1966 Imperial Crown convertible

[Boomer]

I'll be curious to hear what you find as far as little quirks or such. I find it a lot more difficult to get inside doors and under the dash lately. 4 days should give you enough time to leisurely go through it without having to throw it all back together by the end of the day. Not sure when I'll get to mine, but I do have plans to install a new map light and move it around to the other side of the driveway over the weekend. Woohoo!

Got a chuckle from the wind comment in your other thread. With those big, flat slab sides it must feel like driving a billboard down the road on days like that. VERY impressed by the mileage. That's on par with what my dad's old Lincoln of similar weight gets with the flathead 337 in it, and surprising (to me) for a 440 in a heavy car like the Imperial.

 

[patrick66]

I was going to tear into the rear windows and rebuild the window motors, but every weekend so far has been a cornucopia of car activities too good to pass up on. This weekend, for certain, I'll dive into all that. I have my D300 flatbed ready to roll, finally! So, it'll do the "show and cruise circuit" this weekend. Been itching to drive that truck for months, and I finally got the lighting issue sorted out, after much head-scratching and knashing of teeth. The rains on Thursday last, made my driveway look like a junior version of the Grand Canyon. I really need to tend to that.

 

[patrick66]

The alignment was dead-on the money. I rotated my tires and verified the proper inflation, and that helped the ride, overall. My air conditioning? Still need to find a source of R-12, as the system still has that in it, and is really the best stuff to put in the car. This modern crap is exactly that - crap!

 

[3175375]

The alignment was dead-on the money. I rotated my tires and verified the proper inflation, and that helped the ride, overall. My air conditioning? Still need to find a source of R-12, as the system still has that in it, and is really the best stuff to put in the car. This modern crap is exactly that - crap!

You can buy R-12 on Flea-Bay

 

[patrick66]

A pic from our Mopar show from 2020. My Imp and my friend's Superbird. They are precisely the same length!

 

[Maciek1]

The superbird it's awesome

 

[patrick66]

The superbird it's awesome

Yeah, it is! My friend who owned that for roughly a year, drove it regularly, and put maybe 3,500 or so miles on it. It was a ground-up rotissorie restoration.

 

[patrick66]

Found three cans of R12 that one on our Club members gave me this past week. So, once I get the R12 gauges from another Club member to borrow, I might just have icy-cold air conditioning back in the ragtop. That'll be a real treat! Looking forward to that, I can tell ya.

 

[3175375]

Found three cans of R12 that one on our Club members gave me this past week. So, once I get the R12 gauges from another Club member to borrow, I might just have icy-cold air conditioning back in the ragtop. That'll be a real treat! Looking forward to that, I can tell ya.

I would recommend that you replace the receiver/drier and expansion valve before you evacuate and recharge your air conditioning system. (You also may consider flushing the system - I have never done this, but have read that it’s a wise move if the system has been open for an unknown period). They are relatively inexpensive and who knows what condition they are in.

 

[patrick66]

The Imperial has always been sealed, but yeah, all that never hurts.

 

[patrick66]

Geez, I haven't touched the Coronet or the Imperial in nearly a month. The shop is not a pleasant place when it's over a hundred degrees INSIDE the shop; even with the breeze blowing, the 3'-tall shop fan going, and the roll-up and walk-in doors all open.

 

[patrick66]

The Hot Rod Hundred car run is this Saturday, and I'm more that likely to drive the Imperial versus the Coronet. The run itself is 120 miles, and the start point is roughly 20 miles from my house. The end point is about 39 miles away, so the day's mileage will be approximately 180 miles of driving bliss, no matter which car I take. Video will definitely happen! I have a nice Garmin dashcam and use the hell out of that.

It's been so stinking hot here since the first of June! Black interiors and non-functioning air conditioning in both has made this Summer a "ain't gonna drive anywhere!" season, for the first time in a long time. But, Hell or high water, I'm gonna drive the HRH. This will be the sixth year in a row I've participated - three times each in both cars.

 

[patrick66]

Couldn't find the keys, so I drove the Coronet. Guess what I found about Halfway through the run? My Imperial keys! In the Coronet console! Probably a good thing I didn't take the ragtop, though. We had rain, and heavy rain, for about 70 miles of the 120-mile ride! Stopping to unsnap and stow the boot, raise the top and windows is about three minutes, if I'm hustling. But, there were three T-buckets and a couple of coupes cut to make roadsters, plus two Vipers, without tops at all! I got 13 mpg with the '66. Gotta work on that mileage.

 

[patrick66]

And, back to the restoration/preservation aspect of this 4-1/2 year-old thread...sometime this weekend, I'll install the replacement/stock power antenna assembly I got from @detmatt this week. Someone way back when had replaced the original (and presumed faulty) factory bit for a manually-operated antenna mast. Hadn't given a whole ton of thought to that antenna, until earlier this year, when I saw the antenna fold back as I was driving! It didn't snap off, but it did allow me to push the mast down so that it was pretty straight, once again. My antenna search began, and Matt had one from his several '64-'66 cars. According to the FSM, the removal/installation appears pretty straight-forward. I'm sure I'll figure out a way to muck that operation up, somehow.

 

[patrick66]

My antenna arrived a few days ago, and that is when I realized that my Imperial was missing the correct antenna cable. It currently has a generic antenna and cable, in which the cable can't be integrated into the proper power antenna setup. Thankfully @detmatt had the proper antenna cable, which includes both correct ends and the two power connectors. It'll be here next week, so that will all go in immediately after the cable arrives.

I found a leak in my power steering at the cooler, so I fixed that last night. My battery was a bit weak and wouldn't start the car, so it's on the charger this morning. I might pull the instrument cluster this weekend, if I get motivated enough, to troubleshoot the lack of lighting going on. I had put nearly all new bulbs in the cluster a while back, and then I had no backlighting at all! The turn signal indicators, the oil pressure light and the high-beam indicators do light up. I'm hoping the solution is as simple as removing the cannon plug on the back of the cluster and reseating it; similar to reseating the bulkhead connectors.

Hopefully, I'll be driving it in the Veteran's Day parade coming up. That's always fun! I drove the Coronet with my younger son last year, and we had a great time of it. This year, I'll probably wear my '90s-era USAF DCU camo uniform - I couldn't believe I still have a full uniform with both the "ball cap" and the floppy hat, and that I can fit into it!

 

[patrick66]

Well, no parade use this Veteran's Day, as the temperature was 29*F. That's OK. I fired it up and have what is either a bad lifter or an exhaust leak at the manifold. I've got good oil pressure, according to the factory gauge. Another thing to look at this Thanksgiving four-day weekend.

Any of you guys that have a '66 Imperial, can you post pics of your heater under-hood? I've got a post below that you can post them at. I'd certainly appreciate it. I've seen two hoses on some cars and four on others.

I need '66 Imperial heater Pics, please!

 

[patrick66]

Well, it's been six months since the last update. I've been spending time accumulating bits and pieces for the car over the Winter, and have the following to install over the month of May:

1) New windlace for the door openings. The old stuff is either missing completely, or suffered greatly over the past 56 years. What is left, does zip to stop wind noise!
2) Replacement power antenna and antenna cable with power cord. Someone had replaced the original with a cheapo non-power unit, and the mast broke. Gotta fix that!
3) Purge and fill the A/C with R12. Fortunately, I have a friend that still has the equipment to do this properly!
4) Detail the engine bay. Polish, wax, and ceramic-coat the exterior paint.
5) Fix the DS quarter window motor! Not looking forward to that. It worked for one cycle back in October, then stayed down.
6) Replace the oil pan. Some garage monkey at some point, dented the pan. Not bad enough to affect the pickup tube, but enough to distract me.
7) Fix the dash lighting issue. Install the new glove box. Tidy up the dash wiring.

The Imperial is NOT a Winter-driven car, so I'm not going to fret over the heater core.

The lifter issue in the previous post was something the lifter "healed itself" after a minute or so at idle. Went out the next day and it tapped for a few seconds, then wonderful, torquey silence. A well-running and smooth 440 in action!

 

[patrick66]

Oh, and my correct replacement windshield washer reservoir arrived late last week! Saturday is supposed to be a pretty marvelous day, so I'll see what all gets done on the car then!

 

[patrick66]

The reservoir found its way in the engine bay just now.

 

[patrick66]

After gazing at my Imperial yesterday, I looked at my new windlace cord and decided "Ehhhh, I really don't want to try to install this myself!". About 50% of my original is just gone. So, I called my favorite upholstery shop and got an installation quote. Very reasonable! Installation date? Hmmm...they're booked out to the end of August, so the end of August it shall be.

I drove it all day this past Saturday, and of course, it drives like a dream! My A/C guy is back from his vacation, so it's going to him in the next week for a full A/C service. My "new" license plate light assembly arrived last week. I took some Brasso and a soft cloth to it, and it shined up pretty nice. The inside of the assembly is dirty and the lens reflects that, so I'll separate the lens cover and the body tonight, clean the lens, paint the back of the lens housing, then reassemble.