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67 Ambassador Convertible |
Post Reply | Page <1 19202122> |
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Ollie
AMC Addicted Joined: Sep/17/2012 Location: Brandon, MS Status: Offline Points: 2803 |
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Take me for a ride !!!! Can I drive ???
You are having AMC Fun, Ollie |
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1966 American Convertible -- "The Rambler"..SOLD
1974 Postal Jeep -- "Rapid Delivery"...SOLD 1969 Rambler 220 post car--"Road Warrior" 1989 Jeep Comanche Pioneer, 4.0L, auto, 2wd |
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Devilboy
Supporter of TheAMCForum Joined: Jun/14/2017 Location: Nebraska Status: Offline Points: 997 |
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Nice work. That is one classy looking Ambassador.
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george w
Supporter of TheAMCForum Joined: Jan/27/2013 Location: New Jersey Status: Offline Points: 2899 |
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Is the spare the same as the 4 tires on the car ? The whitewall look slightly different(larger) than the 4 tires on the car. Could just be my eyes or an optical illusion.
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Long time AMC fan. Ambassador 343, AMX 390, Hornet 360, Spirit 304 and Javelin 390. All but javelin bought new.
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roguedoug
Supporter of TheAMCForum Joined: Aug/13/2014 Location: Maryland Status: Offline Points: 362 |
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SWEET......
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67 Rogue Convertible 232 2bl Auto
Royal Blue 33A "ROSEBUD" 67 440 American 232 4D 08-72A "CLAUDIA" AMO 10493 |
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67 Marlin
AMC Addicted Joined: Feb/21/2015 Location: Minnesota Status: Offline Points: 877 |
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This was the first member project thread I looked at when I joined the AMC Forum. I love the car, I love the color, and I love seeing how you did all of this. Bravo, sir
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fhpdave
AMC Nut Joined: May/09/2014 Location: Galena Ohio Status: Offline Points: 445 |
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Well it's been a couple of months since the Ambassador has been "officially" on the road, and it is almost like driving a new 50 year old car. I have only been able to take it to a couple of shows, and since it is Ohio, the show season is about over. One show that I did make it to was an orphan car show in Yellow Springs that the local AMC club piggy backs onto, so there was a nice showing of AMC's (33 cars) for people to look at. Going to this show was kind of a shake down cruise to make sure that the car was up to 400 plus mile round trip so that it could participate in a wedding in Cleveland the following week. I am glad to say that the car made the trip without any problems other than the cruise control decided to quit working a few days before the trip. All told it was a 450 mile trip in one day at 70 to 75 MPH and the car averaged 14 miles to the gallon, which I think is not to bad considering things are just getting broken in. Once again, I got preoccupied with talking cars with other guests at the wedding, and I neglected to take any pictures of the car or the happy couple while I was there. I know that the photographer took plenty of photos as did some of the other people that were there, so maybe someone will post some pictures in the future. With the onset of colder weather I plan to fix the cruise control, install the 8 track player, and get a new battery since the one in the car is from 2003 and is not holding a charge very well. I am also toying with the idea of getting some different tires and wheels for it. I like the wire covers, but part of me wants something different that will make the car pop. Since this is not really a performance/muscle car I am looking for a wheel/tire that is somewhat classy and will fill out the wheel wells better that the stock 14 inchers that are on the car now. If I do this, I can always put the stock wheels and tires on it when appropriate. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Edited by fhpdave - Oct/10/2017 at 11:41am |
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Old enough to know better - young enough not to care
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67 Marlin
AMC Addicted Joined: Feb/21/2015 Location: Minnesota Status: Offline Points: 877 |
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Here's my tire and wheel take on a car with similar parts to yours. I put 14x6 8-slot wheels on the front of my Marlin and 15x7 ones on the back. Would've went with 15x7s up front, but they didn't clear. Since we have the same parts up front (assuming you have the Bendix brakes), a 14x6 rim is as wide as you're going to get without using spacers or a rim with a different backspacing so the wheel sits farther out to clear.
I have 215/70 on the 14x6 wheels up front. The tires clear the tie rod ends by a centimeter. I might try to test fit a 225/70 since it should still leave me half a centimeter, but then again maybe not... To be on the safe side, you can at least assume you can go with 215mm wide tires on the front. Regardless, you can't go very big on the front, so that means you're limited in the back, unless you want a big difference in tire diameter, which might not look as attractive as what you have now. I have 225/70 on the 15x7s on the back. I didn't think a 1.5 inch height differential could be so noticeable! I don't like it at all. If I swapped to 14x6 rims on the back, 225/70 would be an inch less, which would make it hardly noticeable with the 215/70 up front. Or, I can use 245/60 on my 15s and drop the height in back by an inch, but that's a mighty fat tire with a different aspect ratio and I might find out I spent even more money to get something that still looks weird to me. As Reg Dunlop said, "Ah *** it." Just putting this out there because our cars may have been designed to look classy with tires that exceeded 27 inches in diameter. Even the optional 8.25x14 was no more than 27 inches tall. Lots of room left over in my fender well, but that little 215/70-14 tire size looks right. The 225/70-15 does not look right in the back. So, what I'm saying is plan for your tire size and then get the wheels to make the most of the height and aspect ratio you're planning, because narrower or wider tires might not look good on a particular wheel. And, also with the consideration that you're not going to get more than a six inch wide rim on the front without mods. I think a one-color painted dark charcoal or black rim, whether glossy or metallic, would be great, my preference is gloss black with beauty rings. You do that to standard issue 14x6 8-slot wheels with some 215/70 white letter tires, and it'll look quite a bit different! Multiple colors will make the wheels appear smaller. Lighter colors will steal from the green.
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george w
Supporter of TheAMCForum Joined: Jan/27/2013 Location: New Jersey Status: Offline Points: 2899 |
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IMHO white lettered tires just won't look right on this car. They're not period correct and considering that the Ambassador is a Kenosha Cadillac, white lettered tires would be totally out of character on a luxury car.
Perhaps a set of steel wheels like those used on the Matador Barcelonas, painted to complement the car color. Chrysler also used a similarly styled steel wheel in the early 70's that was all chrome that would look nice as well. I believe that these were 15" as well which would give you a wider choice of tires. As for tires, anything other than whitewalls would look out of place. The 3/8" thin stripe whitewall like used on the OEM GoodYear Custom Wide Tread Polyglas or Firestone Wide Ovals would be a nice, classy look. The Good Years are repopped, but are not radials. The Firestone Wide Ovals are also repopped but are not available in white line. Diamond Back can do radials in the narrow stripe and there may be others as well. I'm close to making the same tire decision for my 67 DPL which, while coming along, is still not done. I plan on using an extra set of AMC 14 x 6 Magnum 500's painted black with the factory turbo cast wheel covers. This will give the car a slightly better stance. I'm also going to experiment with 1" wheel spacers to increase the track a bit to push the tires further out in the wheel wells. Chris Z used the 14 x 6 AMC Turbo Cast alloy wheels like used on the 79 AMX's on his yellow 67 convertible. Chris widened the front and rear tracks on his car by using different front suspension components (spindles ??) and a wider rear taken from a Matador coupe. These changes made the car look much more up to date as the factory track width tends to make these cars look rather narrow tracked at certain angles. The added track width really made a subtle but noticeable difference, yet kept the stock look. Edited by george w - Oct/11/2017 at 7:02pm |
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Long time AMC fan. Ambassador 343, AMX 390, Hornet 360, Spirit 304 and Javelin 390. All but javelin bought new.
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nbarr
AMC Nut Joined: May/23/2015 Location: OH-IO Status: Offline Points: 382 |
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Hey Dave- you've seen my '69. Wheels are 17" by 8" with standard offset. Tires are 235/50/17. There is zero clearance issue front or rear. My speedo is now off 8-10% because of the taller height but I can live with that. There is room to go both wider and taller but for my purposes these were best. If you want to stop down on an evening or weekend to look at fit you are more than welcome.
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kirkwood
Moderator Group Charter Member Joined: Jun/28/2007 Location: Fort Wayne, IN Status: Offline Points: 6566 |
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i think the car is beautiful with the wires or the turbo cast - it looks just right! I can understand the desire for a different look, but the restoration is so beautiful i like it just the way it is!
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