1966 Fury III - Unfinished Project

Philip Andrews

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Howdy, all.

I am proud(?!) to intruduce y'all to my latest vehicle- The Unfinished Project: '66 Fury III.

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Hot on the heels of my previous car ('51 Pontiac Chieftain) this is taking up residence in the garage representing the next decade along.
It has a sad backstory- rescued from a farm, it's a white with blue interior, 318 auto car which was purchased by the previous owner in Mississippi. He was in the Navy and bought the car to fix up for his son to drive when he turned 16. He handed the car off to a bodyshop because he was being stationed out of state for a while; they were given instructions to fix up the body, smooth off the trim, de-handle, de-seam and make a nice semi-custom job. They sent photos, sent invoices which he was paying, sending them parts as they requested... He got back a little early to find the car as you see it there- painted badly in his son's choice of color (mauve poly) with a few tubs of Bondo thrown at it from a distance.
They rebuilt the engine. Oh yes they did! Very well!
6 pistons were in the wrong bank (rods backwards), the worst bores are nearly 0.008" over size from being whizzed hard with a dingleball leading to the worst ring gap of 0.030" on already 0.040" overbore pots. The valve rockers were put in randomly and a couple rings were on upside down. My guess is they were Ford or Chevy guys. Or just cowboys. No telling.

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So, I put it back together and checked see if it ran- it does, after a fashion but it'll have some serious piston slap. Shame, as the crank is excellent and within tolerances. It's got good oil pressure. It'll get the car mobile, at least. The transmission was rebuilt by painting it black. Most excellent.

The interior, well, that's mostly junk. Knew that much. The seats and frames are good, really just need recovering, but it needs a new dash and while the headliner is moderately good it's brittle and has a few poor repairs. The floor is gone in the usual spots because the firewall has gone in the usual spots and leaked, causing the looping rust issues. Gonna sort that out. Trunk too, that has a repair panel that's been attached with pigeon-poop around part of its periphery (to come out and be redone).
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Seen worse. Bodyshop repaired it by painting it over with red oxide.

I been stripping the stainless trim pieces off the gutters and around the rear window last night (gotta love those trim clips, but they're easier than getting the strips off a bent gutter rail).
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Something's hit the rail but nothing else is bent or dented and that prevented me getting the trim off cleanly which burns my behind. One spot needs a little new metal letting in and the rest will dolly straight enough for the trim to hide the wrinkles.

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I deleted the "trim delete". Trim is going back on. It's a Fury 3, not a Fury 1. They zotted a couple holes up with weld but didn't dress anything back.
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Window trim out, and the (known about because of the sharp filler edges on the top of the scuttle) crunchy Mopar-standard screen corner rot is present- doesn't look too advanced but I know the scuttle is holed so that'll take a few small patches.
I don't think the rubber is flexible enough to allow the glass to come out so that'll probably end up getting cut off and forcibly ejected so I can sort the window aperture out properly.

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All good fun, I'll put the outer lights in the "For Sale" section because they are in good shape but for Fury I/II so are the narrow surround version.

So, there you go. Gonna have a fun time undoing Doctor Bondo's work and making good again. Also, the mauve is growing on me the more I look at it. I think it'll go either the same color or a darker flat purple. Time will tell.

Phil
 
Doctor Bondo calling!
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Bashed away at the rear scuttle out of morbid curiosity. Right there, there's no reason for any Bondo at all.
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Slapped a bit of paint over the bare metal to stop it rusting for now. Wire cup brush is the wrong tool for panel areas like this, I need to get some stripping discs for my angle grinder.

Fun and games. I have a feeling this is gonna end up totally stripped to bare metal all over by the end of it...

Phil
 
All in all, it's good that the bodywork repairs (!!!) are visible so you can (relatively easily) correct things and progress.

Sad to think folks are so unscrupulous as to paint the gearbox and pretend it was rebuilt, although considering the job done on the engine it's a good thing if indeed that's all they did.

Best wishes with your car
 
All in all, it's good that the bodywork repairs (!!!) are visible so you can (relatively easily) correct things and progress.

Sad to think folks are so unscrupulous as to paint the gearbox and pretend it was rebuilt, although considering the job done on the engine it's a good thing if indeed that's all they did.

Best wishes with your car

Thank you.

I feel more sorry for the guy who I bought it from, as he was taken for a ride. The price he paid he could've bought a nice one (in fact, after that debacle he cut his losses and bought a nicely restored Olds Holiday 88) so with this car, I'm not in overly deep.
Deeper than some may consider cheap but I took a look and the difficult to repair parts are solid, and the main strength of the car (rockers, A and C pillars, firewall) are in good shape, just the front of the floor pan needs attention and the usual grotty spors where dirt sits and holds water. I have the difference in cost in boxes of new parts that if the body was hiding more than I initially thought, I could break up, sell the parts and recoup that way.
I am not looking for a show-n-shine, just a presentable daily driver.

My saving is always in labor- I like fixing things myself. I find the knowledge is highly valuable. Going a little off-topic, but delving into my first automatic transmission rebuild was an interesting challenge (Detroit Gear/GM Hydra-Matic) but I gained a good working knowledge of the thing and as such fear it a lot less if it decides to go wrong on the highway. Same with this- at least by '66 a lot of working practises had been ratified and are more "normal" by the standards I grew up with (1980's).
The engineering is still very "human", you can see the thought process and design that went into the machine.

It's going to be a fun ride, either way.


Phil
 
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Okay, there's the hole. Inner brace panel is pretty ropey and there's a lot of typical surface rust in there that needs to be addressed. The drip rail rusted through in both corners at the seam by looks of it (normal) and took the left side of the brace panel with it.
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So the drip rail needs doing properly and the left side of the inner brace needs to be recreated.

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The rest of the repair is just going to be amending lots of little pinholes where Chrysler didn't see fit to paint or add any kind of corrosion protection in places that water will sit. Superb.

Phil
 
I burns my hid when I hear of someone getting hosed, let alone a member of the military. I hope he notified the proper folks on base because they will put the word out.

As I understand, it was taken care of.
He just wants to see the car used and enjoyed. My plan is for my kids to have as a car to tool about in when they're old enough to drive.

Phil
 
Store didn't have any polycarbide stripping wheels so I decided to make do with a flapwheel instead.
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That should make fairly short work of the paint and filler- do need to bring the car outside for that.
First though, I need to pull the interior trim out and remove the headlining, and see if I can coerce the rear glass out without breaking it.

Phil
 
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The point of no return. Took the old, brittle rubber under the knife.
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Carefully prised it up all around and lifted it out.
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This is significantly less bad than I thought it would be. Still need to look at the other side. That's worse underneath, too.

Phil
 
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This side is not as bad as I thought it would be. There's a couple of small holes. I was expecting the entire lower portion of the gutter to be gone.

Phil
 
...also, another question.

How does the steel strip above the doors come off? I don't want to start prying at it and get it all bent out of shape. The rear window trim is easy, that just unscrews but there are no visible screws holding the side trim in place.

Thanks

Phil
 
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Flap wheel time! Pushed the car outside and started attacking the pounds of filler in the scuttle.
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The panel isn't immensely bad. A couple pinholes in the corners.
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Grabbed the first full can of a color that I don't really need for anything else.
So, in the gloss it's much easier to see that there's a small ripple and two dinks that need to be dollied out.

Went so much filler, people? I should've bought shares in Bondo before this guy started.

Phil
 
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Flap wheel time! Pushed the car outside and started attacking the pounds of filler in the scuttle.
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The panel isn't immensely bad. A couple pinholes in the corners.
View attachment 460343
Grabbed the first full can of a color that I don't really need for anything else.
So, in the gloss it's much easier to see that there's a small ripple and two dinks that need to be dollied out.

Went so much filler, people? I should've bought shares in Bondo before this guy started.

Phil
The factory was actually fairly heavy on bondo in that area.
 
It's raining, so time for a little.. time.
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Item No. 1: Fury dash clock. Dirty, scratched, non functional.

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Popped it out of the case. Moderately clean inside, surprisingly.

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Eyeballed the mechanism. It's a spring-wound clockwork clock, with the mainspring providing a minute or so of running time before a solenoid winds it again. However, inspection showed the balance wheel was stuck, the escapement wheel bent and the pallets out of position.

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Reason? Well, the solenoid was open circuit and upon removal, rather crispy. The clock had jammed, overheated and made a mess of the mechanism. So, I knocked the solenoid to pieces and unwound it.

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212 turns of 0.0125" wire (28ga). I don't have any of that in stock so I'll get a spool ordered and rewind the solenoid. That should get the clock working again.

Phil
 
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Had a few minutes tonight so I made a new insulating stop to go over the power bus. Fabricated from a faucet washer, it's better than the dried up, crunchy one that was on there.
Only small things, but important.

Phil
 
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Stack of stripping discs arrived in the mail today so I decided to dig into the rear of the car.
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Ah, yes. Poorly prepped steel, rust, filler, high build primer, primer, paint.
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On average, between 1/16" and 1/8" deep, all over. Why?
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So, eyeball the gentle rolling hills, undulations and kinky swage.
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Stripped back, that's... Better. The swage is dented in two places and there's a few creases and dinks in the rear upper quarter.

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Little bit of reshaping and the swage is straight, and the biggest creases are gone.

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More of the gloss blue and the wrinkles in the upper quarter are more evident, but the swage is good. I need a decent dolly and slap, the anti-drum coating needs to come off the inside and then I can spend a bit more time dressing that flat.

Then, just a very light skim of filler to take up the dinks, not an entire truckload.

Wire for the clock should be in tomorrow.

Phil
 
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Wire came in so I rewound the electromagnet and staked it back in place.

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Tick tick tick CLUNK tick tick tick.

Winds itself up again which is great.
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Got it sat on my bench supply to see how well it keeps time.

Phil
 
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