My uncle picked this car up a little while ago in FL and sent it up to me here in NY to fix up for him. The plan was to just clean up the rough edges and make it a nice driver for him. Unfortunately, he passed away shortly after sending it up to me. It's part of my fleet now and I'll be fixing it up in his memory (he was the one who got me into cars as a very young kid).
The car has had a bit of a tough life, the carfax confirmed my suspicion that the car had a minor accident and an engine fire in its past. I hesitate to say I'll be restoring it as it won't be 100% factory but it will remain in the spirit of the original car for sure. It is clean and straight underneath and the interior is in nice shape with the exception of a worn driver's seat bolster, a faded (and capped and faded again) dash pad that I'll replace, and an ill fitting replacement headliner. The roof has had a poor rust repair at some point that has rusted through again. I have to see if i can do a spot repair or find a donor roof and do some surgery. The whole car needs paint really... I'll get to that last. A few pieces of the unobtainium side moldings are missing so I'll have to find a suitable close-enough option.
At some point it was 5-lug swapped with 96+ spindles but no caster/camber plates, stock lower control arms, and no bumpsteer kit so it currently handles like crap. I have all the correct parts to return that to stock. I have some LMR TRX repro wheels that will look just right on it.
So far I've just done a little cleaning, plugs, wires, car, rotor, coil, and replaced the severely dry-rotted and corroded duraspark harness (pics are before i did anything). The immediate plan is to hit all of the deferred maintenance points, swap all fluids, fresh brakes , shocks, struts and put a few miles on it (in the spring). The factory 4bbl was replaced with an Edelbrock at some point. It runs well enough but I'm sure I'll put a Holley back on it at some point. I also have all of the correct dual snorkel intake bits to put on. In the near future I'll be pulling the engine so I can thoroughly clean the engine bay and probably replace the whole harness. This will be a slow process but I will do my best to update this thread every now and again.
Connect With Us