Bringing my first car back to life - 67 Fury 4dr hardtop

[fury413rb]

Ive been a member on here for awhile (2011) but I never post. I may have made an intro post back then but here it goes. I just pulled my car from about 4-5 years of storage. I put it away when I was in late college and Ive been bouncing around for 3 years at work. Ive finally made a home "for now" in Tulsa, OK. I originally am from NW Indiana, Hobart, specifically.

I've got a lot of history with the ol' boat. The car is more me than I am.

Here it goes...

I bought my car Feb. 11 2002 right before my 14th birthday and it was my "first car". My dad had a '67 Fury III convertible in the mid 70's in highschool and my grandfather had one brand new in '67. Both 383-2bbl cars.

So with all my lawnmowing, paintball tank filling money as a 14 year old (and obviously financial help from the parents) we flew from Chicago to Hillsboro, OR (outside Portland) and picked up the car basically sight unseen after winning the car off ebay for $1500.

There was a little bit of miscommunication back then (internet was quite as good back then) and while the car did "run and drive" it was nowhere near ready to drive across the country. We new we were crazy and it was going to be an adventure because "Why not?" We had checked toolboxes, rebuilt carb and some random other parts and planned on picking up spares in OR before we left.

Jamie, the guy we bought it from thought we were completely insane. He had a barn full of 2 door big block mopars of all kinds and this car I think was a family members that he couldnt "Derby because it was too nice." He picked us up from the airport in a 80s crew cab long bed dodge with a transplanted 440 in it that was pretty hilarious. Great guy.

Well, the car had 4 different size tires on so we limped it immediately to a sears to get tires as it was the first place we saw. The brakes had to be constantly pumped up at that point. We werent really prepared for brake work. We get it into the sears and they toss on the finest set of 215/70-14 whitewalls they had and would absolutely not work on the brakes as it was 4 wheel drums. All 4 cylinders were leaking and it needed a master. Basically we were at whits end trying to find a shop to work on the car before we started pulling it apart in a parking lot.

We actually end up finding a small classic car only family owned shop. They literally worked all night on the car and took us back and forth from the hotel. THey wouldnt even let us buy them food! They must have liked our story or just again thought we were insane and wanted us out of Oregon! So new cylinders, hoses, shoes, hardware kits and a master the 4 wheel drums were ready to go!


The car actually ran great the rest of the way home. It was warm in the NW and it did get colder and snowier as we drove. My Dad let me drive the car through a part of Wyoming where the speed limit was 80mph. I was so short at the time I had to look between the wheel and the dash. My grandpa was not enthused. We ran into some snow in Denver but made it back to Chicago in about 3 days of relaxed driving. 17.6mpg total for the trip with the ol' 318-2bl.

So I am in 8th grade at this point and I now have a giant car in the garage. My step-mom and my mom were also not enthused but hey... My dad, grandpa and I thought it was pretty damn cool.

Ill continue the through high school shenanigans and into college to present day in the next post. Engine transplant from a wrecked imperial, big cams, crappy paint and all kinds of fun!

 

[furyus 67]

Great story! You basically just described my fury! Bad paint, big cam and a 413! Let's see some pics of the ole' boat!

 

[67-Fury]

Yes Sir let's see some pictures please.

 

[cld]

Fantastic story. Keep going!

 

[fury413rb]

Ended up buying a '64 imperial crown coupe that had been hit in the back and was missing most of the trim. Pulled the 413 and it sat in the garage until I made it to highschool.

Ended up doing a stock type rebuild as my first engine build my sophomore year. I was one of the last kids in auto shop to do anything and the program was pulled not that long after as well as wood and metal shop. Did a .030" and .010 under on the crank. Had a shop do the stock heads and I put a mild purpleshaft cam in it with the factory 4 barrel intake, a 6000cfm edelbrock and the humpback HP exhaust manifolds.

In the time between being 14 and getting my license my dad and I put a 3.55 sure grip pig in, front and rear sway bars - had to weld brackets in the front and put new carpet in it. I paid 1500 to have the car painted which now 7-8 years or whatever later I wish I didnt as they used a lot of mud to fill dents. But I worked fixing flats and pumping full serve gas as well as life guarding so my money didnt go too far!
My dad under the imp spring of 2002

the 413 swinging in the air - I'm 14 years old in the picture. LEft the trans and ended up selling it back to the guy who canibilized it for what was left. It was rougher that it looked. Springs through the trunk!

we had to roll the stand on gravel to the garage. The parents just had a new garage built and this was before the driveway was redone haha

Pictures with the 413 in highschool autoshop and on the back of my dad's 62 vette. We drove it from Oak Park, IL to Buffalo, NY for the corvair national convention. People were too excited about that but the corvair was still being restored.

with my shop teacher I'm 16/17 in these pics

Picture of the car in the spring of 2004 when I was 16 just after getting my license. Fresh cheap paint job, still running the 318 and some sport fury hub caps.

Picture of my dad towing his corvair before getting restored with my car in the background. That car is another story. He was featured in Automobile magainze a couple months ago for that car.

My senior year of highschool. My friends '68 C10 with a 383 SBC and another's '70 fastback mustang. We thought we were soooo coool. At this point the car has a 3200 stall converter, edelbrock rpm intake, 650 double pumper, xe284h cam and the HP exhaust manifolds. It ran ok but was about 14.50s if I remember correctly. Way too much came but hey I wanted it to idle "badass". The edelbrock 600, stock iron manifold and purpleshaft cam didnt last too long - had to mess with it!

 

[fury413rb]

Fall of 2006 I went to Purdue Univeristy for ME and the car sat in storage while I was at school. Money was a little tight obviously but the summer between freshman and sophomore year I got a job as a pest control guy. Driving around all summer listening to XRT and Q101 from Chicago spraying bugs HAHA!

I had a thunderbird turbocoupe as a daily driver and I ended up getting hit buy a guy running a stop sign. So with the insurance money what do I do? Buy shumacher tri y headers and 440 source aluminum heads! I also ended up buying a $500 ford danger ranger for a DD for the summer that had 300k on it too. I ended up buying a couple U and J bends and using a chop saw and my crappy flux welder making exhaust for it. Did an H pipe and dumped it ahead of the axle.

That ended up dropping the car to 13.8x at just over 100mph. I put a 6A box, pro billet distributor, 750 double pumper and hoosier QTP 26x11 tires. All used! Summer of 07-08

MAllory distributor still in it. It looks pretty ratty at this point!

staging lanes... we use to have stickers on our cars saying babyshakers racing lol... not too PC

heres a video - summer of 2007 I am pretty sure

portable video was pretty crappy back then on the old point and shoot cameras

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[fury413rb]

Trying to find pictures of the trip when we bought it! Too easy to lose real photos sometimes

 

[fury413rb]

So the car pretty much ended up sitting untouched from about the fall of 2010 until this may. I ended up putting it into my buddies barn at his shop next to his rotary powered mazda truck - P.A. Motorsports down in Lafayette.

you can see the sumped tank -8 line and catridge filter and holley black pump in this pick. Also the crappy rechrome bumper failling too as well as the start of the quarters failing. I got reended one summer and the insurance rechrome job sucked.

 

[fury413rb]

So it sat in that barn until May of this year up in Lafayette! Ill post the current state and how I got it down to OK in a few. I cleaned up a few things in college so it doesnt look quite as ratty as it does in those old engine pics. Still the main thing I will be doing is "un-highschooling" the car!

 

[detmatt]

Welcome back from the Motor City! Love the roofline on those and your story is great. Sad about the shop classes at your old high school for sure!

 

[The Horvaths]

Greetings from Dallas. We like pictures.

 

[furyus 67]

Thecar looks great! Sounds pretty mean too!

 

[Joe Sportone]

This was a cool post. Enjoyed it. Love the sound of that engine!

 

[fury413rb]

i forgot to update this! My girlfriend and I drove up to Indy for the 500 and to help a friend with a vintage car and we towed the Fury back from my buddies barn in Lafayette! It had been about three years since it had been out of the barn.

first time the cars been in a garage with me for a long time!

So I have just been cruising the car around. The quarters are really really rough now which sucks. I ordered some of those half quarters off ebay. Getting ready to pull the seats to have them recovered as they are pretty jacked up. The headliner is still perfect and the door panels needs some cleaning up and some love.

Time to fix all the little crap and stupid stuff I did to it in college.

The List
- get the seats out and to a reupholstery shop
- pull the dash, replace burned out bulbs (can I do LED?), ammeter bypass, install clock delete plate and maybe my radio delete plate, fix heater directional cable (wont got off, only heat and defrost), trace factory temp gauge wire ( tired of looking at a dead gauge but I have full 2 5/8 autometers in the car now)
-valvecover gaskets, new thermostat housing, replace alum radiator with a new alum radiator that can use the factory fan shroud (currently no shroud on the car with a crossflow alum)
-remove holley black pump and replumb car for high flow mech pump (lessen load on charging system) currently all -8 from the sump to the carb

-looking around at body shops to do the quarters. I dont really want to paint the whole car but the back of the rockers are doing so hot either.

What do you guys think?


-

 

[fury413rb]

the girlfriend's dog was not amused

also, need to align the hood at some point! Its hard to put back on by yourself!

 

[fury413rb]

She still runs alright too....

 

[The Horvaths]

Car looks good to me. As for the paint, do you live in a city area? It may not be a good idea to spend a lot of money on a nice paint job, just to have someone in a Camry open their door on ya. I would live with it for awhile and drive it... a lot.

 

[mr. fix it]

that is too cool!!! Thanks for posting!

 

[67-Fury]

Love the green interior and the Dodge dog dish hubcaps lol.

 

[Boomer]

also, need to align the hood at some point! Its hard to put back on by yourself!

You discovered that to, eh? Just went through it with my '66 300, and the left rear corner is still sticking up a bit on mine, too. But it's on and closes for now. Also have some weak quarters to deal with.

Definitely an interesting and enjoyable journey you're having there. One of our family cars back in the 70s was a '68 Fury III 4 dr 318. Decent, reliable, tough old sled. It will serve you well.

I also like the interior color. Not the typical black, white, or blue.