've built so many big Pontiacs over the years. I can't over stress how important it is to beef up the frame were the Idler arm bolts to and get an Idler arm with the bearings that is adjustable. The most important thing is to get a Lee 12:1 800 Series steering box with there 30 pound valve. That will tighten up the steering so the bump steer isn't as noticeable. A 13" Grant steering wheel would also be a big addition to the handling of this car..

You can still get Bilstine shocks. On some web sites you have to look up station wagon but there all the same.

 

Thanks for your advice, but the frame is finished now, the front and rear suspension is all rebuilt. If this were going to be a daily driven I might think about it. But this is not going to used on a regular basis.

As for the steering, it's a personal choice and I really don't like the grant steering wheels, they are too thick and modern looking...I'm keen on keeping this car pretty much as it was built and shown back in 67/68. I'll probably stick with the Cal Custom looking wheel that is in the car currently.

 

I hope I didn't offend you with my suggestions. You are absolutely right in keeping it stock since its going to be on light duty...
The Grant steering wheel I was suggesting was the one that came out in the fifties with the three holes in the chrome. I agree with you on the new steering wheels, they look weird..

 

It take more than that to offend me All comments are good, I just would like to keep it as true to Bob's vision as I possibly can, but if I can improve on things then I will.

 

With the change in travel restrictions to the US, I was able to fly back the the US to check on a few of my project cars, so around the end of November I flew from a grey and cold Denmark to warm and sunny Los Angeles, I spent a few days there before flying to a cold and snowy Minnesota for a few days, then flew down to St Louis, MO and drove the 3hrs to Bob's new location.

As you can see from the photos below, the car is a little dusty but it's all there...he is now working on the final welding of the rear passenger fender of the car and then that is all the metalwork finished.

He is still getting settled in his new workshop, and is in the process of building a new paint booth, so we might see a little colour on the car by the spring.

I feel we are almost over the hump of all the hard work, yes there is still a lot to do, but hopefully once it's in paint it will start to come together and look like a car again.

 

Those 421s are the shit! My brother owned a '65 when we were in school, spent many Saturday night beating "muscle cars" in street races. It was a 4 barrel / auto model. Perfect sleeper.

 

Something I've been waiting for for a while is the restoration of my original Dixco Hood Tach. I originally dropped it off with Chuck at APT Instruments in Bloomington, MN about 3 years ago.
It was estimated to take about 4 months to restore and rebuild, but due to a few family and personal issues plus other things out of his control, it was impossible to get hold of him to check on the progress.

With Covid affecting travel to the US, I couldn't get over to drop by, I even had friends drop by his shop, but it was closed. I feared the worst and even went as far as buying a reproduction hood tach from OPGI. It's similar but not the same as my original one...it would have done and nobody would have know, but I wanted the original one back on the car.

As mentioned in my previous post, I was able to fly to Minneapolis in November. I landed late at night, so the first thing I did the next morning was to drive over to see Chuck. He was open, and had my hood tach to hand...he told me the issues he had had, but was back on track to finish the hood tac. I was really happy to get hold of him and to see the work he had been doing.

So this week he sent me a couple of photos of the finish Dixco Hood Tach all restored, it's looks great. I've really happy with his work and can't wait to fit it to the hood of the car.

Here are a few photos of it on the car back in 1967/68 and then in it's unrestored condition when I first saw the car, then photos of the restoration.

If you look at reproduction tach (in white), in the dial face there are subtle differences apart from the obvious wording 'Bonneville', so the 0 & 8 RPM line is thicker on the repro version, the x1000 is a slightly different typeface as are the 1 to 8 numbers. This might not be a huge difference to the normal car guy, but as a designer (and typographer) they are huge differences for me. I have found that some of these so called 'Exact Replica' parts are sometime lacking in the subtle differences. I'm trying to restore this car back to how it was in the late 60's.

Anyway, another part restored and waiting to go on the car.

 

Hardly ever see a '64 Pontiac Catalina.

Hardly ever see a '64 Catalina with a 4-speed.

Hardly ever see a 64 Catalina with a 4-speed and a 421.

Hardly ever see a 64 Catalina with a 4-speed and a 421 that was customized and shown back in the day.

Hardly ever see a 64 Catalina with a 4 speed and a 421 that was customized and shown back in the day that's now being completely restored to show condition.