Old car build thread

[Popeye the Sailor]

This may cover multiple cars-I bounce back and forth between the two based on parts availability/funds.

First, some background.

My dad, being the ever loving cheapskate that he was, bought this car used in '65. It had a claimed original 300 miles on it, as rolling it back wasn't real uncommon then.

He then drove it until about '85, when he lost his job. Not knowing he'd have another one the following week and figuring he didn't need two cars, he pulled the insurance and let it sit.

Sometime around '93 my mother got sick of seeing it in the driveway rotting away. What are you gonna do about the car? What are you gonna do about the car?

Finally, in a moment of weakness he said alright, I'll sell it.

This turned into "when you gonna sell it? When you gonna sell it?".

I was 13 at the time, and wanted it. He sold it to me for a dollar.

She didn't talk to him for over a month. Not one word.

[Popeye the Sailor]

I was now 13 with my own car, which hadn't moved since I was about 5. Let's take it for a ride tonight, eh pops?

Calling upon my vast knowledge of absolutely nothing I jumped in with both feet, as only a 13 year old can.
Dragging my old man out (he was a radiologist, but had gone to trade school to be a mechanic) so he did have some pertinent knowledge.

I was told to swap out the battery, because of course it'd be dead. I managed this only to get a "click" when the key was turned.

I had bought a battery. We were committed at this point. In case you're unaware of the definition of "committed"-when you have ham and eggs in the morning-the chicken is involved. The pig is committed.

The starter was removed, and rebuilt and reinstalled (more knowledge for the car newb). "click" "click".
Apparently a rust prone car stored outside in New England for the better part of a decade is prone to rust. Including the engine. Frozen solid. That got pulled next, and taken to the machine shop.

[Popeye the Sailor]

the motor was being rebuilt at the machine shop. We figured we'd be smart and work on the other systems. The master cylinder was shot so that got replaced (a single at the time-we didn't know better), and the fluid promptly leaked out over a dozen different places. We redid the lines but achieved no pressure. Pulling off a drum the parts just fell down in a rusty pile.

They we so far gone we couldn't even identify what they were.

Many trips to a NAPA that was staffed by a guy with plenty of snow on the roof managed to set us to rights.

This inspired further concern for the rust-where, upon checking it was noticed there was no longer any trunk floor. No floor in the passenger compartment either-just structural rug. Fuel tank Rotted out, of course.

The square box frame that ran throughout the car? All that was left was the top .

But hell-we just paid to have the engine done, and we redid the brakes. The old man taught me how to weld doing those frame repairs.

[Popeye the Sailor]

Around this time we got the motor back and put it in (the old man refused to let me put a 440 in it-smart on his part). We had repaired the floors with some basic sheet metal work and the frame with some serious growing pains.

That SOB forced me to do all the sheet metal work with an oxy-acetylene because he wanted me to learn. The frame was done with a MIG.

We had brakes and a working motor! Lets go for a ride!

Hey guess who doesn't have a working transmission? Yeah, of course.

Like I said-we would've never started this if we had understood the extent of the work.

Given that we were doing this in our driveway, out came the motor again, this time with the transmission. We found some guy in his 70's willing to work on it and brought it to him.

[Popeye the Sailor]

We got the transmission back, and plopped it and the motor back in. Brakes are fixed, motor works, pushbutton transmission shifts-he we've solved all the problems right? Right?

To give you an idea of the timeline, I could drive at this point.

Did you know that a wiring harness makes an impressive mount of white smoke?

I didn't, until the car filled with it.

Pulling over, I quickly shut off the car and went for the fire extinguisher. Around that time the car began to crank by itself-I dropped the extinguisher and grabbed a wrench and disconnected the battery, and then doused the flames with that evil dry powder in the extinguisher. To this day-I can still smell that shit.

[Popeye the Sailor]

So next we tracked down a shop that could manufacture, from scratch, a wiring harness for a '61 Chrysler.

Keep in mind this is all before the internet-much time was spent on the phone. We found a place a couple states over that claimed they could do it-so we put a deposit down.

Six months later they had one. Know what those dumbmake the beast with two backss did? They bought a complete wiring harness out of a junked car (where they found one I don't know-I certainly looked), and replicated that. Reused the original connectors and the like so I didn't end up with a useful spare, but if I had known that I would've just wanted the original to install, and paid them a finders fee. . It took another month or so to install it correctly.

Fire it up and then move on to finishing off the body work and get it painted. New rims, tires, etc. This entire time I'm working a lot to fund the rented garage, and the parts.

Go for a cruise at cruise night with the other antique cars. (I'm about 18 at this point) Pull up to a light and figure I'd drag the guy next to me, and promptly snapped the driveshaft in two. Not the U-joint-the actual shaft. Down for another few weeks.

Get all the bugs sorted out as best we could. The turnsignal thing never worked right-you had to hold it over. Horn has never worked. radio is AM only and has one speaker, but man-is it sexy.

None of the interior parts were properly available and a custom job was more than I had, so it stayed both noisy and cold in the car.

I drove it through most of college and then my dad got real sick and I dropped out of college to help pay the bills. I have sold a number of the spare pieces I had for the car to keep afloat at points, but at some point I couldn't justify having a sweet looking gas guzzling antique for a toy. It got parked at the parents homestead for about five years (outside in New England) which took it's toll on it. The old guy died around then and I managed to get a good job in California, so I moved and left it behind.

Some of my fondest memories were working on it with my old man. As a baby, I came home from the hospital in this car.

She is my pride and joy and I long to have her back on the road.

As for the dollar my dad sold her to me for?






I never did pay him.

[Popeye the Sailor]

Well now. Let me try something.

[koko64]

Go Betsy! 
What size donk is that?

[Ducatamount]

Tri-Power! 
Great story, good luck.

[DarkMonster620]

Great write up . . . Makes me wish I had gone thru with keeping my dad's Dodge Dart Swinger GT . . . 

[Duck-Stew]

Awwww yeah.  Now the obligatory:  This thread is worthless without pics.

(nice write-up...)

[Popeye the Sailor]

I can do pictures.

This is not-so-long-ago.

[Popeye the Sailor]

The original E-brake is on the back of the transmission and never was all that reliable. Given that this car was built before "Park" existed, an E-brake is needed.



Some of you who've seen one before may notice it's missing a few things, like the adjuster.

With that in mind I've installed a disc brake conversion to the rear as it allows the install of an e-brake. It also gets rid of brakes that need adjusting.



I bought some aftermarket cables and one of the new "E-Stopp" doohickeys to apply them, and mounted that in the trunk:



Apparently it's got a nifty lock, stays on even with a loss of power, and pulls the cables until 600 lbs of force is met. Seems to work pretty well.

As a bonus I can hide the switch somewhere out of sight.

This brings us to the wiring being left.

Ew:

[Duck-Stew]

 

[Popeye the Sailor]

The dash got pulled:



The wiring is actually all done and working now, save for a few switches that are made of unobtanium that I'm tracking down.

Heater ducting got yanked too:



It then got the POR-15 treatment:





The nice Cragars I had put on in '96 are much for worse for the wear: