Nothing but parts

I have been meaning to write about these two. The one on the left in the red is Dan, that's his Vette. The one of the right is Tony. Tony is my best friend and he drives a 1979 Camaro. Both of them help me out all of the time and the car would not be nearly close to where it is today with out them. Thanks guys.

             So, once again a lot has changed since I last wrote in. I have taken the motor completely apart. I took off the intake and the heads. The pistons are out along with the crank, and cam. All of the bearings are out along with the lifters. I also knocked out all of the freeze plugs which was quite an ordeal. It is nice to see the whole thing apart but it is quite daunting at the same time. I am now sending the block off to Land Air in Arlington Heights. The owner is an ex airplane mechanic and he does amazing work. He has engine blocks everywhere along with random mechanical parts. You always get the sense that he knows where everything goes though which is nice. He is going to hone and bore the block so it should be about a 355. He is also going to clean and paint it along with a lot of other mechanical wizardry. Finally, he is going to put the pistons and the crank back in. Now I know, a bit of a copout thing to do. However, my reasoning is pretty sound. If I messed that up and went to go start the car and it didn’t work than I would have to pull the entire motor again. That is something that I don’t want to do again. Every day, the project just gets more daunting. The truth is that even though the project is fun it has lost all of its glitzy early charm. Now, all that I see is hours upon hours of work. Is it still fun? Yes, of course. However, it is now becoming very real. The main problem is that it is hard to view the project as a car. In my mind it is a mass of random parts that somehow fit back together. The nice thing is though, once the motor gets back into the car it should start to take shape in my mind again. I can't wait to see it start up again and hear how it sounds through nothing but headers. This is probably the most apart the car will be, which is actually a nice thought. I went to a muscle car show today at the Rosemont. It had close to three hundred cars of all brands and makes. They were featuring NASCAR street cars so there was about 40 Superbirds in one place. It was nice to see all of those winged birds sitting under the florescent lights and know that they had made it. As I looked around I realized that all of these cars had made it through the trials of time. If they made it so can the Monte Carlo. Maybe the Monte Carlo isn't a true muscle car but it will scream like one. It will shake the ground like one. It will challenge the lights and burn up the asphalt like one. Are their dark months of bitter cold ahead for it? Yes. However, when jack frost has been beaten to a pulp and the days get longer I hope to have the Monte Carlo back in the sun. The Monte Carlo was not a factory muscle car. However, my Monte Carlo will be an ode to what could have been. A final swansong to an era gone by. It will be a shot of candy red in a sea of gray pedestrian. A rebellion in a world of conformity. The car may be a bastard, but it will rumble like a thoroughbred. I never really liked winter. The thing is though, it just makes summer that much sweeter. Now all that I have to do is click the socket wrench back to on and pray.

Another New Home

A Typical night

 

 

With a little degreaser and a lot of elbow grease I realized that there is a firing order on the back of the intake

 

I know that it's been awhile and trust me, a lot has happened since I last wrote in. I got the motor out after about three weeks of disconnecting and taking apart various engine parts. The weird thing is that it actually wasn't that hard. I got the hood off and just went from there. I really didn't run into a lot of problems which was actually pretty surprising. All that I did to document the process was write a list and take pictures. The trans, drive line, and motor are now out of the car. The motor is out of the car on a stand and the trans is going to be rebuilt. I planned to replace the rear-end and the trans with upgraded parts but I decided not to. I am not really trying to smoke the tires. I was originally going to go build a screamer of a car but I don't really have the money or the interest. The truth is that I have to be more money conscious. I actually got the car back to my house and now it's sitting up on jacks in the garage. One of the many things that I have learned working on this car is that you need help. I rely on my mentors and my friends constantly. This car is really becoming a communal thing which is nice. People my age seem to like to work on it. I hope that people experience some of the joy that the car brings me. It is rather odd to see that car sitting in my garage looking like a shell. This is its first fall and winter inside and it is nice to know that it won't get any more rusty (at least in theory). However, admittedly, I don't know if it will sit outside at the body shop before they start fixing it. I also started to clean the engine and there is a surprising amount of orange paint left on the motor. I would have loved to see the car new but I digress. I have spent hours with the car so I think I can safely say that I know every inch of it now. I work at a car wash and the best job there is wiping cars. You get tips and get to stand outside and watch the world go by. Friday nights are the best for wiping because you can usually see old cars go by on their way to various shows. I remember a night when I was wiping a few weeks back. It was the first properly cold night of the year and it was nice to exchange the summer heat for the liquid cool winds of fall. I was leaning on one of the coolers where we keep towels in staring at the road. The cars rumbled by and the world ticked on. A car came by and I started to wipe it. I, all of a sudden, felt jealous of the driver. I wanted to go. I wanted to drive. I wanted to be in his car just driving away. I wanted to feel the wind in my hair and the beautiful feeling of the world devolving into the simple task of driving. As the winter approaches I feel the road calling me again. It whispers to me all of the time. Tantalizing me with its wicked uncertainty. It has been quit sometime since I have been on a proper road trip. Sometimes I sit by the Monte Carlo in my garage and dream of hitting the road again in it. That car has become a symbol of better times to come. No matter how tired I feel or how much I want to quit my job I can't. That slight whisper in my ear is enough for me to press on. Not many people my age know what it's like to hit the open road and see America the way that it is supposed to be seen. I flew to California a few weeks ago but I would have rather driven. I love watching the world roll by and seeing just how diverse this country really is. As I was flying over the U.S.  I couldn't help but look out and wonder just how many dismantled dreams are sitting up on jacks in peoples garages. I also wondered how many rusty dreams are still left to be discovered. When the Monte Carlo is done I think that a road trip is in order. A proper American trek. I think that I have deserved it and so too has the car. It has been a forgotten dream for too long.

New Home

 

                Well, the car has changed homes. I am now working on it at school every day and it's pretty awesome. I get up and have two periods where I work on the car. My teacher Mr. Ruta has given me a space inside to park the car which is a major help. Since I have a lot of time to work on it I have the time to conquer little problems. I fixed the door with my friend Chris and I also drained the diff and figured out the gear ratio with my friend Tony. My teacher and my parents along with Tony met early in the morning to discuss with me what we were going to do with the car. My teacher is into Chevy's and suggested Vortec heads for better compression along with a 3:73:1 rear-end for better off the line. He also suggested a 200-4R Trans which has a four-speed with an overdrive. If I do that I can have off the line performance and a nice highway cruiser. However, everything has a price and since I have to pay for everything mechanical on the car I have to be careful. I still plan to put a carb, intake, air filter, and cam into the car. I did however, fall into quite a windfall. A friend of my mom's at work donated some Hooker Headers to the car. They are really nice. To put it in simple terms they are the Cadillac of headers. The gentleman that donated them has his own Monte Carlo but since he did some suspension work to his he can't use them. So once again, thanks. I now have to do some research and figure out what I have to do with my allotted budget. It's actually quite fun to work on my car in school. I feel like an alien stumbling into math smelling like motor oil. I had to tell my teacher that she couldn't have my pass because I needed the gear ratios on the back. My life at this point is school and work and that's about it. This 500 dollar machine is becoming my solace from a life that moves at a million miles an hour. For two hours a day all that I have to do is work on the car and it's the best part of my day. I can't believe that when I first saw this car I didn't want it. Now I couldn't imagine a life without it. In a weird way its saving me as I am saving it.

Finally Drove The Car

We  have gotten a long way since I last wrote in. We put the brakes back together, laid the new lines, bleed the brakes, and actually drove the car. Laying the brake lines was simple but time consuming. Laying on concrete in a hundred degree heat is not a good time. Whilst bleeding the brakes I broke a wheel cylinder and we decided  to replace them both. However, it all paid off in the end. We were able to drive the car again and nothing went wrong. It runs alright. Admittedly, it does want to die every now and then when you let off the gas but besides that it's fine. The weird thing is that we couldn't find a problem with the trans. We simply poured in more fluid and it worked like a charm. The problem now is that we're at a standstill. The next major step is pulling the engine out but I'm going to do that when school starts so now it's onto the little things. For example, we're going to put in shocks. Trust me, the Monte doesn't pass a bounce test. Also, on a bit of a side note, a five dollar roller broke in the window and it's going to be hard as hell to fix. I wish I could say that it was incredibly exciting to drive but it really wasn't. I am finally starting to see the full expanse of what lies ahead. However, even though the road ahead is still quit long the journey would be no fun if there wasn't a series of bends in the way. If it was already a turnkey car then it wouldn't be personal. In the end this machine, this red rusty hulk, will be mine and that's all that matters. Yes old cars rarely work but that doesn't matter. They are one of the very few objects in the world that become part of you even with their foibles. This Monte Carlo might be trying at times but it still is something special. No matter how hard it gets I know that it will never lose that old car magic. It can't when you think about it. It's not like it's getting any younger.

We Finally Have Gotten off the Ground

Well, since I last wrote on this blog we have done a lot. My father and I moved the car closer to the building and onto a concrete pad so it is easier to work on. Then we jacked the car up and took off the wheels. We got under the car and found that it was undercoated which basically saved the car. The only rust hole in the floor is caused by the rear window leaking into the car. However, the hole is small and should be easily fixable. The car is still up for a lot of sitting which is why I ordered stainless steel brake lines so they wouldn't rust. We then took apart the front brakes and are going to have the old rotors lathed again. They will rust and get pitted again but that's okay. We just want to get the car stopping so we can drive it around the parking lot. It will make the car more manageable along with helping us figure out what other problems it has. The other goal of getting the brakes to work is so we can try to coax the problems that the transmission is supposed to have out of the car. The final thing that we have done is wrap a plastic tarp around the rear window. Yes, it is very redneck but it would be nice to try to stop some of the rust. The rear window rusting has caused most of this cars body problems and it would be nice to try and stop more rust from spreading. I almost forgot, I took off the backing plates and sandblasted them to get the grime off. Then I repainted them and slapped them back onto the car. It is actually nice to see this car being taken apart. For the first time since I got the thing it is actually going somewhere positive. It is nice to stop cleaning the thing and actually start fixing it. Over the next week or so we will install the brake lines and drop the trans out to get it fixed. Slowly but surely the car is coming along. The Monte has already gone from a lawn ornament to a proper (albeit broken) car. It's nice to know that its days on the road are far from over. If this restoration goes well this car will last much longer than I will and that brings up a rather interesting point. You never really own a car, you just look after it for the next generation.

The car is now at its new home

You can really see the paint difference between the waxed and unwaxed panels

We finally picked the car up from the owners house and brought it to a friends  shop. The car was parked behind the old owners house so we had to tow it out before we could get it onto a trailer. I hopped into the car and manned the wheel while our mechanic friend, Gerry, towed it with his truck. When I went to stop the car the brakes (at the bottom of the pedal's throw) stopped the car. We then secured it onto the trailer. I talked to the old owner and he said that his dad had owned a 1976 Monte Carlo when he was a kid and that he and his wife dated in the car. He also said that his kids have driven my Monte Carlo to various school dances. He then gave me a whole packet which had the original ad that he answered to buy the car along with the cars service history. However, the most important thing in there was the original build sheet. The old owners were sad to see the car go. Which makes sense, they had owned the car since 1989. When we got the car to Gerry's shop we got it off the trailer and it stopped itself again. Gerry is letting us keep the car there and use his knowledge and tools. From the bottom of my heart, thanks Gerry. The next day my father and I got to the car and we gave it a good old vacuuming. We started in the engine bay and worked our way through the whole car. We found an old pop can under the passenger seat and a 1957 Chevrolet Hot Wheel under the spare tire in the trunk. When I was a kid I used to play with my hot wheels in the trunk of the Chrysler. An omen? We then used an all purpose cleaner on the interior. It was then that my dad got the bright idea to start the car. I instantly said no but he was already off to get starter fluid. He came back and poured the starter fluid down the carb. He then grabbed jumper cables and hooked them up to the battery. He finally had me goose the pedal and turn the key. Much to our surprise the car thundered to life. I then backed off the throttle and it idled beautifully. We then decided to see if the car would move. I put it into reverse. The car started to roll backward. The brakes decided to give out at that point and the engine started to spew smoke. I slammed it into park and turned the car off. We figured out that it had an oil leak and figured that we would tackle that later. After lunch we power washed all of the grime off the car. We then waxed it and brought that old paint back to life. We then realized that the car had hail damage and the grime was able to cover up the little craters in the body. Day one was over. The next day I had to work so my dad went to go clean up the car. With the help of one of the mechanics at Gerry's named Eddie he got the car running again. It was idling fine until Eddie stepped on the brake and then it started to spew smoke again. So it wasn't a valve cover gasket. It was a rotted brake line. This all explains why the brakes were gone. The day after that I was off of work so I got to work on the car again. My father and I power washed the engine bay and waxed the back half of the car. The paint is different on the right rear quarter and trunk. It's terrible paint that doesn't even match the factory stuff. However, the whole car is going to be repainted so it's alright. The great thing about the car being clean is that it makes the whole thing look salvageable. We decided that the next thing that we are going to do is the brakes. Then we are going to get the trans out and get it fixed. Sadly I need the shop to do brakes so I have to wait until I'm off of work and it's a weekend. But, whatever. It's a long summer. Another thing that one of Gerry's mechanics named Robert noticed is that the car is a California emissions car which makes zero sense. It was made in Missouri. Needless to say, all of that emissions stuff is going away. Saving the environment is great but more power is better. The coolest thing about this car is that after spending a couple days on it I know one thing. It's going to be awesome when it's done.

The Car

When I first learned about this car I didn't want it. It was simply to new. I am a muscle car guy and a late 70's Monte is pretty far from that. I spent my whole day trying to find ways to gently tell my father that I didn't want it. However, when I first laid eyes on the car I liked it more than I wanted to. Those post-OPEC lines still looked mean. It was like 70's America was trying to prove that those little Datsun 510's couldn't top it. The car looked rough but it had potential. It had quite a lot of rust around the rear-window. It also needed a new trunk pan along with a patch-weld in the floor pan. Sadly, the list just goes on. However, I thought that it was a sharp looking car. The 350 small block was also a nice bonus. I figured that I could do quite a bit to that motor. My father and I walked away from the car and decided that we could discuss what to do with the car over the next couple days. I then went back to trying to forget about the thing. I still had my heart set on a muscle car. The problem was I liked the car and when my dad called the owner of the car on Sunday he didn't answer his phone. My heart sank. I feared that he had second thoughts, or he lost his phone, or the phone number was wrong. The truth was I had built myself up if you couldn't tell. The next day my dad texted me that he had negotiated a price and we were going to get the car. That night we went over with my mother  and I meet the owner and his wife, along with his son and daughter. My dad paid the man and we talked for awhile. He bought the car in 1989 and he drove it quite a bit. However, he parked it in 2006 and it has sat ever since. I believe the reason was that the thing had transmission troubles. Before selling the car the owner did however ask for one simple thing. He wanted to see the car when it was being restored. I was happy to agree. It's cool how he seems to still be a bit attached to it. When you think about it some of his life was played out in that car and it must be a bit hard to see it go. Non-car people don't seem to get this but you can become attached to a car. Most people just see a machine but they are so much more. I then went to go poke around the car for the first time. I should have been seeing dollar signs and hours of work but all I could see was open roads. The smell of freshly cut grass accented by the symphony of a V8. The car had gone from a daydream into reality. I was seeing some of my life playing out in the driver's seat and it was exciting. I was walking away from the car and the previous owner came out and handed me the keys. They were well worn and they felt right in my hand. For the first time, I was holding the keys to my Monte. The plan for this car is to get the body fixed and get all of the mechanicals in working order. I also plan to do a slight buildup in the motor. I was thinking a lumpier cam, headers (if I can find them), a four-barrel carb and intake, along with a open air filter, and finally duel exhaust. The car won't be much faster but it should sound awesome. I have never restored a car before and even though I am getting professional help there will still be a serious learning curve. But hey, it's all about the journey for me and the car. I hope that you read along and experience it with us. I don't know how often I will write on here but I think I will try for once a week. Since I will be working the times that I can work on the car will be sporadic. However, the keys still feel good in my hand. I have no idea where this road is going to lead but I'll tell you one thing. Those Datsun's better run when my Monte rolls up.