[Amc-list] good day for Ramblers

[Tom Jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>]

So Joe dropped off the little 63 American yesterday, and hauled
off the 73 Hornet parts car.

We discovered one of those little tiny surprises... I'd swiped
the rear leaf spring retainer plates/lower shock mounts, so
Joe brought a pair from his 77 Hornet (V8).

They didn't fit. Two left shoes! 73, both shocks are in front
of the axle. 77, V8 anyways, one fore one aft. Go figure.

The little American didn't want to run, but we chugged it off
the trailer into it's parking spot anyways. The Hornet went on
to the trailer without any trouble.


So today I thought I'd get the American to run well enough to
get to the car wash to squirt all the dirt out of it. The car
was very, very dirty, looks like the windows were left open for
some time, the door panels are all unrecoverably trashed. I
stripped out the non-factory carpeting and the tar paper,
cleaned out the trunk, removed the rear seats etc.

Would not idle, and had a bad chug-chug, clearly cylinders not
running, lots of valve clatter, then it stopped running at all --
out of gas!  Got gas, swapped the old carb for the new one that
came-with, fixed about 20 CFM of vacuum leaks (rotted hoses,
stuck-open PCV plugged for now). Ran but chug-chug.

Big radiator leak (nicked tube). Cleaned it wiped on 5-minute
JB Weld, filled with water, left the cap loose. Good enough
for eval purposes.

What with all the warnings on head bolt torque (thanks Frank!!!)
I pulled the valve cover off, and found four pushrods fell out.
Oops. One was bent badly, one slightly. But many of the ones
remaining were really loose, so it looks like that valves
hadn't been adjusted in a decade. Some old pushrods came-with,
so I cleaned two up swapped them in, hoping that the bent ones
got that way when they fell out.

Glad I did -- that's all that it was. I spent 20 minutes getting
cold static valve lash "about right", it ran and idled (never
even adjusted the NOS carb!), I got all the valves dialed in
and it now runs like a watch. Idles at 525 RPM.

The head bolts were under 40 ft/lbs loose! Damn glad I torqued
before driving it at all. I hope no damage was done in the past.
The oil has no sign of water, so that's good. I think I dodged
a bullet here.

(Pulling the valve cover, torquing the head bolts and adjusting
the valves took under 45 minutes. It's no big deal at all.)


So I got it to the car wash OK, lightened it about 20 pounds of
dirt.

I dunno, but this car seems peppy. It's not V8, but it gets out
of it's own way just fine, except for the gear stirring it'll
be fine in LA street traffic. Filled the gas tank then drove
home. Total trip about 5 miles.


Back in the yard, engine hot, wit hthe PCV system plugged 'til
I get a batch of hoses and a new valve, there's just about
zero ring-blow-by out the oil filler neck! That's a pleasant
surprise. The block is unpainted with a REBUILT xxxx POWER-PAK
tag; the head is green; the valve cover is read (repainted
once). So it's definitely had work.

The pushrods were rusty, that's bad, so it probably sat with
condensation. That's not a good sign for the bottom end, but
it's next trip is to the local garage for an oil change; then
I'll Sea-Foam with that and change again at 500 - 1000 miles.
For this motor I suppose I should think about zinc oil additives.

So needless to say I'm totally happy with this car. I think I
found my calling with this old six. I'd never done one before,
and I know I could dial in the valves by ear and get them
all correct.

Thanks Joe, for saving TWO cars from the crusher -- this little
American, originally destined to be someone's parts car, and
the car I parted out that will be reassembled.

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