Grandma's 66' Fairlane

[MicroMachinery]

So, I finally got my hands on an old family heirloom. Here's some back story..

 

This car was bought brand new by my step father's mother back in 66'. The car was garaged, and only driven to church or to the store for groceries; a true Grandma car. When she passed away, it was handed down to my step father with somewhere around 30k miles, and it was immaculate.

While in my stepfather's possession, it was driven a handful of times(I only got to ride in it once). When he fell ill and eventually passed, it was in his will to pass it to his youngest biological son. It was stored in my shop for a few years until I was summoned to come get the car running. It broke my heart to see it sitting, not being loved, maintained, or otherwise taken care of. It drove away and out of my life for the next 10 years...

I would see my step brother from time to time, and ask him about the car, and if he was ready to sell. He never would budge. Eventually times got hard, he lost his job, and sold his other vehicles. The Fairlane remained. It pained me to see this classic now driven as a daily driver, by him and by his strung-out "baby mommy". Every time I would see the car, it would be in a more deteriorated state.. whether it be the interior, exterior, or the way it was running. I was just waiting to see it in a ditch somewhere or wrapped around a pole.

I stopped seeing it around, and figured that it had been wrecked or sold for dope. One day, I received a text message out of the blue regarding the car. It was my step brother asking if I wanted to buy the car. He expressed that there were other interested parties, but that he wanted to keep it in the family(Thank God!). I asked the price, he threw out a number, and I agreed to look over the car in it's current state and negotiate further.

I went to check out the car, and it was in a non-running state.

It was crammed full of garbage and other possessions, which made me cringe. I carefully removed the rats nest of random computers, fishing poles, baby clothing, etc.. trying not to damage the interior further. Here's what I found.

Fortunately, the back seat was still in good shape. The front seat now had some rips, and the shoulder portion of the passenger seat looked like it was attacked by a bear. All in all, however, I was surprised at how destroyed the interior was NOT. No cigarette burns in the headliner or upholstery, minimal cracking on the dash.. the floors, however, would need to be replaced..

The bright side to this is, that if I ever run out of gas, I can stick my feet through the floor and Flintstone it to the next station.. my calves are gonna be HUGE.

 

These are the pics I took of when I went to go check the car out. Like I stated, it was in non-running condition. The radiator had been removed, as it had been leaking. As you can see from the shot of the car up above, the entire engine compartment is covered in a rusty film. This is from the leaking.. no.. SPRAYING radiator being filled time and time again with tap water, basically driving the car into the ground. This concerned me, as since there was no antifreeze being added, what other issues would be present..

 

[racerx]

_{friend has a 66 comet looks very similar.}

[Tristin]

Overall not a horrible project. This will be nice once you get it back up and going...

 

 

What are your plans?- OEM restore? Maybe some high HP muscle car build? EIther way this will be a nice build Im sure. 

[MicroMachinery]

I'm not quite sure right now. At the moment, I'm just getting her up and operational, then once that's done, I'll pick a direction. Since it is in such good shape, I'm leaning towards keeping it mostly stock, I may throw a 4bbl intake and carb with a cam and some other minor mods just to spice things up, but that's yet to be determined. Not gonna swap engines or try to make a GTA clone or anything, this one's way too clean and original, on top of the sentimental aspect.

[Tristin]

Should make a cool Sunday cruiser then! This has always been one thing I wish my family was into... no one has ever kept cars long enough to pass them down. I really wish I could inherit or purchase an older family car. Ive seen pictures of some dope ones my grandmother had, but alas nothing once I got older. 

 

Oh well, Ill just start with my 510. 

 

 

Cant wait to see progress on this :thumbup:

[MicroMachinery]

I was able to re-install the old radiator, just for the sake of hearing the car run before I made any offers. As I started filling the cooling system, I heard water running out onto the ground.. cripes. I filled it as fast as I could, and looked underneath.. a waterfall coming off the side of the block. Since the car was constantly leaking water from the seam in the radiator, my step brother and his significant other never saw the point in buying antifreeze. Fail. Now the car was either missing a freeze plug, or worse; the block was cracked. I reached around underneath and found the fallen freeze plug in the grass.. however, this was no guarantee that there wasn't other damage somewhere else on the block.

While down in the grass, I scouted around for rust in the rockers, fenders, and quarter panels.. none found. A few spots on the bottom of the driver's door, but that was it. If the engine was toast, it was still a good body, the interior wasn't absolutely thrashed, and the glass was all intact. I rounded up a battery and some fuel to see if I could atleast get her to crank over and run for a few moments to get an idea of if there were any major bottom end noises. With a few whacks to the starter and the cleaning of the solenoid connections, we got some action. Good sign; she wasn't seized. Next, I poured some fuel into the vent tubes on the carb. A few cranks and she fired. Ran horribly, but she still ran. I heard no bottom end noise, but there were a couple lifters hammering. No biggie. I shut it off and checked the electrical systems. Wipers worked. No horn. Stereo didn't work. Blinkers and brake lights, but no headlights... I looked down below, and where the fuse panel should have been, it was a bunch of wires twisted together. When asked where the fuse panel was, my step brother said that it had deteriorated and fallen apart.. great.

So, after all the questions and seeing what it was that I needed to see, it was time to deal. His asking price, in light of all the issues present, had dropped considerably. A deal was struck that we both felt good about, and a time was set to pick up the machine.

Here she is on her way to a new home:

And here we are upon arrival.

[I'm BLUE]

What an interestingly neat story.

Wow that low of miles on the hand-down ... and sucker looks straight :cool: !

Story Starts off "ok" ,,, starts to run grim .. then looks brighter already.

 

At least the gym membership will not be needed ... or you could start your own gym with "unique killer" workouts ;)

 

Those front ends always looked sexy !

 

Awesome Micro and will be watching the mac daddy cruiser tasteful classic cruiser live again !

 

 

[MicroMachinery]

When I finally got some time a couple weeks after purchase to check it out, I got under to examine the location of the popped freeze plug. It wasn't in a HORRIBLE spot, but it was on the driver's side, towards the rear of the engine.

 

I bought a freeze plug, cleaned up the edges of the hole, and installed. I felt pretty good about myself, so I filled it with water for a test run. The engine ran well, with no serious knocks or ugly noises, aside from a collapsed lifter. I ran it until warm, then changed the oil and filter.

After the oil was changed, I wanted to run it some more to make sure the block wasn't cracked or anything. After heating up, I looked underneath, and to my disappointment, there was another leak.. I shut it off, and crawled underneath to see a bulging freeze plug on the passenger side, as well as another leaking. One was an easy fix, the other was hidden by the engine mount. After removing the mount and jacking up the engine, it was accessible enough to deal with. No more leaks ;)

 

There was also an issue with fuel pooling on the intake manifold. With the section of fuel hose going from the fuel line to the filter replaced, it became a non-issue.

 

[DRIVEN]

I think you're on the right track keeping this one mostly stock.  Glad you could save it before it was a total lost cause.

[MicroMachinery]

Yeah, me too. It would have been tragic had this thing been melted down before it's time.

 

As you can see from the under hood shots of the engine compartment, there was a terrible, leaking.. no, SPRAYING radiator. Since the cooling system had been neglected, and there was no rust inhibitor present, the water all turned a burnt red color, and escaped through a gaping split in the seam. After calling around to see if anybody could repair it, it seemed as though buying a new radiator altogether was going to be the cheapest alternative. I was able to find a copper/brass radiator online for about $150 shipped!, which was fantastic compared to the quoted $200 to have it cleaned out and re-soldered. As with all cheap shipping, I did have to wait a little bit longer, but that was OK with me. I came home one day to see the big box on my doorstep, and it was on. Out came the old, crusty radiator...

 

... to make room for the fresh, new one.

 

I will say, that in order to treat the shiny new radiator as good as I possibly could, I spent a good amount of time flushing the cooling system prior to the removal of the original.

New, clean cooling goodness! MMMMMM....

 

During the process of flushing the system, I happened to peak underneath the car to make sure that there were no leaks aside from the cracked radiator. I spotted one, but it wasn't coming from the engine. It wasn't even coming from the front of the car, for that matter. I scooted to the back, crawled underneath, and examined the drip: fuel. The fuel hose from the tank to the metal fuel line was pretty ravaged, and had given up the ghost.

 

An easy fix..

 

And with that, the Fairlane was now drip-free, containing and keeping all of her fluids to herself. The fruits of my labors: The maiden cruise down to the scales and back.

 

 

:D :D :D

[I'm BLUE]

Sleek lines... in that shot.

Nice to see you get another radiator for that little.. and congrats on in-car freeze plug repairs.

I hate doing those , but that's why I'm not a pro ;)

 

 

How'd she drive and feel to ya ?

 

Keep it up Micro ... enjoy seeing this ... :cool:

[izzo]

Man that trunk is so big, you could fit an L motor in it :angel: :rofl:

[Guest 510kamikazifreak]

Man that trunk is so big, you could have sex in there,with multiple partners

[DRIVEN]

Man, that shiny radiator makes the rest of the engine bay look hideous. 

 

Car looks great in the last pic.  White on red just oozes summertime cruising goodness.

[MicroMachinery]

Yeah, the engine bay needs a serious scrub-down.. the rust staining is terrible.

[DRIVEN]

Been driving it?

[MicroMachinery]

 

Yyyyeah buddy!

 

She's tagged and cleaned. Got the headlights sorted out the other night, so I've been enjoying the nice weather in her.

 

Yeah, the driver's side light was all woppy-cocked, so that's fixed now. This is just a pic of when I figured out where the bad connection was.

[DISLEXICDIME]

nice makes me miss my 64 galaxy

[]2eDeYe]

Great looking car, good to see it staying in the family. :cool:

[izzo]

 

 

Spotted that across the street from my work saturday

[Kirden]

This is a nice project. Reminds me of all the old cars my grandpa had at the farm. Glad it didn't take too much to get it back on the road.

[paichecaT]

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