Welcome to my 1967 Marlin thread! 

Always thought 1967 was the best model year for American automobiles; almost all of them look good to me, but nothing as cool as this! In 2015 I found my Marlin and had it trailered home. Photos and a little more info below. Please read on in the thread for more about all the fun I've had with my AMC.

My Marlin is #1762 with a production date of November 16, 1966. I found it in the Pacific Northwest. Talk about period correct, it even has an old peace sticker that's on the passenger-side visor. Maybe the Marlin made the trip from Seattle down to California during the Summer of Love in 1967? Here's the rest of the stuff this Marlin came with:

I'm the third owner. The original owner passed away in 1987. His father kept the Marlin in his garage until 2003 when the second owner convinced him to sell it. But, the Marlin spent those years waiting to see the road again; it was driven only about 100 miles in all that time.

The Marlin arrived on the first day of Spring 2015; it had some nice travel companions.

First inspection! Crawled under and saw 343 stamped on the block. The AFB carburetor number checked out with the TSM. Lots of new steering and suspension parts and no rust or scale in sight. Started the Marlin up for the first time since it arrived but it died the first three times. For the fourth try, I feathered the gas for a minute until the idle stabilized. The motor died a few more times while backing it out of the garage. I let it idle for 10 minutes while I took photos.

Drove into town to put 10 gallons of premium into the tank along with Torco additive. Measured for 95 octane to be safe since it's a high-compression motor. It drives nice, there's no body roll, and no clunks or ominous noises.

It's a shame they quit making them.

Ron

Went through the stuff that came with and $6K in receipts. The big ticket items were the recent transmission rebuild, SMS upholstery (door panels and fabric and vinyl for the bucket seats), lots of suspension work (rubber and joints, new springs and shocks in the back, reinforced rear control arms, bushings, rear stabilizer bar, etc.), and NOS stuff like tail light lenses and grates, driver-side tail light housing, and various switches and a bunch of other cool stuff.

ArnieG wrote: What a great looking car and color combo that will sure turn some heads real nice !!

Thank you, sir. The Marlin has received some compliments, and more people than I expected knew what it is. I prefer all red myself and am thinking of spraying it that way, but I want to keep the car original, too.

How can anybody think paperwork isn't fun? I noticed that when the car was first titled in Washington, their DMV entered Marlin for the make and unknown for the model 

Hey Al, I grew up by Duluth. Is your car pretty rusty? Minnesota cars were notorious for rusting through in a couple years because of all the corrosive stuff the highway department threw on the roads in winter.

Had to take the door panels that SMS revamped out of the box to see. They look cool! 

fhpdave wrote: Those are some nice looking door panels. Did they come with the car when you bought it?

Yes, the PO had SMS do the door panels. The vinyl and fabric also came with the car (also from SMS).

And this is the vinyl, a lot of it!

Found 1970s 15x7 AMC Rally wheels; the 14s will go in boxes for safekeeping. The center caps are decent, but once the wheels are blasted and powder coated they'll demand much nicer ones.

The 15x7 Rally wheels easily clear in the back but not the front. Not with power disc brakes, they don't, but maybe on a drum brake car they would. The backspacing is 4.50" and the original 14x5.5 wheels had 3.75 backspacing, so they weren't even close on the front. Instead, I'll put 14x6 Rally wheels on the front; they have 3.75 backspacing like the OE wheels did, so they'll fit. As luck would have it, a fellow Forum member wanted the other 15s so he can do exactly the same with his car, so things worked out for two AMC nuts.

Sometimes when you're having fun with wheels, you're on a roll! Heard a pawn shop in town had a set of powder coated 14x6 Rally wheels for $100. I have a set of 14-inch Cooper tires with only 3,000 miles in the garage, so I'll be set to roll around with decent wheels and safe rubber while I play around with the other wheels. Neat!

I tried to paint the centers like the OE look but I couldn't get the paint for the centers to stick; I easily scraped it off with my fingers. So, back to one color they went. Still think they look pretty good though.

Got my wish for a one-color Marlin! Deciphered the trim code and learned the Marlin was originally all Matador Red. If there were two colors listed on the trim code then it would be a two-tone car. Had my suspicions about whether the black was original because it flakes off easy in places and doesn't look original. And there's red paint under it. No way they wasted money by painting finish paint no one would see under a different color of it. The original owner must have done this a long time ago; the previous owner said he didn't do it and agreed with the red color underneath the black.

Installed the 14x6 Rally wheels with newer rubber. The front tires weren't very good. The back ones were better but they were still used ones I bought to replace the ancient Sears Polyglass tires and hold me over. These tires are P215/75 Coopers with only 3,000 miles on them that I had on a 1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass for a few years.

232jav3sp wrote: rocklandrambler wrote: Lookin' good but I think a set of trim rings would be the icing on the cake.    I'd have to agree!

Ordered a set on eBay; we'll see how the Marlin likes them. 

SEdmonds wrote: That is one sweet car.

Thank you 

I agree the wheels look better with trim rings. I've been wondering what happened to the driver-side quarter panel area on top. It's not rusted but there are a couple small dents; the PO primered it to stop any rust from forming.

A recurring annoyance is (was) the alternator light dimly activating on and off. Installed a remanufactured NAPA unit and a Leece-Neville voltage regulator (part number 8RH2004C for those who also may be in need of charging assistance) and no more problems so far. I'll have someone rebuild the original Motorola one at some point, hopefully I won't need it very soon.

Like the Korean belt that was sawing through the lower radiator hose? Changed those out! Flushed the cooling system a frew times and put in a new Robert Shaw thermostat. The only aggravation was sealing the thermostat gasket because I forgot that every time I try the blue silicone it doesn't work.

I had a couple AFB rebuild kits in one of the boxes of parts that came with the car, so free rebuild time it is. I discovered the throttle rod adjuster sleeve was adjusted wrong (the secondary throttle blades opened only halfway at WOT), so made sure to check everything else out good. It's a bit more fun with actual WOT now. The pump lever S-link was backward and the floats were set to 5/8, so set them to 5/16, cleaned the carb out, and set up the linkage right. The car's a bit snapper with the secondaries opening all the way!

The Marlin made its first appearance at a car gathering at the local Big Boy. About a dozen people knew what it is.

Advanced the timing by 15 degrees; what a difference! No excuse for not doing this when I did a tuneup. The motor had an off-idle bog when hitting the pedal with any gusto. Thought it might be the accelerator pump plunger but I replaced it when I rebuilt the carb. Finally did the sensible thing and checked the timing, and it was five degrees retarded. The TSM says stock timing is 0 degrees, not exactly sporty to start with. Mechanical advance is 28 degrees, so set it to 8 advanced for 36 total. This worked out really well. No more bog and the car's pretty quick. For sure good enough for now. I'll deal with real performance when the motor's rebuilt.

Cleaned up under the hood; looking spiffy! Repainted the radiator top plate and threw on some new stickers.

Today's the Marlin's 49th birthday; it was born November 16, 1966 and was the 1,762nd Marlin produced for the 1967 model year. The Marlin is happy with its present, front shock absorbers from Kennedy American.

Scored a heater valve from a 1967 Ambassador in a salvage; mine was removed at some point. It was 10 below but I like this type of weather for salvaging; no worrying about wood ticks, wasps, or any other woodland pests that are a problem in summer. There were some decent mountain lion tracks but the owner said she stays away from people; I figured he probably wouldn't lie about that to a paying customer. It's not clear to me how these work, so any guidance will help me out. My theory of operation is the copper coil helps to radiate the heat somehow.

rocklandrambler wrote: Your "Theory of Operation" is wrong.

Won't be the last time, pretty sure. 

Spring is here early this year and I can't wait to put new tires and the Rally wheels I bought last summer on the Marlin (the ones I bought before I found the ones that are on the car now in a pawn shop). Ordered Cooper Cobra Radial GTs and dropped off the wheels for blasting and powder coating. The wheels will be one color, Dark Anthracite in semi-gloss. The 15x7s on the back will have 245/60 tires. The 14x6s on the front will have 215/70s.

I really like the unicolor look on the 1970s AMC Rally wheels! New powder coating and rubber on the Marlin but a few less things, too. The Marlin is being de-chromed. Not all, but a lot of it. The lower chrome moldings, the trim on top, and the wheel arch moldings are gone. I think chrome looks awesome on 1950s cars but not as much on a sporty 1960s fastback coke bottle machine like this. I like what I see (and don't see).

Check out the four sets of before and after photos below. The Marlin's body is clean as heck; I spent a long time looking for a super clean one until I found it in the Pacific Northwest. Now it's a bit prettier and in a cool tiger shark primer coat.

A fellow Marlin owner asked me if my passenger door had a string of numbers written on its inside, and it sure does. Then, he asked me if the numbers matched the end of my VIN. I checked, and yes again. Since he's seen this on other Marlins, he figured it was part of the assembly process in some way. Pretty cool to contribute to the compendium of 1967 Marlin carchaeology! The ID is upside down with the door installed.

Removed the chrome grill surrounds and welded in the mounting holes like what's been done on the body panels. Also repainted the grill and the radiator baffle plates.

Finally a new photo of the Marlin since the de-chroming and welding went down. I like the "tiger shark" look 

Brought the Marlin out to the monthly meeting of the cool cars at the local Big Boy.

When removing the rocker panel covers, I saw what I thought were bubble rusts on the lower quarter panel behind the wheel arch. What?! Found more on the other side. Great. Pressed on the biggest spot with my finger but there was no squishing rust sound. Stuck my head inside the trunk and the bubbles looked like dents from the inside. Cleaned off the primer with a scouring wheel and sure enough there are little dents poking out. One of the two previous owners must have put something in the trunk that shifted while cornering. I can deal with dents; it's better than dealing with rust!

Dents dealt with.

73Gremlin401 wrote: I'm really enjoying this thread - a 67 Marlin is a bucket list car for me, and a lot of what you are doing with this one is right along the lines of what I'd do myself. That you are aggressively de-chroming the car is turning out far better than I imagined it would, and gave me an idea that I'm curious if you've considered - swapping out the exterior door handles for the 68 and up flush handles?  Since the Rebels and Ambassadors used them, and the door guts are fundamentally the same between the models, it would still look factory, but custom at the same time.  thoughts?

The doors would swap from say a 1968 Ambassador or Rebel onto the respective 1967 models including the Marlin. Door panels wouldn't swap between the door types because the hardware is a little different.

Last drive of the year over the weekend; amazing that I was able to drive it into November in this area of the world. Sanded and glazed in a few places to remove some chips and scratches and epoxied to seal it up for later. Left the beauty rings off while cleaning up the wheels and tires; I think it looks mean, kind of a stock car look.

Check out this sweet piece of fortune! Was perusing Kennedy American's online catalog and saw an NOS driver-side quarter panel extension molding. Righteous! Mine's not terrible but it has a critical dent. I'll keep the old one because somebody might be able to repair it and use it.

And found a passenger-side quarter panel extension! This one's not NOS like the driver-side one but to me it may as well be. Side by side, the difference in condition is obvious. The old one has a nasty ding but the lower part of the molding is nearly flattened. I'll keep the old one when the good one replaces it; hopefully this and the driver-side one can be restored by somebody with more skill than me for a Marlin owner down the road who needs it.

The Delco distributor has been rebuilt and looks like 1967 again, except for the PerTronix Ignitor the previous owner installed. Stock mechanical advance was 28 degrees concluding at 4400 RPM; there was zero initial advance. Not very sporty. The stock vacuum advance can added 24 degrees of advance, so there could be up to 52 degrees of total timing when cruising with high manifold vacuum.

The new mechanical advance curve is a little sportier; it concludes by 3600 and I knocked it down to 26 degrees. I'll replace the 24-degree vacuum advance can with a B26 can I ordered that adds in only 16 degrees. By reducing both the mechanical advance and vacuum advance, I can safely use more initial advance and not over-advance while cruising. I won't push it past 10 degrees of initial timing.

Blasted and powder coated the 14x5.5 factory steel wheels (and a spare 14x6 Rally wheel); I can swap them on if I must be Captain Original at a car show some day. These wheels won't support a wide tire, so smoking them into rubber fume should be straightforward, assuming I would ever do such a thing, which of course would be utter nonsense. 

The Marlin has been enhanced with headers and bigger exhaust tubing. The motor will be rebuilt this winter, so this is some initial groundwork. The Hooker Competition long tube headers fit well; ground clearance is not a problem and spark plug access is easy. The transmission fill tube was modified, and the RobbMc mini-starter was essential. The exhaust is aluminized mandrel-bent 2.5-inch tubing back to the Walker Super Turbo mufflers and 2.25-inch out the rear. The 343 now sounds like a proper muscle car should; powerful but quieter than it was with the awful Magnaflows that were on the car.

The motor will have more power next summer, and the exhaust wasn't the only thing to upgrade in preparation for that. The Borg-Warner's torque converter was uprated for street performance duty; it'll behave like about a 2K stall but with great driveability and no overheating even at lower cruising speeds. The front and rear bands were adjusted so that shifting is very affirmative; the OE setting permitted lots of slipping, and that's no good for performance or the transmission's lifespan. The transmission was rebuilt the summer before I bought the car (I've put nearly all of its 1,300 miles on it), so the situation is pretty good in this department.

Installed the NOS power brake pedal pad that was in one of the previous owner's parts boxes. Polished up the insert and all is looking good. I'll need this sweet piece of braking rubber after the motor is souped up!