gearheads78

Thought I would show what I have been tinkering with in my spare time.

I'm not doing any kind of restoration on this one. I'm just making it a complete running driving car ready for its next owner.

I picked it one up almost a year ago. Its a real 4speed , original motor, 3.91 gears, red car with black bucket guts. The 4 speed and front buckets were stolen by the previous owner for his Chevelle project

Iv'e been slowly collecting parts to make it complete again. After rebuilding the Holley and replacing one freeze plug that has rusted a pin hole through I got the motor fired off and running out of a gas can. I had to jumper the starter and ignition because nothing was powering up anywhere.

This past week I discovered why. The ignition switch , purple starter wire and the main power wire were melted to the point they were lucky the car did not burn to the ground. I pulled the dash and am in the process now of rebuilding the dash harness.

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J-(Chicago)

Now THAT's a cool find!!

No fender stripe?

TenMidgets

solid body, floors, frame?

Olds_71_442

Awesome car! I like looking at 'em on jackstands for some reason?

ent72olds

Man Richard....where do you keep finding these cars? And fairly clean to boot! Gotta love the southwest....

costpenn

Really cool Richard. I might still have a few good 68 parts you can have.

Joe.

oldcutlass

Well done Richard!!

tru-blue 442

Very nice!

MDchanic

Real nice!

- Eric

2blu442

Such a nice looking car. What in the world made the previous owner pull the transmission and bucket seats??? Didn't he see the value in a complete car? Why not sell it whole and use the money to purchase a transmission and bucket seats. Especially if the MIA transmission had the car's vin number stamped in it At least he didn't cut the roof off

old80cs

Nice find, that's my dream car, and it even has the 4 on the floor. Very cool car!!!

dc2x4drvr

Richard,looks straight, any rust issues? Maybe this is a keeper?

gearheads78

Its not as nice as it looks in pics. I does have some rust but no where near a rust bucket.

Anyone know what the blue wire the wraps around the passenger side of the AM radio goes to? I can't find any empty connectors anywhere around it.


Here is the mess of a wire harness I am working one. First is what is left of main power and starter wires, next is what left of the ignition switch connector and old switch next to a new one. The last pic is one of many new crimped and soldered connections I have been working on tonight.

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oldstata

[QUOTE=gearheads78;484193]Its not as nice as it looks in pics. I does have some rust but no where near a rust bucket.

Anyone know what the blue wire the wraps around the passenger side of the AM radio goes to? I can't find any empty connectors anywhere around it.


My 65 has a blue wire coming from the am radio I thought it was for power Antenna
I could be wrong

Hey that is a very nice car I have always wanted a real 442

MDchanic

The blue wire is probably for a rear speaker - it should go to a removable fader potentiometer around the tuner ****.

Looks like someone couldn't wait to start the barbecue.

- Eric

MDchanic

Power antennae were controlled by a separate switch - not by the radio.

- Eric

OLD SKL 69

Looks pretty nice Richard. I am not surprised you are tinkering on something. How much work are you going to put into it?

I still go back and look at your old restoration thread of your convertible to admire the workmanship.

gearheads78

Making his plain Malibu a 4speed with buckets was more important. Pretty sure the console was removed with a hammer as many pieces as it was in.

Thinking about keeping this one. Already have an LS motor ready to go it in. It will run much better than the 400 in it. You can see it in the background here.

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JK thats the motor for my 78 Suburban. I've still got some digging out of some bills before I can keep one but I am finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

floors and frame are real nice but it does have some rot mostly in outer skins easy to fix stuff.

This one was in Oklahoma but the title is Ohio so that explains the rust.

Let me know what you have. I'm sure I can put something to use.

so probably something the car never had then?

MDchanic

I don't know whether they ran that wire of the car didn't have the option.
I don't think so, though.

- Eric

lil_no

Nice find...

gearheads78

Dash harness is now ready to put back in. Polished every terminal and replaced all the questionable wires. Wraped back up with the factory type wrap. Now it has some DNA from a 94 TransAm and 87 Suburban. Two cars I parted out in the past and kept wire harness out of.

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Yellowstatue

It's kinda hard to get any traction with the wheels that far off the ground...the blue wire feeds the rear speaker if you so desire-just remove the U shaped clip by the right hand radio **** and insert the fader control and Dave's your nephew!!!

gearheads78

Little work tonight. What little was left of the wiper / ignition / starter harness is now in great shape again.

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Olds64

That is very cool! I'm sure it is a blast to tinker with. Whoever eventually buys it from you will be a lucky man.

sammy

.....and a 4 speed car, nice find. The wiring in these cars always seems to be messed, burnt added to etc !

Ted

gearheads78

Managed a few hours here and there over the weekend. I finished refurbishing the engine / head lamp harness tonight. I now have about 14 hours and $20.00 worth of Packard terminal and connectors in the project. All the wire was robbed from previous cars I have parted out so that was free. For the 3 harnesses I worked on it would have cost about $900.00 in new harnesses.

More BBQ wires found today
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This is the pile of old wires and connectors I have replaced in all three harnesses
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Inspectors checking my work
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Last harness now finished

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Olds442redberet

That is a really cool car! And to think that someone thought it wasn't worth keeping intact. Little did they know! That's somebody's dream car!

MDchanic

No kidding. And that would have been the same as flushing those $900 right down the toilet.

Nice work - it's good to see.

- Eric

gearheads78

Spent some time in the shop this weekend. Stripped the rear interior to do some good cleaning. Few pinholes under the rear seat and at little rust at the bottom of the back window. I was expecting a lot more. Its going to be a easy restoration for someone.
After some clean up put most of it back together.

I also got the dash, column and pedal all back in. Its starting to look carish again.

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nonhog

Missed this one. Very cool! 68 on my wish list.

gearheads78

your wish could be my command

69442C

Richard, are you sure there wasn't more going on here than just a simple inspection? It sure looks to me like there is a section of wiring harness in there with the kids. You wouldn't be forcing those kids to do your grunt work would you? There are child labor laws against that.

Brian

gearheads78

Haha. Dad was trying to keep them occupied and there was not much in the shop safe to play with so some lengths of shrink tubing had to do.

Sampson

Richard nice job on the wiring. I am getting ready to clean my front harness. I have it out of the car and it appears to be in good shape in that it is not cut or burnt. But it is dirty covered in black paint and terminals are corroded. How did you clean those terminals so nice. Also what did you use to wrap the harness? Best solvent to clean the insulation. Yours looks great. Really cool car as well.

gearheads78

Thanks. Some of the terninals were replaced. All the others were polished until shiney with a small brass brush in a dremel. I used new factory type wrap. To clean I used simple green where I could and a little mineral spirits and thinner in limited spots to cut some grease and overspray.

gearheads78

I little work tonight. Front harnesses are back in. Hooked a battery up and had to replace a couple of bulbs but we have light.

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chazzer

Great job on the wiring. Where does one find the original style wrap?

gearheads78

I forgot to mention last night .....I wanted to kill the engineer at GM that thought it was a good idea to recess the front marker / signal lamp down so far in a hole with no access get get your fingers around it.

Any restoration supply house should have it. They had it on the shelf at a 67-69 Camaro parts warehouse by me.

gearheads78

No picture worthy progress but I did make progress today.

I got what was left of the old exhaust system out of of it getting ready for the complete new exhaust system.

I got a used ignition switch retainer screw but it cam with an ignition switch and a piece of dash with no key. The old dash piece had to carefully be cut away and then drilled the old key tumbler to get the switch apart so I could remove the collar. Once apart I was able to finally able to permanently install my new ignition switch.

After installed I discovered a problem. Everything else worked but nothing happened when I tried to bump the starter. The switch was working and I had power to the connector leaving the firewall but no power down at the starter. After a good bit of searching I found the male part of the connector had pushed out on the firewall side. I was able to get the connector back in place and locked in but it pushed right back out as the connector bolt was tightened again. Took it back apart and tried to stick just the one wire in to the female and it would not even start. I finally had to crawl back under the dash and remove the fuse housing and main connector. Once I removed the female out of its socket I could see it was mashed just right to where once inside the hole it would make the male push behind the connector and push it out. After a little bending with a pocket screw driver it all went back together like it should and now the starter works (2 hours later )

While under the dash I ran the accessory lights and harness along with re- connecting the grounds to the door pin switches. Now all the interior lights work as that should. I still need to find a ground ring for one of the tail lamp sockets and install a new signal switch. I will then be done with all the electrical system.

It inches closer to its first drive in almost 2 decades.

tru-blue 442

Nice work Richard!
Looking forward to the follow-up's.
That is gonna be a sweet 68 when your done.
It amazes me that some one left this for dead.
Glad you found it and are reviving her.