rockwater
New Member
Hi all, first want to say thank you for all the wonderful information on this forum and your contributions. Have already found a good amount of information that will help me bring an Imperial back. Read through the bajajoaquin thread and really liked the story progress and all the information.
So the backstory, my dad is a bit of a car collector, though not a huge Mopar guy. He came across a 1966 Imperial for sale in 1989, mostly rust free and seemingly most things were working. This was in the midst of the demolition derby period where they were sending many an Imperial to the fair to smash poor unsuspecting Fords and GMs, so he didn't want that future for it. He drove it for about 200 miles before parking it in the back of the barn with some other cars he didn't care to work on at the time.
A few years ago my dad mentioned there were a few car shows he'd like to attend that he'd never attempted before. So we've been working our way through some of them, but we now need a cruiser that the 3 of us can comfortably ride in. That brings me to current, where we pulled the Imperial out after sitting for just around 30 years.
I'll see if can add some pictures at some point. It was very very dirty, but is cleaning up fairly well. Was a bit of pitting on some chrome, probably from 30 years of humid Kansas weather, but seems to be polishing out fairly well. Passenger side is pretty solid, couple surface rust spots that will need to be addressed. Driver side has some cancer behind rear wheel and around arch, so that will be a bodywork project for winter. Goal isn't for a perfect restoration, just something for the family and I to take in some cruise nights and have a bit unique cruiser, so my novice bodywork skills may suffice for now.
After replacing the points, condenser, rotor, coil, checking fluids, and putting a camera in the tank, the 440 fired with a bit of gas down the carb. Seemed to fire up pretty decent after its 30 year hibernation. Camera in the gas tank showed it dry and fairly debris free, was put away pre-ethanol I'm thinking, so hoping wasn't too much damage done. Put a few gallons of non-ethanol gas in the tank, but so far am unable to get it to pull fuel. New fuel pump is on order and will get it installed next weekend.
So just wanted to say hi and introduce my little project here, hopefully will have another Imperial out cruising around here in the somewhat relative future. Thank you again for the great information on this board, will try to support some site sponsors as progress through this project.
So the backstory, my dad is a bit of a car collector, though not a huge Mopar guy. He came across a 1966 Imperial for sale in 1989, mostly rust free and seemingly most things were working. This was in the midst of the demolition derby period where they were sending many an Imperial to the fair to smash poor unsuspecting Fords and GMs, so he didn't want that future for it. He drove it for about 200 miles before parking it in the back of the barn with some other cars he didn't care to work on at the time.
A few years ago my dad mentioned there were a few car shows he'd like to attend that he'd never attempted before. So we've been working our way through some of them, but we now need a cruiser that the 3 of us can comfortably ride in. That brings me to current, where we pulled the Imperial out after sitting for just around 30 years.
I'll see if can add some pictures at some point. It was very very dirty, but is cleaning up fairly well. Was a bit of pitting on some chrome, probably from 30 years of humid Kansas weather, but seems to be polishing out fairly well. Passenger side is pretty solid, couple surface rust spots that will need to be addressed. Driver side has some cancer behind rear wheel and around arch, so that will be a bodywork project for winter. Goal isn't for a perfect restoration, just something for the family and I to take in some cruise nights and have a bit unique cruiser, so my novice bodywork skills may suffice for now.
After replacing the points, condenser, rotor, coil, checking fluids, and putting a camera in the tank, the 440 fired with a bit of gas down the carb. Seemed to fire up pretty decent after its 30 year hibernation. Camera in the gas tank showed it dry and fairly debris free, was put away pre-ethanol I'm thinking, so hoping wasn't too much damage done. Put a few gallons of non-ethanol gas in the tank, but so far am unable to get it to pull fuel. New fuel pump is on order and will get it installed next weekend.
So just wanted to say hi and introduce my little project here, hopefully will have another Imperial out cruising around here in the somewhat relative future. Thank you again for the great information on this board, will try to support some site sponsors as progress through this project.