Hi folks, new here and not to computer savy but here goes…
Started 14 years ago. Looking for a car to redo to keep me busy. Sister-in-law wanted it out of her yard. Drove 400 miles to look at it…brother-in-law new nothing of the deal. Sitting 4 years in Seattle not even a tarp over it. I had to rescue it. 4’ cedar tree growing out of the back seat…pretty sad. Drug it home, dried it out and plugged it in…everything worked so I thought what the hell. I’ll post some pics as soon as I figure out how. Never done anything to this extent till this car.
I look forward to seeing your pictures.
Welcome, nice save. Now let’s see the pictures!
Well ccarney69,
I’ll give it a go, seems like I can only post 1 pic at a time, this pic is a couple months after I drug it home from Seattle.
. Since then, we have a fresh 351C, 30 over fresh pistons, stock 2v heads ported and polished, stainless valves, roller rockers, Crane RV cam, DUI distributer, stock tach., converted by Rocketman. Edelbrock intake and carb. Hooker headers professionally re-tubed to clear the steering box, with 2-1/2" pipes all the way back with a cross over tube. Fresh rebuild limited slip 9" and 350 gears, fresh rebuild on an AOD 4 speed with shift kit. The body had some pretty bad rust in some areas. I located a 72 coup in Oregon and drove it back to Spokane and, started cutting out patch panels. I stripped it down and saved all the parts. I was able to find good steel in all the locations where the convertible was badly rusted with a couple exceptions like the trunk, that’s new re-pop but fit pretty good. Then I had to hand fab the lower inside rear wheel wells. I also tore out the dash all the way to the fire wall, replaced the heater core and had the AC coil boiled and tested. I was able to use all the brackets for the dash components, the vert brackets were pretty roached from rust. Both cars were AC cars, all the vacuum motors in the donner were moved into the vert as well. Now all the drive train is solid and it starts right up. All gauges work as they should, and I got the sequential tail lights working a couple weeks ago…that was a challenge but between the two cars, I was able to come up with everything to get them working. I also re-pinned the harness connectors at the base of the steering column and any others that were questionable. The donner car had a stock tilt column…well that had to be moved over as well.
Anyway, I got my wish and it has given me something to do but, now at 58 yrs old…I’d like to drive it…still have minor body, prime and block a couple times, interior, top and maybe then, I can drive it to the golf course!
Thanks for sharing. Congratulations on having the foresight of picking up a parts car - something that many owners and builders of cars from the 60-70s seem to be resistant to unlike the owners of earlier cars. Sure saves on the hassle of hunting down all those little pieces, hardware and other stuff piece by piece
