After many years of collecting cars and parts life has finally reached the point that I can rekindle the car hobby in my life and start to resurrect these two rare 69 R code cars I have been storing for the past several years. Going to start on the Kenz and Leslie R code automatic car and perfect the process for the Eliminator in the near future. The K and L car was in pretty tough shape but with good structure when I got it. The engine was in pieces and the interior was a disaster. I have sourced all of the interior parts and the engine will be done from the machine shop this week. The transmission is returning from the rebuilder next week as well. The cool part is that the car retains its original engine by vin and transmission by vin. The car has a ton of the original parts still in tact and more or less was unmolested. I found two build sheets in the car and one in really good shape after a good wax and grease remover bath. I was able to clean the driveshaft with light acid and found all of the original paint markings! The rear springs were rusted through on the second leave but the factory stripes were still present. The front springs also retained their factory paint markings. I could still see the paint markings on the steering components as well. The one oddity is the transmission does not have the R servo cover and I am wondering if such an early 69 build may not have had the famous piece yet??? or did it get hijacked at some point?
I plan to get this thing on the road asap in original condition needing plenty of body and paint in the future but I would like to verify that it is one of the 9 or 10 that were built before I erase the history on the body. I built the engine and trans to make power and go fast as I want this car to be a fun drive.
Pictures of paint markings and the finish on the engine bay achieved with DP 90 and a mix of flat and gloss clear. Very happy with the matte finish that I ended up with in the engine bay.
Awesome! I was just thinking about your car the other day, wondering how (or if) it was coming along! Glad that life has given you a bit of time for projects. Can’t wait to see more progress pics
I’m still looking for a copy of the advertisement to make into a poster for my garage.
Engine bay was an educated guess but the recipe is as follows: DP90Lf followed with a blend of 90% flat clear and 10% regular clear coat. I have not been satisfied historically leaving DP naked, it chalks up over time and doesn’t handle abrasion well. More pics coming. I decided to go for performance on the drive train so I will be hanging the exhaust manifolds and H pipe on the wall in lieu of headers and flowmaster kit. Went with a healthier cam as well and a stall converter. Going to stick with original carb and making the engine all stock appearing minus smog bits.
Tried my hand tonight at Phosphate and oil on hood latch and shock tower mounts. Liking what I see so far. Also found some paint markings on the rear axle.
Here are the pics of the transmission that came out of the car. A little perplexing since the VIN is clearly stamped in the case and matches the car but the trans cooler line has an odd fitting, possibly early build issue? and the transmission does not have an R servo in it. The code on the tag is PGA AE 010035 which appears to be either 390 or 429 4V tag information. Guessing it’s been monkeyed with but could it have been a factory oddity? The transmission does not appear to have ever been apart.
I ordered up some Manganese dioxide and phosphoric acid, mixed it up with water in a stainless steel pan, brought it to a boil and then added the parts, mostly hanging from mechanics wire on a paint stick. I think I went 2 oz manganese dioxide, 2 oz phosphoric acid and 1 gallon of water. I monkeyed with the amount of both products, time in the vat and got different results. Once I pulled the parts out I let them air dry and sprayed them with wd-40 and wiped off the excess. I am super happy with the results to date. Currently I am getting a bigger vat so I can do hood hinges and later some suspension parts.
In other news I have been going at it on the car without too much to show. I had to do some spot repair on the driver fender and door which is now done and ready to go back on. I ended up gutting the interior and cleaning the disgusting mess of mouse and time out of everything. I got the gauges all torn apart and meticulously cleaned and polished all of the lenses, only had one milky one that I had to switch out. Tore the clock apart and cleaned it all up, oiled the mechanism and filed the points, voila, I hooked it to a slave battery and it has been keeping time for 6 days now! I’ll try to upload some pics this weekend.
Nice! What kind of oil did you use? I’ve tried sewing machine oil (very light), but haven’t had much luck with reviving the mechanism for any length of time (no pun intended).
I actually used good ol WD40. I started with a light dobbing with Q tips and ultimately hosed the whole thing down hard due to the gummy crap that was binding things up. We will see if it continues to work, I think the big thing is filing the points with 400 grit sandpaper. The points in mine were glued together pretty hard.
Some pretty cool pics of the fuel pump. Date code seems kind of early for my car but I can’t see why it would be so correct and not be original…Thoughts? It’s rebuilt now, and wow was it full of rust and crap!
Appears to have the remains of a remanufacturer’s sticker on it. Someone probably exchanged the original for a rebuild back in the day. A very valuable pump, the correct date code should be easy to get with what that one would sell for.
I was wondering about the rebuild thing as well, but the casting tab was still over the soft plug and sure didn’t appear to have been bent around before. The car was owned by the dealership for over a year, so I really need to do some digging on why they kept this car in their possession for 14 months. I have some theories but no proof yet. If they used it as a sales mule and did some racing etc. with it then I can sure see parts getting swapped around due to breakage. The engine had an SCJ rotating assembly when I got the car so I know the motor had been apart, but the block was stock bore prior to me having it rebuilt. The transmission is vin correct but has been rebuilt and has had parts swapped as well.
When I rebuild them I sometimes can keep the tab in place and bend it once again. This would have been an expensive car and by 1970 insurance companies were cracking down on muscle cars, so much harder to sell than in 1969. I bet either the dealer was using it as a racer, or they just leased it to one of the dealership employees which would also be a common “perk” of working for a car dealer. Either way I would try and find a pump with a build date more in line (say 1 - 2 months prior) with the car’s manufacture date.
I was thinking the exact same thing Royce. I will keep my eyes open for a more correct date pump and will put this one with the pile of other CJ extra parts I’ve collected over the years. It will go nice with the early '68 block I have laying around.
Progress update: I’ve been steadily working on the car and have most of the interior ready to go back in. Dash repainted, all the ancillary vinyl pieces dyed back to like new and the latest ordeal with the steering wheel restoration and column rebuild. Had to completely go through the steering column due to years of butchery and overheated wiring. By the time I was done repainting it and putting everything back together I had torn it back apart three times. I have never had the guts or stupidity to attempt restoring one of these rim blow wheels but figured what the hell, I have several pieces of crap that are no good so lets go for it. I am pretty happy with the result!
This wheel was rotted, busted and overall just plain crap. I epoxy repaired it and did my best attempt at restoring the center with a wood grain kit from WCC. The wood grain look on the wheel itself was a complete guess and crap shoot with all kinds of different paints and modified brushes to try to come up with something that remotely resembled stock. Not perfect but happy.
Got the engine back from machine shop hell on Friday… Unbagged it to start putting pcv and other goods on it only to find the top of the heads covered in metal debris… Somenone must have blown off a machine next to the engine at the shop. So it goes back tomorrow for a tear down and clean out and rebuild again since I am NOT going to take a chance on rare date coded and vin matched parts. Totally pissed! They had the engine for 16 months and this is what I get???
I have never had the guts or stupidity to attempt restoring one of these rim blow wheels but figured what the hell, I have several pieces of crap that are no good so lets go for it. I am pretty happy with the result!
Somenone must have blown off a machine next to the engine at the shop. So it goes back tomorrow for a tear down and clean out and rebuild again since I am NOT going to take a chance on rare date coded and vin matched parts. Totally pissed! They had the engine for 16 months and this is what I get???