Vintage car advice?

A few rare ones had a 289. Had a chance to buy one in 1973 for $1800.00 Thought it was too much. dumbdumbdumbdumbdumbdumb
 
theodoric said:
Sunbeam Tiger.

But I've also had such craziness as a Renault Gordini Alpine, Lancia Zagato, Datsun 1600 Roadster, Morgan Plus 4, Saab Sonnet, Jensen Interceptor, etc. I likes 'em weird.

A guy up the block has a really nice Tiger, with the Chrysler engine. Super nice. Runs autorcross tires on it on big American Racing rims. Super nice car.
 
Ford 260 V8. I swapped mine out to a 302 from a totaled Mustang. Described at the time as a poor man's Cobra.
 
I'm in Tracy. (not too far from you, I assume) There was a little car show at the high school last summer, and there was a dark blue one there with all the Cobra aluminum on the engine. The guy said it was a 302. My 17 year old son couldn't believe it when he first opened the hood. Had 1/4" red line tires. SWEET
 
Back on the '65 Rambler tip...

My father was a Nash/Rambler/AMC mechanic, between 1958 and 1965... and we had loads of them.

One thing for sure- if it's got an automatic transmission, RUN THE OTHER WAY. Those AMC Flash-O-Matic transmissions are PURE HELL ON WHEELS. The most sensitive automatic gearbox ever built, to contamination by grit, dirt, or other particulate matter. Heck, at times, we used to see perfectly working Flash-o-matics come in for routine transmission fluid changes... and just from the little bit of LINT from a mechanics rag that got in there during the change, NOT SHIFT anymore afterwards. The filtration on these was highly sub-standard, and the valve body was inordinately sensitive to contamination.

Other than that, a '65 should either have a 232 straight-six, or if it's a larger model (Ambassador), it might have a 290 V8. Either are indestructable engines, for the most part. The 232 is legendary, as being nigh impossible to blow up. Believe me, I've seen teenagers DELIBERATELY TRY to blow up these engines, and FAIL. Simply not enough carburetor on them, to over-rev or blow...

Other stuff to watch out for on these vintage Ramblers, is rust. I've seen many of them, rust to the point where the car was actually dangerous to drive- the body would start to fall apart, at the bottom of the A-pillars (windshield base) to the point where the cars would start to SAG in the middle. THOROUGHLY INSPECT one of these for hidden rust!

Other than those caveats, they're remarkably robust, well-built, good-driving vehicles that get GOOD gas mileage...

Regards,
Gordon.
 
You know, I have to add a couple more things. I knew the Capri inside out before I bought one. It's a very good idea to research any car you're considering and get to know it well before you even start looking for one. I found my first Capri on a Capri e mail list. Kinda like buying gear here on AK. Ups the odds of getting something good.

Another thing- liek bentpencil and theodoric, I lived in Northern California when I bought it. Rust isn't much of an issue there. The second one I bought also came from Nor Cal.

Don't let this all put you off though. If done in a thoughtful way you can have a lot of fun with an old car. I think every middle aged guy with a neat old car started off as a kid making a lot of mistakes. That's how you learn!

Take care,

Ed
 
GordonW said:
Believe me, I've seen teenagers DELIBERATELY TRY to blow up these engines, and FAIL. Simply not enough carburetor on them, to over-rev or blow...
Had some friends that tried to do just that. Gave up after about an hour. Got drunk and ran it into a parked cop car. (The cop was about 10 feet away).
 
theodoric said:
Sunbeam Tiger.

But I've also had such craziness as a Renault Gordini Alpine, Lancia Zagato, Datsun 1600 Roadster, Morgan Plus 4, Saab Sonnet, Jensen Interceptor, etc. I likes 'em weird.

A Tiger, yet? I would have been impressed with an Alpine. Very pretty little car, that one.
Not that weird tho. The Saab Sonnet takes the prize in weirdness, I would say.
Almost bought a Jensen Interceptor Mk III once. I really wanted an Aston Martin, and this seemed like a cut rate Aston. Just the 440 4 BBL in it. Now, the SP, THAT was the king of the Jensens!
 
GordonW said:
Other than that, a '65 should either have a 232 straight-six, or if it's a larger model (Ambassador), it might have a 290 V8. Either are indestructable engines, for the most part. The 232 is legendary, as being nigh impossible to blow up. Believe me, I've seen teenagers DELIBERATELY TRY to blow up these engines, and FAIL. Simply not enough carburetor on them, to over-rev or blow...

Other than those caveats, they're remarkably robust, well-built, good-driving vehicles that get GOOD gas mileage...

Regards,
Gordon.

Remember reading a very good book once on AMC engines, stating that in terms of Metalurgy, AMC was way ahead of the big three. Those engines would near enough not wear out.
 
bentpencil said:
Had some friends that tried to do just that. Gave up after about an hour. Got drunk and ran it into a parked cop car. (The cop was about 10 feet away).

I watched, literally, some kids crank the engine in a Gremlin (232 6-banger), PUT A BRICK ON THE GAS PEDAL (in neutral, of course) and walk away. Heard one of them say something to the sort of "hey, if it blows up, Dad'll have to get me a BETTER car!"

I checked in on the situation a few hours later, when the kids came back to see what was up with the car... the engine's not running. Excitedly, they look for signs of blown engine. No... it JUST RAN OUT OF GAS. Put in more gas, it started right back up. The kids just couldn't believe it!

Between the one-barrel carburetor, and the points ignition that due to points bounce, acted as a built-in rev-limiter... it's pretty much protected from most abuse! I guess "Dad" as referred to above, was smarter than those kids thought!

Regards,
Gordon.
 
I wouldn't advise this purchase...if you are going to get an old car you really need to have it near enough that you can have it towed home so you can evaluate it. You will likely have to re-do the entire brake system...all of my old cars/trucks pretty much had to have everything in the brake system replaced from master cylinder to wheel cylinders and some needed new drums. Also you will NEED all new tires. I had a blow out one time from tires that looked fine but apparenly had disintegrated.
 
We had three AMC's in our family tree of cars:
'63 Classic 660 wagon (327 cid V8)(the '63 was Motor Trend's Car of the Year, IIRC)
'67 Ambassador DPL convertible (290 cid V8)
'71 Matador wagon (232 cid six)
Not one of these cars lasted more than five years, and that was even after they were serviced by the local AMC dealer. Whenever my dad did some of the repairs, parts were hard to find even then. Brake parts? Double-action (=vacuum wipers) fuel pumps? BorgWarner transmissions? Heck, even air and oil filters were hard to find in the '70's. After a one-year flirtation with a MoPar ('78 Volaré wagon), Dad bought a '79 Impala wagon that lasted 23 years.
My advice on any AMC purchase? Only if you're a masochist.
Tom
 
Last edited:
Well, I'm not afraid to do a bit of work - I can handle a fuel pump, carburator shouldn't be that hard either, I did some work on my Camry over the years (brake rotors/pads/shoes, alternator, tie rod ends, assorted other wear and tear stuff), so I'm familiar with auto work. I think I should be able to handle a master cylinder and wheel cylinders. From the looks of it, PartsAmerica has all the critical parts - rebuilt carburator, wheel cylinders, fuel pump and other parts. I'm generally very good at figuring out how things come apart and go back together, but sometimes those illustrated manuals are a life saver - probably nothing like that going back this far, however. Between my friends and I, however, getting the car running should be kinda doable. Things like the steering and suspension have be a tad worried though. I know it's probably not a good idea, but I still really, really want this car. The only thing I'm worried about is how to get it here without spending a fortune. I can probably borrow or rent a car trailer and go get it, but that's a long haul. Getting the car delivered would probably be pricey. It's at $400 right now - which is affordable. If this thing were closer, I wouldn't be nearly as hesitant. Right now, I'm also working on finding some place to stash it for a while - since I can't really work on it much until the weather gets better, and I get some of the junk out of the garage. So... I dunno - I'm leaning away from it from a practical standpoint, but I still really like the way this car looks, and I really like the idea of owning a neat old station wagon like this.

-Ian
 
Sounds like you know what you're getting into. Of course, it will be a much bigger project than you can imagine, but as I've said, that's part of the fun. The only thing I would really worry about is rust. I have to imagine that it will have some. I just like California cars. Rust is just nasty to fix and makes everything else so hard to work on. Fasteners are all rusty and hard to get apart.

Good luck either way!

Ed
 
One thing you might could do if you really wanted the car would be to rent a parking space in a storage locker in Pittsburgh and get the car towed there...when I lived in an apartment I had to keep my school bus in a storage unit and it cost about $30.00 a month for the parking space. This would keep the car in a locked protected area till you could get a rig for getting it home.

As long as you don't have real bad damage in that engine like rod knock you should be able to get it going again. If you're going to buy on EBAY ask the seller to check the oil level. If there is a reasonable amount of oil in there that is good even if it is black and old but you want to watch out for head gasket leaks which would show up as white stuff (antifreeze) in the oil...and if the oil is low you may have worn rings or leaks in the valve cover gasket.
 
RetroHacker said:
. From the looks of it, PartsAmerica has all the critical parts - rebuilt carburator, wheel cylinders, fuel pump and other parts. I'm generally very good at figuring out how things come apart and go back together, but sometimes those illustrated manuals are a life saver - probably nothing like that going back this far, however.
-Ian

If nothing else, do not buy a rebuilt carb from Parts America/Advance/Napa, etc. Take the one you have and have it sent to a quality carb rebuilder. The way the major rebuilders do it just eats up the cores. Probably had more returns on bad carbs than anything else we sold.
 
Back
Top Bottom