Project Tetanus

[ANGRYJOE]

I'd like to introduce you to my beloved Tetanus.
I purchased the car back on 2006 and as I started tearing into it to fix the "hackery" performed by one of the cars previous backwood shade tree hacks I found things that made me sick. Two inch thick globs of bondo, tin and rivets, gobs and gobs of window screen and fiberglass. There was more plastic than steel.

Here it is the day I got it.

After a short time I realized I needed a parts car and I found a 65 for sale for 500 locally. I had to strip it, by myself in two days. I took all I could and put it onto my 66. everything from the doors forward is rust free desert metal. From the doors back is...well

here it is mid dog house swap

had to get a new tank and pick up, it was nothing but rust

Well, one day it started running like crap so I parked it and did not touch it for 2.5 years. It just sat. My youngest and oldest prodded me enough to get off my butt and get moving on it.

this is what I started with after sitting

a little progress

 

[polara71]

Welcome, how does a car get that rusty in Arizona?

 

[detmatt]

Welcome to the site from the Motor City! Good question Dave, this one must have been imported from our rust belt.

 

[ANGRYJOE]

Welcome, how does a car get that rusty in Arizona?

No, the car was purchased in Toledo Ohio and spent what I assume is the better part of it's life there. Then it went to Tennessee, Kentucky then to Colorado and finally here in Tucson. The car I purchased for parts was nothing but a shell and had sat in a field for at least 25 years. the only rust on it was the floors due to it being sunk up to the body in dirt and mud.

Hopefully if all goes as planned the last of the cancer will be replaced just as soon as my friend finished up his Chevy II gasser. The plan is to patch it up at his place (80 miles away) then I will bring it back here smoothing one panel at a time. Once I get it to where I am happy with the body I will prep it then take it somewhere for paint.

This is a super, super low budget build. Almost everything I have done has been begged borrowed or traded. There has been very little outlay of cash. Junkyard, friends, ebay and craiglist have been my go-to's for parts. I did have to buy a distributor, ICU and alternator. As you all know all too well there just are not a lot of parts out there for these cars. I'm still hunting for a wiper cowl that is not going to blow my budget.

I have more pictures leading up to the cars current state I will share this evening. It is currently running and driving and has been a bit of a family project. The kids and I have been wrenching for weeks to get it to where it is now and have had a blast. No matter the quality of the car when I am "done" it will be time well spent.

 

[bulldogchesty]

Good luck with your project. I have also been cutting out a lot of rust and welding in patches. My 68 Newport convertible didn't look like it had a lot of rust until I started sanding on it, just like an iceberg. Gives me something to do on all my weekends. Check out my pictures.http://www.forcbodiesonly.com/mopar-forum/showthread.php?11302-Do-some-work-finally

 

[ANGRYJOE]

Good luck with your project. I have also been cutting out a lot of rust and welding in patches. My 68 Newport convertible didn't look like it had a lot of rust until I started sanding on it, just like an iceberg. Gives me something to do on all my weekends. Check out my pictures.http://www.forcbodiesonly.com/mopar-forum/showthread.php?11302-Do-some-work-finally

Great progress, looke forward to seeing more. I was lucky with the 65 parts car being so rust free. I was able to sawzall most of the 1/4 pan off the 65 to use on the 66 but I couldnt use all of it due to the back section being different. If we dont use them they will be good templates to build new panels from. I hade considered buying some of the repo's from a few online sources but...being po'white trash I cant afford it. So we will use whats availible and stitch it up best we can.

 

[1978 NYB]

Welcome.........nice car.

 

[ANGRYJOE]

Here is the before and after of the engine. This was about a weekends work and only about 60 bucks.

BEFORE

AFTER

 

[1Fury1]

I'd like to introduce you to my beloved Tetanus.


had to get a new tank and pick up, it was nothing but rust

Where did you acquire that new gas tank and sender if I might ask?

 

[ANGRYJOE]

Where did you acquire that new gas tank and sender if I might ask?

The pick-up was from Rock Auto. About 40 bucks. The original was 5/16. I upgraded to 3/8

The tank, if I remeber correctly was an e-bay purchase. I think I payed 160 for it. That was in 2008 I think. There were a few others online but this was the best deal. Fit perfectly and was as well made as the original as far as I could tell.
Oddly I dont see any online anymore. When I got mine there were a few sources.

 

[ANGRYJOE]

A couple weekends ago the kids and I decided enough was enough so we decided to give it a quick makeover while we are waiting for its turn under the knife.

 

[N8-96XJ]

This looks like a very fun project! I will be following this one, and welcome to the site!

 

[ANGRYJOE]

a couple low buck projects I did over the last few weeks. If you're a purist you might not want to continue, I will not be responsible for strokes, heart attacks, diabetus, or gout flair ups.

the original door panels were hard, brittle and torn to shred. I made my own and were sufficient for me but when I came across some cherry panels on a 67 or 68 Newport at a salvage yard I about poo'd my pants. The problem is, I have 65 doors on a 66. I decided I could make it work with some imagination. So for 100 bucks I brought home the panels and some other misc parts and went to work.

this is the result. I am quite happy and frankly, only folks like you will know whats wrong with this picture lol! I think it looks great for minimal investment.

I also got a really nice remote mirror for about 20 bucks.

So, once I got these nice door panels I took a good look at the center console and decided I needed to do something with it.
I had a few ideas but first I had to strip it.

This is what I started with

This is after striping,

I decided that to find some wood, stain it and repaint the black would not do this justice, the chrome and dull aluminum looks striking against the black, very aggressive IMO so it will stay as is. I have planned on removing the console altogether and replace it with a B&M pro stick but I decided to leave it like this.

 

[monaco75]

Looks like a great project to have some fun with! The door panel came out great! I woulda kept the center console too.

 

[ANGRYJOE]

Made this carpet today. It came out okay, not great but being on a tight budget right now limits how much I can blow on car parts. I have about 40 bucks including the floor mats in this part of the project. If you look at the posts about you can see the before shots but it doesn't reflect how bad the carpet was.

 

[65sporty]

looking good, can't wait to see more pic's when you start the body work

 

[ANGRYJOE]

Thanks! Hopefully early this summer we'll start having on those quarters. I am really looking forward to it. It's been a long time coming. We're using my buddy's shop and currently the Chevy II gasser is in there. As soon as it's done he wants mine in...can't wait!

 

[ANGRYJOE]

under dash fire today...found the culprit...pucker factor +10

 

[bulldogchesty]

Glad you caught it in time.

 

[ANGRYJOE]

installed a fuel gauge this weekend...it is really nice to not have to crawl under the car and ohm out the tank to guesstamate how much gas I have...that trim around the old gauges was crap, cracked and broken...I made it look as good as I could for now. The upside is...it works.