Event Coverage The Rambler Adventure-Up The River

And don't forget the magic "Weather Eye"! OOOOoooo . . . Scary!

 

so many people ask me "what is a weather eye?"

 

“Get more car for your money when buy, get more money for your car when you trade, live a little, buy a Rambler “.
That quote is from a Rambler commercial made in the 1950’s. It’s on one of those “Goodtimes” brand VHS tapes that Walmart sold the late 1980’-early 1990’s. The tapes also had sales films and other car commercials on them.

 

The old time counter person at the parts store I dealt with back in the day swore that every Rambler part in the place had the box opened more than once. Just because the book said it fit it didn't always work that way. So for Ramblers he always had the customer bring in the old part to compare it to the new part the book called for. And when the book part wasn't correct he put it back in the box and back on the shelf. Then it was a guessing game to find the correct part. More boxes opened and then returned to the shelf until by some act of god the correct part was located.

 

...and don't forget about the air conditioned Ramblers with the famous "desert only" setting.

 

Had a Gremlin with the "desert only" setting. Both the compressor and the blower motor operated off of the same fuse. I melted the fuse block. Got a new one and put a 1/4" bolt where the fuse was supposed to go. Then I put an inline fuse holder for the compressor and another for the blower. No more problems.

.bjb

 

I don't know about three different rear ends (you may be correct, I don't know everything about Ramblers!!)... I know there were at least two. The reason was due to a bunch of auto worker/parts supplier strikes in the late 50s. AMC decided to source parts from at least two manufacturers so that if one had a strike they could increase the order from the other, or at least have SOME parts coming in and production wouldn't completely stop. This lasted until the mid 60s. The issue I've heard about (but not run into... my personal cars have all been 61-65 models) is that one of the rear axle companies used a different spline on the inner end of the axle. The hubs should interchange, but the whole axle may not due to the splines. I think that issue was rectified by 1961, but 58-60 models can have it. I don't know of any way to identify which axle assembly you have except for the spline count. IIRC even the side gears in the diff (and all other parts) interchange, so those could be changed to the different axle (and I may be incorrect on this...). Apparently AMC didn't specify the spline count in the drawings sent out to the second source, or the spline count was accidentally left out. It's one of those "how did that happen?" things. Outwardly the axles assemblies are 100% identical, but there may be casting numbers or something to ID the manufacturer, I just don't know about it.

 

That’s danged interesting, the part about a softer hub making it own splines.

 

If anyone's still interested in more info about the Barney Navarro Rambler 6 Indy engine program, I stumbled "bass-ackwards" into some more photos. And most of them are in color. Here's a few samples posted on the AMCForum, link below.



https://theamcforum.com/forum/1969-rambler-indy-car_topic79910.html

Lots more photos and about 6 more pages of Rambler Indy history.

 

neat!

Anyways, I got my parts in the mail today, new seals and a new hub. I'm slowly working on putting it back together. I need to adjust the axle end play, it was really loose before. Perhaps the thrust block and axle ends were worn? There are several shims on both sides.

 

Was the hub truly new and "spline-less"?

 

yes, it is. It has a keyway, that does not extend to the area where the splines will be formed by the axle.

 

Funny your new hub has a AMC-Jeep-Renault Tag on it... in the latest copy of a German vintage car mag there´s a story about a guy that sold most of his Mercedes collection to buy and restore a Renault Rambler Of course he immediately noticed a few shortcomings on the Rambler, but he has no regrets.

 

AMC went through a lot of owners, my guess is that there was a dealership somewhere that had a bunch of unused tags, and the guy who sells NOS parts got them and uses them on the parts he puts up for sale. The tag appears to have been recently written and attached to the part....

Anyways, it's back together now with new seals and adjusted end play, and a torqued nut. I took it for a little drive, all is well.

 

Here´s the story. I thought is was pretty cool and uncommon. It´s great you found an NOS hub, what are the chances for that...

Anyway, that guy put quite some effort into his French Rambler

 

This is slight off topic, but lets go..
Here in finland we have renault ramblers, schwizerland build mopars and jeeps.
Gm nordiska stockholm build Chevrolets.
Also i have seen and heard south african build pontiac strato chiefs and 64 rhd galaxie station wagon, whitch have 59 edsel rhd dashboard.
We have atleast one antwerpen build camaro.
That plant was gm continental.
Allright, enough ot shit go on....

 

The guy in the story is always smiling...I guess Ramblers will do that to you...

 

Uhh, i gotta tell, we had haifa israel build kaisers too.
And i wish to have some day ford landau 1980 which is actually 67 ford galaxie but is build by ford south america.

 

Boy this thread is starting to really “ramble” on.

 

That parts tag? A lot of parts came to the dealers tagged that way. That tag was in the time frame between AMC and Renault merge and Mopar buyout.

 

Yes, I expect a lot of parts came tagged that way...but this one appears to have been tagged that way recently. For one thing, they originally never put the application on the tag, just the part number

 

Glad you found an NOS hub... they are hard to find! AMC didn't "go through a lot of owners". It started as a "merger" between Nash and Hudson (in reality Nash bought Hudson out). Renault started as a partner with a small stake in the company (20%? don't quite remember...) but within a year to 18 months had a 51% stake due mainly to a sudden downturn in utility vehicle (Jeep) sales at the time (late 1980-mid 1981 time frame... going from memory, would have to look it all up to be accurate!), which greatly affected AMCs financing and ability to secure loans (no one would extend credit since Jeep was their major money maker). Renault jumped in further to protect their investment as AMC was on the brink of bankruptcy -- the kind that would require liquidation of most of their assets. Renault never wholly owned AMC, just had controlling interests -- and they didn't expect to have that. Chrysler purchased all the AMC stock from Renault, then the AMC board of directors agreed to converting all remaining AMC stock to Chrysler stock, making AMC a wholly owned division of Chrysler. So Chrysler was the first and only other OWNER of AMC.

 

The "Rambler Renault" was only built a few years, 62-66. Renault owned the license to build them and the plant, which was in Belgium. They were sold as a senior luxury car by Renault after Renault stopped making their Fregate. They were assembled in Belgium from knock-down kits sent from Kenosha. Things like upholstery (on Rambler supplied seat frames/springs), tires, belts, batteries, etc. were sourced in Europe. They may have received final paint in Belgium as well. That's unclear, but some have been seen with two tone paint jobs that weren't done in the US. That could have been done as custom jobs by owners after they were sold though. They fell out of favor after 66 mainly due to taxes on larger engines (even the 232 six - 3.8L). They weren't sold all across Europe -- just Algeria, Austria, Belgium, France, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg. This was due to meeting regulations in those countries (and not others). One modification was that the turn signals had to be separate from the brake lights. This was done by adding separate lights for the turn signals.

 

It's all relative. Compared to Ford and GM, AMC (and Chrysler) have been through a lot of owners over the decades. If you're a bit liberal with the concept of "ownership", you can claim that your Hudson is a Mercedes, etc. I don't even know who might own the rights to the Rambler name these days.

 

Jim, This is probably why your floorboards are in such "great" shape!

 

They were probably fine for a few years...but that was 60 years ago....

 

Couldn't resist putting this here.

 

Maybe the tank was empty on the day your car was built Jim?

 

I think 1950s primer isn't much of a rustproofing material....that's all....

 

I will admit, I never saw Ramblers rusting out like other cars did. This is the 1960s cars. Some of the offerings in the 1970s were terrible for rust.