1966 AMC Rambler Classic 770 Project

[AMCRambler]

As some of you know, I've got an old AMC Rambler that I've been working on since college, hence my user name. Well when I moved out of my parents, the car had to go with so I rented a garage to store it with the intentions of finishing the work on it one day.

Fast forward to now: my fiancee and I bought a home at the end of last year and I've moved the car into my new garage a few weeks ago. I've already started working on the car and I've purchased a whole bunch of parts to get it back in shape. I thought you guys might be interested in a project thread with some updates and pics.

Here's what's been done on the car before now:

- Swapped the 232 ci straight six for a 287 ci V8 transmission and all
- Replaced the stock 2 barrell intake with the 4 barrell off the 327 for that year
- Aftermarket Holley 80457S 4 barrell carb w/electric choke
- Aftermarket Holley electric fuel pump
- Body work on the front fenders, rear fenders started but incomplete
- Cut out leaky heater core opening in cowling and replaced with pre-fab patch panel
- New shocks, KYB rears and Monroe fronts

Work done since it came home:

- New front brake lines fabbed
- New master cylinder painted and clear coated
- Battery tray cleaned up and painted
- Engine bay cleaning in progress (car has some kind of undercoating all over it including the engine bay, NASTY)

The To Do list:
- Install all new brake lines and master cylinder, rebuild/replace wheel cylinders if necessary, brake shoes as well
- Install new ignition coil and wires
- Replace leaking rear seal in the transmission extension housing, parts have been ordered for this
- Replace/repair kick down cable, broke this when I was swapping engine/tranny in
- Diagnose transmission slippage, this either related to the seal or the kick down cable
- Replace water pump, since taking the car out of storage seems to be leaking around the water pump gasket
- Weld in replacement floor pans/patch existing
- Get a new dual exhaust system fabricated
- Finish all body work and get the car painted

Things to do if money allows:
- Front and rear disk brake swap
- Swap engine for a 327 c.i.
- Port and polish heads
- Complete front suspension rebuild

So much to do but hey, that's why they call them project cars. If I bust my ass I might be able to get this thing on the road next year. I'll follow up with some pics and updates as work progresses if anyone is interested.

Current PICS:

Alright so I snapped a few pics with the camera tonight. Here it is in it new home.

You can see I've been cleaning the engine bay when you compare it to the old pics down below. Needs some more work...

Here's the new master cylinder all painted up and ready to go in

The interior is a little rough. Need work too.

 

[vshah]

subscribed! sounds like an awesome project, can't wait to see pics

 

[TehMac]

WANT! Are you going to install sub frame connectors?

and PICS nao!

 

[AMCRambler]

Subframe connectors would be overkill for this car. It's not gonna be a hot rod. More of a cruiser. If I wanted to turn it into a hot rod I'd ditch the torque tube, transmission and motor and go for a second gen AMC motor. A 360 or a 390 with a Chrysler transmission. You end up butchering the car to do it though. I want to keep it semi-stock.

Stock I think the 287 makes about 200hp. with the 4 barrel intake and bigger carb maybe 215. That's if it the motor was fresh. The engine does have a couple thousand miles on it so I'd be lucky to be getting 180hp out of it. It was a transplant from a donor car and I didn't rebuild it at the time. More torque than the old 232 had though.

I've got some pics from before it went into storage when I was doing the engine swap on my bbzzdd account. I'll post some current pics when I get home tonight.

Here's a pic of the car when we brought it back from storage a couple weeks ago

When I first started driving it to college

The freshly painted 287 in the engine bay. You can see all the undercoating and crud I been working to clean off. It looks a lot better now.

The diff, for some reason I took a pic of it when it was in storage. Probably trying to figure out if it was a Dana or not. You can see the new shocks in the background

I'll get some new pics showing the progress tonight if I get time.

 

[TehMac]

Nice that looks and sounds hot! Are you going to forge a new camshaft for the 287? Are you going to bore/stroke?

Do you know estimated power output? That looks and sounds hot.

 

[iamwiz82]

That looks like an AMC 20 rear axle.

 

[AMCRambler]

Nice that looks and sounds hot! Are you going to forge a new camshaft for the 287? Are you going to bore/stroke?

Do you know estimated power output? That looks and sounds hot.

If I were to rebuild the motor I'd probably get it bored. No sense in tearing it all the way down just to re-hone the cylinders. There's a lot of meat on these blocks. The 287 uses the same block as the 327 actually. They just bored the 327 blocks large. 3.75" diameter bore on the 287 and a 4" on the 327. Parts can be hard to come though so if I wanted to develop some more power I'd probably just track down a 327 and build it up. There are quite a few rebuild-able blocks out there.

Cam wise, I think there might be one or two companies out there with a hotter cam for this motor. Lunati I think is one. Haven't really looked into that though.

The other option out there for developing more horse power is to go with a turbo. These motors supposedly can handle a good bit of boost. The stock internals are all forged so it's not necessary to swap anything out. The stock fuel pump wouldn't keep up but an aftermarket electric pump and re-jetting, a replacement carb with higher flow or a fuel injection kit would be all you needed. They don't make bolt on kits though so it would be some work to fabricate all the intake piping.

I think I'd rather just keep it as a cruiser to take to car shows. I've got the GTO to satisfy my need for speed.

 

[franksta]

I can relate to the nasty undercoating crap. My Beetle had a bunch of nasty undercoating inside the fenders. When I was doing the restoration back in high school I remember coming home from school and scraping it off until what felt like midnight.

The guys at Car Craft have a Rambler American project car they've been working on for a while. I don't know how that differs from your Classic and they're building theirs to be a pretty quick street car but maybe something there will be useful for you.

Car Craft Rambler articles

 

[AMCRambler]

I can relate to the nasty undercoating crap. My Beetle had a bunch of nasty undercoating inside the fenders. When I was doing the restoration back in high school I remember coming home from school and scraping it off until what felt like midnight.

The guys at Car Craft have a Rambler American project car they've been working on for a while. I don't know how that differs from your Classic and they're building theirs to be a pretty quick street car but maybe something there will be useful for you.

Car Craft Rambler articles

Hey cool link. The Rambler American was the next size sedan down from the Classic. They had different trim levels of 330 and 440 I think. I think it was 1969 that they came out with the Hurst SC/Rambler which was this smaller car with a 390, mail box hood scoop and a hurst shifter. That was a quick little car.

There's not much I'll be able to learn from their project unless I decide to make the switch to the second gen AMC V8. In 1966 about halfway through AMC changed from the gen one V8's to the more well known gen 2 with Torque Flite transmissions and open drive shafts. The displacements for the gen 2 blocks are 290, 343, 360, 390 and 401. They had different bell housings so they won't mate up to the Borg Warner transmission in my car. So you've got to change everything from the engine to the drive shaft, possibly the rear too. The engine/tranny mounts and cross members are different too so I'd have to weld new ones in. Way too much hassle.

There are a lot more aftermarket parts available for the gen two AMC motors though.

And yes, undercoating sucks. The best solvent I've found so far that can break it up is gasoline. Engine Bright doesn't even touch it. Neither will carb cleaner. The stuff is like tar.

 

[franksta]

Hey cool link. The Rambler American was the next size sedan down from the Classic. They had different trim levels of 330 and 440 I think. I think it was 1969 that they came out with the Hurst SC/Rambler which was this smaller car with a 390, mail box hood scoop and a hurst shifter. That was a quick little car.

There's not much I'll be able to learn from their project unless I decide to make the switch to the second gen AMC V8. In 1966 about halfway through AMC changed from the gen one V8's to the more well known gen 2 with Torque Flite transmissions and open drive shafts. The displacements for the gen 2 blocks are 290, 343, 360, 390 and 401. They had different bell housings so they won't mate up to the Borg Warner transmission in my car. So you've got to change everything from the engine to the drive shaft, possibly the rear too. The engine/tranny mounts and cross members are different too so I'd have to weld new ones in. Way too much hassle.

There are a lot more aftermarket parts available for the gen two AMC motors though.

And yes, undercoating sucks. The best solvent I've found so far that can break it up is gasoline. Engine Bright doesn't even touch it. Neither will carb cleaner. The stuff is like tar.

I love reading the Car Craft magazine. My dad's subscription has been coming to my house for almost 2 years now, I keep telling him but he doesn't seem to care. You may be able to find something else useful for your project on the website. It's kinda clunky IMO but they've done a lot of different stuff so maybe they did a Gen1 motor in the past.

For the undercoating I was using a wire brush attachment on an angle grinder and a putty knife. I saw a compressed air powered needle gun thing at harbor freight that might have worked.

 

[AMCRambler]

With the gas as a solvent and some scrubbing it actually takes off the coating without wrecking the paint underneath. If I use the wire brush I'll have to re-paint the engine bay and I'd like to avoid that if I can. The coating actually did it's job and protected the paint pretty well.

 

[franksta]

With the gas as a solvent and some scrubbing it actually takes off the coating without wrecking the paint underneath. If I use the wire brush I'll have to re-paint the engine bay and I'd like to avoid that if I can. The coating actually did it's job and protected the paint pretty well.

Mine was factory fresh beneath it all as well. I intended to repaint my fender wells with rustoleum paint anyway so stripping off the original wasn't a concern. If the gasoline is working for you I'd stick with that.

I'm really liking the color you painted the motor. It looks like a fishing lure.

 

[AMCRambler]

Mine was factory fresh beneath it all as well. I intended to repaint my fender wells with rustoleum paint anyway so stripping off the original wasn't a concern. If the gasoline is working for you I'd stick with that.

I'm really liking the color you painted the motor. It looks like a fishing lure.

Yeah the gas should do it. Just sucks huffing on all those fumes.

Found some more pics from the engine swap on my work pc.

Donor car

Donor engine bay - the 287 had AC hooked up to it in the donor but I left it off

287 on the engine hoist before I cleaned it up and painted it.

Closeup

Former straight 6

In the car again

 

[kornphlake]

I had a 65 Rambler American 440 in High School. None of my generation had ever seen or heard of Rambler, it seemed like everybody's parents had a Rambler, or had a family member with a Rambler at some point though. We had the original owners manual, that was as good as today's factory service manuals. It was a fun car for a kid, but I honestly don't miss it much, it didn't drive very nice, cold starts were often difficult, it wasn't fast, the upholstery was in good shape but the seats were uncomfortable, really there wasn't much good about the car except the age and rarity, and the curb finders, those were pretty trick. My sister loved the car though, she still compares every car she drives to that old Rambler.

 

[TehMac]

The more I read about it, the more this project makes me really hard.

 

[AMCRambler]

Mac, you're having way too much fun here, lol

 

[TehMac]

It's hard not to, this looks really cool, and AMCs have a pretty dedicated fanbase. These cars were very innovative in their day, they sort of remind me of the American version of Subaru in the 60's, with V8s.

I think putting a turbo on a carbureted engine is badass, and that definitely sounds really awesome.

You can get a custom chromed air cleaner with something like "Turbocharged" on it, and make it look badass or something...idk you might not be into that, but half the coolness of carbs are those chromed air cleaners.

 

[franksta]

I think putting a turbo on a carbureted engine is badass, and that definitely sounds really awesome.

You can get a custom chromed air cleaner with something like "Turbocharged" on it, and make it look badass or something...idk you might not be into that, but half the coolness of carbs are those chromed air cleaners.

A guy on The Turbo Forums did a quad turbo Plymouth Fury. It was all kinds of awesome and the guy and his buddy are incredible fabricators. But he was running fuel injection and no air cleaners if I remember right.

There was another guy building an old pickup truck with a "hide-a-boost" system so the intake looked stock but could hold some amount of pressure.

Let me see if I can find the threads...
Pics of quad turbo Fury The link goes to page 5 but the rest of the build is just as amazing.
The "hide-a-boost"

 

[DietDrThunder]

Thank you for restoring this classic '60's AMC automobile. As you can tell by my daily driver, I like the less popular (by less popular I mean you don't see them that often) '60's cars more than the Camaro's, Corvette's, etc. Not that there is anything wrong with Camaros or Corvettes, you just see so many of them at car shows that to me they are no longer that big of a deal. Keep up the good work and keep us posted.

 

[TehMac]

Agree, and are you going to repaint the Rambler? I think that would be extra hot.

Also, here's a really hot AMC, I love this paint scheme.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33560796@N04/4523772061/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33560796@N04/4524402934/

 

[AMCRambler]

Agree, and are you going to repaint the Rambler? I think that would be extra hot.

Also, here's a really hot AMC, I love this paint scheme.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33560796@N04/4523772061/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33560796@N04/4524402934/

That paint job is beautiful, I'm not sure I like the color though. It looks flawless though.

Yes, definitely going to paint it. I want to give it a try myself. I bought a nice Devilbiss paint gun and I'm going to need a compressor. There's a paint shop locally that can match the existing color using a digital camera. I actually had them mix me up a batch with the intention of re-painting the car when I finished the body work but I never got to it before it went into storage. I had all the paint, primer, thinner, hardener stuff in the trunk of the car but it got damp in there and the cans rusted and leaked. That was like $400 down the toilet. Lesson learned with that. I'll go back when I'm actually ready to paint the car. I figure I can try one fender and see how I do. If I suck ass, I'll take it to a pro.

 

[AMCRambler]

Update: Didn't get much done tonight. Ended up working late and was kinda pooped. I took out the old ignition coil, painted the mounting brackets and when they're dry I'll put the new one in. Also painted the push rod for the master cylinder that connects to the brake pedal.

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/amcrambler/newignitioncoil.jpg

I bought the "Blue Streak" model since the color would match the motor. Probably no better than the stock Delco, but it's pretty.

 

[AMCRambler]

Spent the weekend working on fabricating a new linkage between the transmission kick down cable and the after market Holley 4bbl. The throttle lever on the new carb is different from the original four barrel these cars had.

When I originally put the engine in I snapped off the threaded tip crimped on the end of the cable that the clevis screws onto. So I had to braze on a new tip. Basically hacksawed a screw to get a longer piece of thread and I attached that. I also fabricated a workable bracket however after I had it all done and connected it up to the carb, I realized the cable wasn't moving freely anymore. Somehow I managed to ah heck up the cable. Probably when I heated it with the torch. So the cable is effed and I've got a new one on order. What a bitch. Was hoping to save myself the 160 bucks for the cable by fixing the threaded end but no go.

Worst part is, I think I've got to drop the transmission pan to replace the cable. I was planning on doing that anyway at some point since I've got a leak down there somewhere but was hoping to put it off. Oh well. Order up a pan gasket and a filter too while I'm at it.

Stay tuned...next up tranny work...

 

[TridenT]

Why do you even have the engine in the bay if the bay is in need of such work? ???

 

[AMCRambler]

I'm not sure what you mean, "such work". The engine bay needs to be cleaned of undercoating.

Ideally I would have cleaned it when I had the motor out 8 years ago. However, I did the engine swap when I was still living with my parents. My old man was such a huge fucking pain in the ass about having cars and parts laying around his garage. He wanted the motor swapped and my car back in the driveway. Wouldn't even give me the time to clean down the engine bay without the motor in there. I literally had two days to rip the old one out and get the new one in. Probably could have had time for cleaning if it was just and engine swap, but don't forget, I swapped the engine, transmission and torque tube. And it was the first time I'd ever done one. So two days was a miracle.

I own my own home now and I can do as I please with the car to get it the way I want it. Have a nice dry garage to keep it in and work on it. But at this point do I want to pull the engine out to clean the sides of the engine bay? Fuck no. It's easier to just unbolt and move shit out of the way as I go.

I took a break from cleaning to do what I thought would be an easy job to repair the throttle cable and fabricate linkage for the throttle kick down, but it backfired and I ended up making work. That's how it goes with old cars though. Stuff ends up breaking as you work on them. These parts are 45 years old.