1967 Plymouth Sport Fury convertible project

[jippek]

I promised to start a new thread for my first car project ever and here it starts. I will use first posting as the history and technical detail sheet and then add pictures as the projects proceeds. As the project has been started when I bought the car in 2011, I will have a bunch of updates to do.

So here it goes...



1967 Sport Fury Convertible

The car was bought on Christmas Eve in 1966 in Great Rapids, Michigan. I have been able to contact the 2 sons of the original buyer and have been exchanging few emails. Unfortunately they had had the car for less than a year because it was crashed quite badly already in fall 1967. There were few documents (or what was left of them) in the car's glovebox and I can see from them some history starting from 1997 until now. I have the names of the previous owners, but it seems that finding email addresses is impossible. But the years between 1967 and 1997 are totally in darkness. Perhaps Fury has been laying somewhere in the fields...

VIN number decoded:
Body Type: P = Plymouth Fury
Price Class: H = High
Body Type: 27 = Convertible
Engine: F = 318 230HP 1-2BBL 8 CYL
Year: 7 = 1967

Fender tag:

CAR: Plymouth Sport Fury 2 Door Convertible
ENGINE: 318cid 2-bbl V8
TRANSMISSION: 3-Speed Automatic
TIRES: Unknown tire code
MODEL YEAR: 1967
BUILD DATE: December 13.
AXLE: 2.94 Rear Axle Ratio
INTERIOR: High Trim Grade, Vinyl Bucket Seats. Black Interior.
PAINT: Gold Metallic (Dodge, Plymouth), Spice Gold Metallic (Chrysler), Cinnamon Gold Metallic (Imperial).
OTHER: Black Horizontal Accent Stripe.

MOLDINGS:

ABC OPTIONS:
R1: AM Radio
X2: Tinted Windshield Only
Y1: Black Convertible Top

abc OPTIONS:
h7: Fender or Hood Mounted Turn Signal Indicators
j4: Moulding - Body Sill Narrow
u1: Sold Car When Built (Somebody Ordered It)

 

[1978 NYB]

Sounds like a nice car. Do you have any pictures?

 

[detmatt]

They're in a different thread Bob along with his B250 if I'm not mistaken.

 

[jippek]

May, 2011

I bought the Fury from the man who had imported it from the US. The paint job was terrible if you looked closer, from far away it was bearable. The engine was running, but not too well. The seller had tuned the ignition so that I was able to drive the car home, but I could not keep the roof in place (it was closer to 0 celsius degrees) during the drive because of the gasoline fumes...

So first I had to fix the ignition. I decided to go from point to pointless, since it would be a lot easier to tune and get running. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures of that... So this is how the engine compartment looked like in the beginning (after the ignition fix):



Because the response to throttle was not satisfactory, I went crazy and bought new 4-bbl Holley with new air cleaner and Edelbrock intake manifold:



And some installation pictures:







Some difference:

 

[jippek]

Sounds like a nice car. Do you have any pictures?

Will be adding into this thread as well.

 

[jippek]

Now the engine was running very smoothly. Almost next day the gas tank started to leak and the reason was very worn filler neck grommet:





After fixing that, the tank started to leak from under the straps from 2 different locations, which I took care with chemical metal. Pretty clear that the tank got itself on the "list".

 

[70NPORT]

May, 2011

I bought the Fury from the man who had imported it from the US. The paint job was terrible if you looked closer, from far away it was bearable. The engine was running, but not too well. The seller had tuned the ignition so that I was able to drive the car home, but I could not keep the roof in place (it was closer to 0 celsius degrees) during the drive because of the gasoline fumes...

So first I had to fix the ignition. I decided to go from point to pointless, since it would be a lot easier to tune and get running. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures of that... So this is how the engine compartment looked like in the beginning (after the ignition fix):



Because the response to throttle was not satisfactory, I went crazy and bought new 4-bbl Holley with new air cleaner and Edelbrock intake manifold:



And some installation pictures:







Some difference:

Looks like you had everything apart, why not do the cam swap too if you were looking for more get up and go?

 

[jippek]

Looks like you had everything apart, why not do the cam swap too if you were looking for more get up and go?

Well actually the engine seen in the pictures has moulding year 1974. I just bought another engine with moulding year 1967 --> this will be a matching numbers then. But that will be in couple of years, since that engine will be put to pieces and renewed totally

 

[jippek]

The power steering pressure hose was leaking too, so it was time to change that as well.





The new intake manifold and carburetor had a small challenge with engine heating up. Every time I stopped somewhere, the engine heated the carburetor so hot that all gas was evaporated away and the starting lasted several seconds. To fix that I bought this aluminum piece between the manifold and carburetor:



I was also tuning the Holley with alternative secondary diaphgram springs and jets. While I was changing the jet, I had small accident, luckily there are a lot of used holleys out there... Don't tighten too much...



The top was not in that good shape and I bought some boat cover treatment material and now the top shined. However the top got into the list as well as you can see from the picture --> new top ordered already.



Later in the summer while I was cruising in the dark and needed to use high beam --> quite soon the lights started to blink like a christmas tree. After investigation I realized that in the original there is a heat resistor in the light switch. And as the new light bulps are something like 75W and 100W, the heat resistor starts to break the circuit quite quickly. So it was time to build a relay based lighting. Unfortunately I also noticed that the headlights were made in India... not too original.

 

[1978 NYB]

A lot of progress in a short time. Good work!!!

Where are you located?

 

[detmatt]

Agreed, keep up the good work on a worthy car. It obviously found a good home with you, unless you paint it pink....

 

[jippek]

A lot of progress in a short time. Good work!!!

Where are you located?

Thanks, altough these pictures are already 2 years old, but all done during one summer
And there is still stuff coming from there, e.g. full exhaust renovation.

I am located in the middle of Finland in a small town called Ähtäri (<--link).

 

[jippek]

Agreed, keep up the good work on a worthy car. It obviously found a good home with you, unless you paint it pink....

no worries, it is either gold or white or red or blue, hell, I cannot make up my mind yet.

 

[commando1]

And as the new light bulps are something like 75W and 100W...

So you're the plick who blinded me last night.

 

[jippek]

So you're the plick who blinded me last night.

No, no, it was the other guy

 

[commando1]

Lots of those "other guys" down here. ;-)

 

[jippek]

July 2011

Of course the next challenge started with the exhaust silencer, it started to leak more and more. This model is equipped with one common exhaust pipe, but I decided to renew the whole exhaust system with dual pipes.

I ordered the whole thing from Martelius. Unfortunately they did not have the exact model existing, but they did the first draft based on some other C-body. It was not a perfect match yet and I decided to cruise down to their shop and within couple of hours it was installed and bend to correct angles. This system is totally done without any welding, just bending and attaching pipes.

Some pictures

Here it is assembled on the ground:





And installed under the car:

 

[1978 NYB]

That new exhaust is looking pretty good!

 

[70NPORT]

Damn seeing c body exhaust system sitting on the ground by itself really shows just how long these cars are.

 

[commando1]

Damn fine job on the installation. I see several areas where others usually "cheap out".