Howdy, all.
I am proud(?!) to intruduce y'all to my latest vehicle- The Unfinished Project: '66 Fury III.
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Hot on the heels of my previous car ('51 Pontiac Chieftain) this is taking up residence in the garage representing the next decade along.
It has a sad backstory- rescued from a farm, it's a white with blue interior, 318 auto car which was purchased by the previous owner in Mississippi. He was in the Navy and bought the car to fix up for his son to drive when he turned 16. He handed the car off to a bodyshop because he was being stationed out of state for a while; they were given instructions to fix up the body, smooth off the trim, de-handle, de-seam and make a nice semi-custom job. They sent photos, sent invoices which he was paying, sending them parts as they requested... He got back a little early to find the car as you see it there- painted badly in his son's choice of color (mauve poly) with a few tubs of Bondo thrown at it from a distance.
They rebuilt the engine. Oh yes they did! Very well!
6 pistons were in the wrong bank (rods backwards), the worst bores are nearly 0.008" over size from being whizzed hard with a dingleball leading to the worst ring gap of 0.030" on already 0.040" overbore pots. The valve rockers were put in randomly and a couple rings were on upside down. My guess is they were Ford or Chevy guys. Or just cowboys. No telling.
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So, I put it back together and checked see if it ran- it does, after a fashion but it'll have some serious piston slap. Shame, as the crank is excellent and within tolerances. It's got good oil pressure. It'll get the car mobile, at least. The transmission was rebuilt by painting it black. Most excellent.
The interior, well, that's mostly junk. Knew that much. The seats and frames are good, really just need recovering, but it needs a new dash and while the headliner is moderately good it's brittle and has a few poor repairs. The floor is gone in the usual spots because the firewall has gone in the usual spots and leaked, causing the looping rust issues. Gonna sort that out. Trunk too, that has a repair panel that's been attached with pigeon-poop around part of its periphery (to come out and be redone).
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Seen worse. Bodyshop repaired it by painting it over with red oxide.
I been stripping the stainless trim pieces off the gutters and around the rear window last night (gotta love those trim clips, but they're easier than getting the strips off a bent gutter rail).
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Something's hit the rail but nothing else is bent or dented and that prevented me getting the trim off cleanly which burns my behind. One spot needs a little new metal letting in and the rest will dolly straight enough for the trim to hide the wrinkles.
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I deleted the "trim delete". Trim is going back on. It's a Fury 3, not a Fury 1. They zotted a couple holes up with weld but didn't dress anything back.
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Window trim out, and the (known about because of the sharp filler edges on the top of the scuttle) crunchy Mopar-standard screen corner rot is present- doesn't look too advanced but I know the scuttle is holed so that'll take a few small patches.
I don't think the rubber is flexible enough to allow the glass to come out so that'll probably end up getting cut off and forcibly ejected so I can sort the window aperture out properly.
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All good fun, I'll put the outer lights in the "For Sale" section because they are in good shape but for Fury I/II so are the narrow surround version.
So, there you go. Gonna have a fun time undoing Doctor Bondo's work and making good again. Also, the mauve is growing on me the more I look at it. I think it'll go either the same color or a darker flat purple. Time will tell.
Phil
