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My son has been on a search for a 68-72 El Camino for quite some time. After lots of searching, he found what he was looking for. He found this 71 El-Camino in Tennessee.
What’s kinda funny about this is the car came from a town about 60 miles from us. It then moved 340 miles south to Tennessee around 1990. We brought back north.
This is obviously someone’s abandoned project. New brakes/brake line and hoses/calipers//hardware all around. New rear springs, new 4 core radiator (that unfortunately can’t be used for our plans) new weatherstripping, new underhood wiring harnesses, the list goes on.
There is no engine or transmission. Since all I have sitting around is Oldsmobile stuff, the El Camino will get my “just in case” backup engine. It’s a 68 Toronado engine my son and I did a dingle ball hone rebuild about 10 years ago. Hence the name “Olds Camino.
It has some rust in the typical spots, especially the quarters. The previous owner obviously had 4speed transmission plans, the floor has been cut for a shifter, the new radiator has no transmission cooler. I can’t bring myself to cut up the brand new I hood wiring harnesses for proper engine motivation, so I’ll be educating Nick on building a wiring harness from scratch.
I'm hoping it will be a fun, educational project.
Nick is all smiles after draining his bank account!!
Last edited by matt69olds; Jan 22, 2023 at 07:35 PM.
One of my neighbors has a 72 SS 454 El Camino that has always been a show car. He is in his seventies. If I had 25k laying around I would probably already own it.
If you want to get inspired check out this guy's pics. TEXAS442 on this site, hopefully the pics are still up. A friend of mine had a 70 GMC Sprint rebuilt into an OldsCamino. Silver and black that was professionally built.
If your going to build on the motor for some extra HP fun, I believe the El Camino frames are boxed frames-I know in 64-65 they were because I looked for one. Nice find.
If your going to build on the motor for some extra HP fun, I believe the El Camino frames are boxed frames-I know in 64-65 they were because I looked for one. Nice find.
The engine that we are putting in the car was in my 69 probably 18 years ago. It went 12:80s with far too much converter. Then the engine was in my 87 cutlass, it went 13:30s with crappy exhaust manifolds on street tires. I’m hoping once we get it dialed in and he is comfortable with the car it will run mid 12s pretty easy.
