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I brought my brother's 67 home last night and here is my picture thread. My sister in law and I came to an agreement and it is now mine. Wife isn't overly thrilled right now and I have to wait at least a year before I can start bringing the car back to life. I've waited 26 years for it and have wanted the car since he bought in 1978. As many of you know, I was the last one to drive it in 1986 and it has sat since. I know I could have bought one running probably cheaper in the long run, but my 21 year old really wanted this car. His face lit up when I got in late last night and was nothing but smiles as we gave her a bath, did a quick compound job by hand and got all the leaves and rotten carpet out of the interior. He then jumped in the driver seat and spent 20 minutes learning the gear pattern and clutch. Of course he had to adjust the mirrors. Some of the questions were comical to me. What are these orange things on the front, what is this sliding **** on the inside of the door, why are there two turn handles on the door, where is the passenger side rear view mirror, why is this car so low, why do I need a lighter and were the push buttons on the radio high tech back then? I plan on dropping the tank just for curiosity sake to see if the build paper is there. I'm sure it isn't, but who knows. I don't think he dropped the tank because if I remember correctly, when tank had a leak, he just epoxied the crap out of the bottom. I'm going to fog the cylinders as they appear to fairly clean amazingly enough before she goes back into hibernation. When I was going through the stuff in his garage, I think I threw the spare tire cover bolts and square flange piece in the metal recycling we took to the scrap yard having no clue what they were at the time. I do have some manuals, holley carbs and a brand new edlebrock intake still in the plastic. Couldn't find the other 3 center caps or most importantly, the keys. Going back up to his house in several week to clean out a storage unit and hopefully will find the missing items.
If I decoded the vin correctly, the car was made on December 6, 1966. The engine pad is smooth. When he bought the car we didn't see him for three days and didn't know he bought it. He was busying putting the rebuilt engine in to bring it home. Supposedly the 327 was bored 60 over, balance and blue printed. the block casting number is 3858174 and the heads are 3890462 - L306 I think. I believe the intake is from a 72 and the casting number is 6263751. I'm having trouble deciphering the transmission mission numbers as the car is on the ground and it is hard to see. I will post some pics. I deciphered part of the trim tag but not sure on some of the letters. My son would like to start now getting her back up to shape, but is completely happy we have it and it is not going away. I have ideas what I want to do, but I am sure that will change as I keep seeing the stuff you guys do around here.
Just for giggles, check out those tire. Found the receipt where bought them in 84. For you younger people, JC Penney did have auto service centers at one time. Now, on to pictures. The first couple are for Kerrmudgeon since he likes barn finds. I would call this more of a hoarder find.
Guess it has been longer than I thought about doing any progress. I now see where you guys warn about going down the frame off rabbit hole. When you're taking stuff off, time goes by fast, but unless you are prepared as some of you here, time goes by slow on the reassemble. Hopefully I will now be back on a steady pace but nowhere close to what we were in the beginning. After working two jobs as of last September I have whittled it down to one. I retired from my career job after 28.71336 years according to the pension board. I was 2.5 years away from maxing out but the job was not fun anymore and not worth the couple hundred dollars a month to stay. As I get older I see that stress does not play well with the body. So I now work for my wife 30 hours a week doing book keeping work. As of today it is still from home but when we go back to the office I will have 1/3rd of the drive I had and only be at work 4 days a week. The bonus to this job is I now get paid by her when she yells at me. Lol. I need to clean out the garage this weekend so work can begin again. Amazing how stuff accumulates over the winter. As far as suspension goes I just need to finish the rotor runout on the front passenger side and tighten up the front sway bar.
Progress going forward will be interior. Wife says I need to do the soft top first to keep the dust out. Part of me said to do the floor insulation first. It will be one of the two. I know I need to find a #3 bow to replace on my frame.
I do have something worth while to post about on minor progress. As some of you may know I wanted to pay tribute to my brother on this car but wanted to do it subtly. I think I found the answer. I have the loan papers from this car and some index cards where he wrote down gas mileage (I believe from his 65 pickup). My computer savvy niece was going to pull out his initials and birth/death year for me to use in an engraving project. She never got around it to it and may be because of her new job or maybe it was still too new of an open wound. I didn't push it and put the project on the back burner. One day at my old job I was in a building and they just got a laser etcher. I spoke with one of the operators and he said it would be no problem to implement my idea. I then reached out to morly 1963 after seeing all the graphic items he has posted in various threads. He said it could be done and low and behold he was able to cut out everything in my brother's handwriting and make the file for the etcher. He sent me a couple versions and I had my sister in law and nieces vote on the one to use. Thank you very much Morly.
I took the thumb drive with the file and the repro mirror to the etcher today. He warned me that one side might be a little deeper than the other due to the curvature of the piece. We propped it some one end to level but didn't go far enough as you can see it is deeper on the right. If I did it again, I think I now know how to level it better. Once he started, we couldn't move the piece as he made numerous passes with different intensities on the laser. I have omitted on telling you what the the piece is and let the pics do the talking.
Here is a pic of the loan paper signature (cropped here) and the index card.
Here is the test sample etch on a 2" tag which is flat. He gave me the tag and I think I will attach it to a pin I bought to go through the hood prop hole.
So finally, in my brother's handwriting from the loan papers is my tribute to him on his car. It will always be his car to me I think.
tbarb, he told me many many years ago that the guy who sold it to him said it was a big block originally, but I have no clue. I know he said it was not numbers matching. The last pics are some of the stuff found in the leaves. I know that a tail light for his chevy II. Not sure what that flange is.
While this this isn't the cleanest frame and birdcage I've seen, I think it may be OK. I'll bet you as super excited to get your brothers car. Good luck in bringing it back to life and back on the road.
I have a ton of pics. Just wanted to show some of the bird cage and I guess up inside the kick up? If that is the part the trailing arm connects to. Still learning what to officially call some of these frame parts.
The rear halfshafts are attached to the yokes with bolts and caps, that's big block. plus the radiator is the larger copper radiator the heater hose strap on the passenger side inner fender are all indicators that car is a big block car.
I beat the frame everywhere I could with ball end of the hammer and it never went through. Lot of dirt in the face though.. I only felt comfortable jacking up one corner at a time with the jack stands I had available. I'm hoping the cage is okay. Any idea what those transmission number are?
Brother's 67 Convertible
