Here's the backstory on this car--the original owner bought it as a mid-year car in '59. In '72, the wife decided that it was time for an AT/PS/PB car. The husband went down the mountain, got a new car, drove it home, pulled this one into the back of the chicken house, yanked the battery, tossed the keys on the dash, and there it sat until my wife and I bought it at an estate auction in the spring of 2010. The daughter of the owners told me the story of the car. Here it is in the chicken house, the day I bought it. Here it is, with newer rims/tires, seeing the full light of day for the first time in 38 years: It's a 283 V8, 3-on-the-tree manual, no AC, manual brakes and steering. The original 283 was locked up, so I got another one and rebuilt it so the car would run while I tinkered around with the original. The rebuilt 283 sports a Carter AFB 500 cfm 4-barrel on top of an Edelbrock 2701 intake, rebuilt Chevy Power Pack heads with dual valve springs and shaved .035", a Comp Cams XE 262-H cam and lifter set, new bearings, new oil/fuel pumps, etc., a chrome dress up kit, HEI setup in lieu of the old points/condenser setup, and the block/heads painted with hi-temp Olds Gold. It's running a dual exhaust through Flowmasters, exiting the rear of the car, just under the bumper. Cooling is via a new aluminum 3-row radiator. Here's a pic of the engine in the bay, before I got the fan shroud back on--it needed to be cut down a little to fit over the new radiator. I put some new gauges in the pods to replace the idiot lights and installed a column-mount tach. I'm waiting on the new fuel gauge. The old one works, but just barely, so a replacement to match the other new gauges is on order. Here's the car as it sits, ready for some bodywork and a new interior: Last but not least, heres a little movie of my wife getting ready to take the car for a short spin right after the exhaust was installed. The clutch was a little balky because the exhaust shop lost the pedal return spring, it needs a tuneup, and the alternator (I ditched the generator setup) is not acting funky. All that aside, it runs, stops, turns, etc., under its own power.
Yeah, what was wrong with the og temp gauge. It has C and H (just like the sugar) and a line in between. I put the oil and amps at the outside pods on my old 59. Sure has alot of room under that hood! Nice engine job.
Love it Man !!! Your car...do what you want with it....wheels are your choice.... Video is great !! Love that sound......Cute Wife too !! I would vinager the hell out of it, then clear coat it.....love that patina... Chicken shit sure does a number on metal doesn't it ?? Keep us posted....and good for you....
Great job! She's a keeper, both of hers. Prime it, paint it and enjoy it. Is the interior as nice as I think it might be?
Sorry to say, the upholstery, with the exception of the door panels, is in rough shape. Many generations of rats, mice, spiders, and such have taken their toll on the seat padding, cloth, headliner, etc. As far as the gauges go, the temp gauge was not functional and the gas gauge is barely functional (even though I have a new 0-30 ohm tank sending unit installed). It was a lot quicker, cheaper, and easier to simply get new gauges that I could stick in there than it would be to get OEM ones that were working perfectly. Besides, it may be important to some people that everything be OEM, but not us--we want a car we can cruise around in that works like it's supposed to. The paint will have to wait, I think I'm just going to knock off the worst of the rust, patch what needs patching on the outside (already doing that on the inside), and run it for a bit until we decide what we want to do, paint-wise. I'm not a big Rusto-Rod fan, but at least it'll be on the road where we can have fun with it. I expect that this winter will be when it gets painted. The upholstery, though, is another matter. In another week or two I'll pull the front seat (the back seat is already out) and send it to the upholsterer. He takes about 2 weeks to do the job, and while that's going on, I'm going to put a layer of sound/heat stuff on the floors, roof, and doors.
Thanks for the compliments on the look of the engine! I saw a picture of one that looked sort of like that and I liked the look, so I switched it up a little, and it came out the way you see it. Gold and chrome seems to work well together in a black engine bay. The stance seems pretty well balanced, but I do think I'm going to drop it down about 2" all the way 'round. A coil off each spring should do the trick. The ride is a bit squishy as it sits, a little stiffening up won't hurt. As far as the rims/tires go, I'm 48, and I kind of like that look, LOL!!!! I certainly do remember it well.... Besides, I got a hell of a deal on that set of rims/tires--$150 for the whole lot. Can't pass that up. As an aside, I think this car was meant to be ours--I worked in the poultry industry for quite a few years, so rebuilding a car that had been hiding out in a chicken house for so long seemed like something that was it was meant to happen.... Karma, baby!!!
I recently pulled a 60 wagon from a KS field of 38yrs. I needed the back glass and sold the rest to guy at StrayKat500 this wk. He's going to build it. Those original rims sandblasted and painted black, chrome lug nuts and whites look cool. heres what I did.
outside pic of the 60 and one at the straykat. Nice job on getting it back to life. You have to drop the tank? change out all wheel cylinders on the brakes?
here's ks sun and pasture land for 38yrs. Seem like these cars always have last tags when they are 10-12yrs old. I remember as a kid my moms friend had a nice 69 olds cutlass 2 dr parked at 8yrs old to wrought.
Looks good! I like the look of the Sedan Delivery and wagon, too. They are just cool looking. I had to replace everything in the brake system except the master cylinder body and the metal lines leading to it. I did rebuild the MC, though, it was pretty well gunked up. The hard lines were in good shape, and we not full of crud, so I guess I got lucky there. Dropped the tank, too, to get it cleaned out, and found that it was actually in very good shape. I had to take a sawzall to the carriage bolts holding the straps to get it down, though. The sending unit was shot, so it got replaced with a new one from Bob's Impalas. Some wire brushing and a coat of primer/paint later, and it looked as good as new. Funny thing was, it still had almost 1/3 of a tank of leaded still in it. I got it all poured out into a 5 gallon bucket, my SIL built a fire, and my BIL started tossing pop cans filled with gas in the fire. He got about half the bucket done, and then I picked up the whole bucket and threw it in there. It flew up and out over the fire, whereupon it turned upside down in mid-air, and then the fun really started. It went up like a mini-atomic bomb. I guess being a bit of a pyromaniac never really stops, even when you hit middle age, LOL!
WTF? Keep the oe gauges? Is this the HAMB or restoration forum? Screw that patina crap. That car deserves a decent paint job.
I like patina as a tempoary as its much better than a bad rattle can job. Patina, steelies, wiide whites, lower and cruise few yrs then paint it
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