Resurrecting the Rambler

[MR DERBY CITY]

Originally Posted by Mark Yacavone

"Teddy"?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who the f*** are you ? who who?

How about that?


Sorry, Mr PB ..He made me do it.

Mark, did you forget to take your meds ...?? LOL
On a sad note, I would bet that the corner in Winslow Az. was a little lonely today.

[Mark Yacavone]

Originally Posted by MR DERBY CITY

Mark, did you forget to take your meds ...?? LOL
On a sad note, I would bet that the corner in Winslow Az. was a little lonely today.

Sad indeed .

For all the Ramblers...


Featuring Detroit native Glenn Frey on guitar and vocals

[Pinballer]

A little more gradual refinement has been going on, it's been slow going lately, but the auto shop has slowed down some since the weather improved. I've got my lift back now! Got to get underneath this thing and get some loose ends tied up.

Got the shifter installed in it's permanent spot now, the factory gauge cluster and console were interesting to fit into the scheme of all this, but after some carving here and there it all fits back together now. I had a ball playing with those shifter rods! Can't wait until it actually controls something that's running.

The radiator and other necessary engine accessories are all back in place now. Jim Mantle of Div 6 AMC Pacer fame has been a tremendous help on getting my header fit issues solved, nobody makes a true fit header for these old AMC cars anymore, so you have to use Jeep ones, and now I can get the proper type ordered, reconfigured, and get that heavy chunk of cast iron exhaust manifold out of the engine bay.
My old brown 4 door '73 Ambassador bracket car I lovingly used to call the 'Stool Strangler' will soon be giving up it's fuel system, gauges, line-loc, and Weld wheels for this project. Sadly, the old race car will probably have to get parted out after this, it's time has passed and there's not much left on it that restorers would ever want. The built 360 engine and trans in it will probably go into a '67 Rambler wagon I've been saving to make a street machine out of. I have a feeling they're going to be surprised at how little the big brown car weighs when it finally crosses the scales at the scrapyard. It looked like it weighed every bit of 4200 lbs when it was on the track, but it sure didn't. The 80's Camaro and 5.0 Mustang boys at St. Louis can attest to this.

The interior in the AMX is pretty complete right now other than a missing radio, which I have at home, and a broken sun visor which I'll have to do some junkyarding for. I may not use it, but I want it there just in case the sun is at a bad angle near the tree. I got two new lift supports installed on the rear hatchback and it sure is nice having that thing hold itself up. I can retire the 2 x 2 chunk of wood now.

Next on my list of things to do are some wiring on the transplanted 258 engine to get it to start, and tackling the left suspension. After that, only about 712 more things to do before May. We'll get there...

[Pinballer]

Just made a deal for a parts car that will offer up almost all the AMX goodies I needed to convert the Spirit over to a true T/SA '79 car now. Also got the wheels off my old race car installed onto the build car. Looking a little racier now. The difference in weight between the factory wheels/tires and the Welds/tires is astonishing! Had to have saved at least 50 lbs.

[Pinballer]

And the resized pics of before and after wheels...car sits up pretty good now!

You know, I'm always amazed at the little unseen differences from one engine family to another as these older cars came off the assembly line. I've already went through the crossmember differences on AMC engines previously in this thread, but today I realized while hooking some more things up in the engine bay that I had to change the whole gas pedal assembly because the accelerator cable was different from a 4 cyl to a 6. It was quicker to just change it ALL out as an assembly rather than mess with the cable itself.
Down to about 708 more things to do.

[Pinballer]

Started out my usual day off from the real job today cutting some panels out of sheet metal to fill in the gaping firewall holes from the blower motor and windshield wiper motor removals and getting those fitted in. Went pretty well, nothing all that exotic of course. Been there done this before. Nice to not see the holes anymore.

Then I spent the majority of today getting the engine compartment wiring sorted out and some wires tagged for future use or permanent removal. Long session with the test light and the schematics (which aren't all that big of a help sometimes). After removing the remains of the myriad of computer system and pollution garbage wiring and the original GM starting system wiring set-up from the OEM Iron Duke motor it had and converting some of it back to Ford style with the old- school Ford solenoid so I could keep the proper AMC Ford-style starter in place, I finally got brave and hooked up the battery cables and twisted the key. The key has not been turned to 'Start' even once in this ride for what has to be every bit of 25 years.

It cranked over!
No smoke coming from anywhere either...big sigh of relief there. This car is going to LIVE!

Not only was the cranking over a most promising sign, the lights on most of the car worked too--headlights, the gauges in both the dashboard and console, taillights, side markers, everything but a couple of dashboard lights, a license plate light, and the dome light. Bear in mind when I bought this car so long ago, it was just a body and I knew absolutely nothing about the condition of things other than it was red and fairly straight. And it's not like I kept it garaged either, Mother Nature has pretty well had her way with it, but it held up well.

[Pinballer]

Just a little update this time since only a little time to work on the car presented itself.

Was intending to pull the fuel tank out of the car and tackle some more dirty work underneath but no lifts available again in the auto shop on a Monday. So it was on to Plan B which was installing an HEI distributor in the hole where a Ford/AMC designed one was. It was a fairly straightforward swap, and I added in the appropriate plug wires. The HEI looks so big compared to the old distributor but it clears everything fine. This should get the car running now once we can feed it some fuel. Wiring is all ready to go, even found a couple of hot leads with key off to run the future cooling fan and electric water pump drive.
The other big work was mounting an AMX emblem on the glove box lid. Wow...that one about wore me out!

So, slow going but at least progress was made. When I get the powder blue AMX parts car back home next weekend there will be several body and trim pieces to swap out and sand off, so if no lifts are available there will be other work I can do. But the next critical thing is to get some gasoline flowing and start this car up!

[Billy Nees]

Originally Posted by Pinballer

Wiring is all ready to go, even found a couple of hot leads with key off to run the future cooling fan and electric water pump drive.

You're probably going to want to keep them live for between rounds cooling.

[Dave Muller]

Slow progress is fine, Pinballer, as long as you keep the project moving in the right direction. Good luck with it, sounds very cool!

[Pinballer]

Appreciate that Billy and Dave,
I will not quit. I might go broke eventually, but I will not quit.

One of my very young co-workers at the NAPA store I work at has taken a liking to my Stocker project, enough so that he has educated himself a little on how the Stock Eliminator cars are classed, especially the slower ones. So he's messing around on Craigslist during a break looking for a cheap car to fix up, like kids even 60 years old like me tend to do, (!), and finds an original '84 Camaro 4 cylinder stick car with a bad clutch for sale for $850. He hollers to me to come and take a look at it, and immediately wants to know if this would make a good class car. I see an opportunity to razz him some here..."Could be, you'd be way down there in W/S, the lowest of the low. 4 cylinder cars only. You'd be about the only sick-o in America trying to run a Camaro down there." (Like I should talk, considering my choice of combo).
He says in his innocence, "Ooh, that would be good then, right? If I was the only Camaro I'd win class every time!"

What have I created here???

I didn't have the heart to tell him a Pinto owned by an Illinois racer named Buth would probably clean his clock out there in a bad way. Let him find out the hard way like I probably will.