There haven’t been any updates on the Rambler since the final thrash to get the car ready for the trip.
The radiator was relocated to fit the bigger engine, and new hoses were sourced.
The gas tank needed attention. There was a patch that wasn’t holding where a previous owner had hit something. The tank wasn’t gummed up inside but it was rusty. I used POR15 products to clean it out and eat the rust. I tried electrolysis to remove the rust. It worked, but since it works by line of sight and I only had a rod down the middle it didn’t work as well as I had hoped. Some more POR15 cleaner and metal prep and I called it good enough. I have some gas tank sealer but I am afraid to use it. I don’t know how to assure I can get complete coverage and because of the shape of the tank, draining out any excess will be difficult so I used some JB Weld stick to patch the holes.
The brakes were next and needed completely redone. The existing hard lines were completely replaced. There were multiple compression fitting on the old lines and some of them were very rusty. The rear wheel cylinders weren’t leaking but they got new seal kits. The front cylinders were completely shot. I tried honing them, but the corrosion was so bad they were replaced. New brake shoes were installed front and rear, and new drums in the rear finished out the brake rebuild.
The vacuum wiper motor was pulled apart, cleaned and re-greased. With some Rain-x and a wet windshield the wipers work okay. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to use the electric wiper I found at the salvage yard. It would not work without the wiper levers from an electric wiper car. It turns out the vacuum pump goes back and forth; the electric motor goes around in a circle requiring a different linkage.
There were multiple electrical issue with the lights. The turn signals and brake lights were not working. Kevin was over troubleshooting the electrical while I was working on the brakes. He found some mouse eaten wires in spare tire carrier. Some splicing, some cleaning, and fuse replacements and the lights were working. A license plate light was connected to the old wiring, and a new ground was run to the bumper for the backup lights. There backup light switch under the column was broken, so a toggle switch was installed under the dash.
With the brakes, lights, and wipers working the car got an inspection sticker! With the new sticker I thought the car would be ready for the trip.
I was now able to start really driving it around town. That is when I found out that third gear wasn’t working, and first gear wasn’t working well. I suspected a sticking third gear valve so I put in some seafoam cleaner in and started putting the mile on it hoping it would free up. 60 miles later and I still didn’t have 3rd gear. I put some Lucas transmission fix in hoping maybe that would would help, but it didn’t. A day before the rally, I gathered up the 2 spare transmissions I had. Unfortunately; the one from the ’59 torque tube car had a different linkage setup, and a different transmission mount. The transmission from the ’65 Rambler American was an open driveshaft car and wouldn’t work with the torque tube setup in the ’63 Classic. I had hoped I could swap the tailshafts between the cars but the bolt patterns didn’t match. Sunday morning before leaving for the rally I remembered the seller who I bought the rebuilt engine from had a torque tube transmission. I called him up and he still has the transmission but he wasn’t available to meet us before we left for NY.
Because third gear wasn’t working, the car topped out at 55 mph. When running at that speed the temp gauge would go through the roof. I wonder if the transmission was broken before, and the reason the engine had blown a hole through the block was that the previous owner had been driving it on the highway in 2nd gear.
Sadly the Rambler never left the driveway on the epic journey from New York to New Orleans.
The good news is we still made the trip. We took plan “B” a 1992 Pontiac Bonneville.