Been too long since I updated.

Things have not been going as fast or as easy as I would like with The Rambler. Still no driving. The tranny still needs to be looked at. It is leaking badly and has a bad seal. I have not been able to find anyone to get it in. Shops around here seemed to be very backed up.

This last year also has brought other things that have taken priority or have gotten in the way of the restoration and have made me very broke this year.

I have managed to locate a great number of missing parts for my car though. If I can't work on it, I guess stockpiling the parts I need & want is the next best thing.

I am only missing a few extras that I would like to get. The body line wheel well mouldings are at the very top. I think I found some, but the guy has not sent me a shipping quote. I also want to find some rocker mouldings too. They have not been easy to find at all.

Got 3 of 5 body line mouldings. Found the battery hold down I needed. Got my '65 grille and grille supports installed. Found a passenger side mirror. Scored an antenna. Got my am radio & backing plate. Bought a new Dual Voice Coil dash speaker. Got a new glove box insert. Found rear c pillar headliner supports. Installed my '65 hood emblem. Got lazy R wheel spinners for my wheels. Installed license plate lamp. Got engine paint and all proper engine bay decals for after painting. Got new door seals. New windlacing. New outer weatherseals. I have also found a few other extras too.

So in the mean time, I decided to do at least do something with the car. I took out the seats and covered them with dark blue material that looks miles better than they did before until I can reupholster them properly. They look pretty good for a total novice. Sewed every seam and stitch by hand. Wish I had a heavy duty sewing machine so I could actually attempt at least semi-professional looking ones.

I found out that under the rubber mat that the car came with, water had settled in the front floor pans. So I took out the mat, let it dry out and then tore out the nasty old carpet, padding & heat shields and spent a morning scraping up all of the worthless adhesive and sealer/protectant that was no longer serving any purpose other than holding moisture against the metal. I am really glad that I decided to do it.

Unfortunately and to my utter horror, after I was done, I found quite a few problem areas. The diagnosis is a new drivers floor pan. Mine is just too far gone. The passenger side is fine. I am also missing a hole plug from the driver's floor pan.

All of the other rust holes look as if they can be patched relatively easy, but none of the metal repair will be something I can do on my own. It absolutely needs to be attended to if I am going to save this car from deteriorating any further.

Weird that both sides have rusted badly under the front seat near where they attach to the floor. I have no idea what cause that since they are not in the floor pan... Weird.

The other bad spots are the wheel well lip & the lower edge of the quarter panels, the right side frame rail where the leaf spring attaches and the passenger rocker, which has started to open up along the bottom seam where the inner & outer rocker panels attach.

The worst parts will take a bit more attention. IE the drivers side floor pan and the seam where the floor attaches to the left side kick panel. I can actually see into my engine bay through the holes.

So since I started the job, I figured I would go all out. I disassembled, bagged and tagged the entire interior and removed the headliner. Removed the old windlacing. I scraped off all of the nasty old rotten padding off of the roof. Decided I am going to repaint the headliner after using a mold protectant primer. It is in good shape, just faded. Getting it out of the back door without ruining it was an adventure, but I managed to get it out in one piece. Cleaned up the back side and removed all of the remnants of padding and adhesive. It should clean up nicely.

The frame rail is also very bad and the most important to fix after the floor. I can not believe how bad it is. Just past it on the same side the bumper mount is rusted too. It looks as if the right rear tire was flat and the frame rail was resting in water or something for a long time. How else could only one area of one side be so bad?

Anyways, looks like I need to find a damn good welder, a fabricator and one philanthropic, wealthy patron. The easy restoration just turned into a serious one. Updates may be slow to come, but I am going to continue to Ramble forward.

Next is tearing out the dash, heater core and wiper motor, and then opening up the cowl to see where all this damn water has been getting in.

I am going to save this car if it kills me. Wish me luck. I will definitely need it.

Thanks! No worries Anthony, not giving up any time soon...

I just wish I could weld better and had my own equipment. My welding skills are pretty basic. I can arc weld okay, but wire welding is not my forte. 

I really liked the design http://theamcforum.com/forum/member_profile.asp?PF=8450" rel="nofollow - Ollie used for his '66 American, so I measured up the dimensions of the car and built a mock-up out of cardboard that was kind of based off of his version but a bit different.

It fit well in the car and because I have a non-reclining single bench seat, I had to design the console kind of compactly so that it would fit while holding everything I wanted.

Put together the final build out of wood and it turned out great.

Cut out the necessary holes for everything and tested the fit of the components.

Primed it with Zinsser first to lock out any moisture or mold.

Painted it with gloss black enamel to protect against any moisture absorption.

After that I covered it with some dark blue vinyl wrap from Metro Restyling that very closely resembles the unique color of dark blue metallic paint with snowflake that AMC used on the metal inside the car.

I added an old American script emblem to each side as a little extra touch.

If you can stick arc weld you can use a wire welder. If you get a cheap wire welder get one that uses gas, not flux core wire (or get one that can use both). The little cheap (sub $400) wire welders from Harbor Freight or Campbell-Hausfeld are short-circuit arc machines and will spit and sputter by design. They work ok with flux core wire but leave a lot of mess to lean up with a grinder behind. Buy a argon/CO2 mix bottle and the difference is night and day! Added cost of the bottle, but will last a long time. I've been through three 5# spools of wire and still have gas in my small bottle. The $500+ machines are usually spray arc. Once arc starts wire never touches metal, arcs through plasma of molten wire. The short circuit machines touch the wire to the base metal, which then melts the wire, touches again, melts, ad infinitum...that's why it spits and sputters as you weld. Not real accurate scientific explanations, but close enough. If just doing light welding 1/8" or less, and not a lot of continuous welding (once it heats up and cuts off it takes a while to cool down for much more welding) it's fine. The short circuit type actually works better for sheet metal (such as body work) because it doesn't get the metal as hot.

This is a good ~$300 welder though. Not sure if it's short-circuit type or not, though from price I believe it might be. http://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Electric-K2185-1-Handy-Welder/dp/B07FMBPNZN" rel="nofollow - https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Electric-K2185-1-Handy-Welder/dp/B07FMBPNZN

One more thing. I read through all the posts and didn't see where you have retorqued the head. The 195.6 OHV engine needs the head retorqued every 10-12K miles or you will blow the head gasket and most likely crack the head. First sign of a blown gasket is running hot and a bit of power loss. The head is prone to cracking when run hot, due to age and likely being run hot a few times already. Just loosen then torque each bolt one at a time and you don't have to worry about sequence -- 62 ft/lbs. The valves need adjusting about the same time, so may as well do that while valve cover is off. Don't over tighten valve cover bolts, that just warps the cover and makes it leak more! If it leaks at the back of the engine it's time for a new rubber gasket, and make sure the cover's not warped. No sealer used on the rubber o-ring type gasket.

For more detailed info on the 195.6 OHV see http://195.6ohv.com/" rel="nofollow - http://195.6ohv.com/ . Tomj (here on forum) has done an excellent job of documenting this little engine!

Thanks Frank, I do have a good friend who has a decent welding set-up. We are just both kind of novices with welding. It has been since high school for me. It will get figured out between the two of us.

The car runs well, but after I got it home, has not been driven much, under 5 miles, since I got it. As soon as the transmission issue is taken care of, the engine is going to get freshened up and I will address the head. Have had Tom's site bookmarked for over a year and often check it out.

Totally structural work for now though, but I appreciate the tips.

A little bit more progress.

Went to see http://theamcforum.com/forum/member_profile.asp?PF=147" rel="nofollow - gtoman_us the other day and he gave me a kick panel I desperately needed to replace a cracked and broken one. What a nice guy Ron is.

Tried out some Dupli-color vinyl & fabric paint to paint the headliner, kick panels and door handle pads, but they do not make anything near the color I need. The one I was told would match my dark blue color interior was the darkest blue they make, interestingly enough called Medium Blue. The cap looked like a match, so I got some.

Tried it out on an arm rest pad that was turquoise. The product works great, but the color is nothing even close to the cap color. Suffice it to say, I did not paint any more. Way too light for my liking and does not match at all. Anyone have any suggestions? Looks like it is either SEM or Rustoleum that I will have to try. Sure could use some advice if anyone has painted their vinyl dark blue before.

I figured since I can't make it and I am not a full on stickler for originality, I bit the bullet & ordered the driver's floor pan from CTC. Hopefully it fits okay & works out.

I also went ahead and got a DMT heater box restoration kit, since I know the heater core is leaking and needs to be attended to a.s.a.p., so that will also need to be re-cored if possible or maybe outright replaced. We shall see when I pull it.

I also finally found an actual working & correct Carter dual action fuel pump! Now I can remove the combo of an old half working vacuum pump (the wipers work but it does not pump gas) and that loud, cheap, electric monstrosity of a fuel pump the P.O. put on the frame rail, and get the actual vacuum & fuel system back in order and all working properly from a single unit. And if I may say so, most importantly, working quietly.

I swear the electric pump whine sounds like it is frigging screaming as soon as I turn the key. I will be happy to be rid of it entirely...

A new windshield gasket from Peter Stathes is next.

Rambling ever forward...

I have done alot of interior vinyl painting with very good and long lasting results. 

A upholstery man told me to use Bully Dog Adhesive Prompter first. I have always done so. 

I plan on using the same Dupli-Color on the 69 Rambler. I think we have decided to go with a black interior on this build. 

Looking forward to meeting Ron some day. Maybe another car guy get together at Rich's house?

Having AMC Fun,

Ollie

http://theamcforum.com/forum/member_profile.asp?PF=8450" rel="nofollow - Ollie , sounds good to me. You let me know the time for the next meet-up and I will be there. Ron wanted to come but was on the road for his job. We will do what we can to make it happen.

Contacted SEM and they quickly got back and told me to send them in a sample of the color and they will figure out a match for me, so that is a somewhat positive development.

I just wish Dupli-color would offer to do the same thing. I could save a lot of money by going with them rather than SEM. The product is about the same quality, but the price difference of SEM versus Dupli-color is astoundingly different and it is about 3 times as expensive as Dupli-color. So far no response from them yet.

Rambling onward.

The Bully Dog Adhesion Prompter (or should that be Promoter?) is a good idea. If nothinjg else clean the vinyl first with a solvent that completely evaporates -- alcohol (even rubbing alcohol is good enough), mineral spirits, paint thinner, or even spray brake parts cleaner all work well. The key is to have no oils, even from fingers, on the surface. CLEAN!!! I've had good luck with regular acrylic spray paint (no lacquer!) on hard vinyl like arm rests after a really good cleaning.

If Duplicolor matched paint like SEM it would probably cost as much too...

Thanks guys. I have no issues with using the products. I already removed all grease, oils, dirt and other such stuff before painting and it came out great, just the wrong color. I just haven't found a color match yet.

I was more looking for anyone who could recommend a color or brand that will come close to matching the interior color, which is called Dark Blue Semi Gloss, color code 9159-LH that AMC used in 1965. But SEM is probably what I will go with.

farna wrote: If Duplicolor matched paint like SEM it would probably cost as much too...

Good point Frank.

More developments. Fuel pump is on it's way.

Floor pan from CTC got here and while not perfect, it will work just fine with some coaxing.

Now I can finally add the lower body line mouldings on my '65. Been a long time searching...

Got some rocker mouldings coming from http://theamcforum.com/forum/member_profile.asp?PF=538" rel="nofollow - mazenoex too. Yay!

Will really help get the Rambler's look the way that I want it.

Back to it!

I have been trying to locate a Rambler American accelerator pedal floor pivot - parts # 350 5771 since I got my car. The pedal is no longer connected in any way and fell off several times while I was driving the car home. It had rusted away to the point that it no longer held the retaining spring and needed to be completely replaced.

Since I got my new floor pan I figured I would have to make one from a hinge, but today I just happened to get lucky and score a pedal assembly that comes with pedal, retaining spring and pivot (and a small section of floor pan from the car it was cut from).

Oh, happy day. What a relief finding that.

Other than a few odds and ends, I think I have managed to locate most of the parts I have been looking to find for this car. Other than quarter panels and a rocker panel to replace my rust issues, I have gotten extremely lucky and appreciate all of the forum's help.

Onward...

Good idea Frank. Thank you. I was actually suggested that by someone else and was starting to look for one but then I happened to stumble across the set up. I just got super lucky.

farna wrote: I have a Jeep XJ pedal in mine now.

one bad rambler wrote: I used the org. pedal(Upper part) and welded a plate to it.

A long overdue update.

I managed to find an original floor pivot thanks to an awesome AMCer, so the pedal issue is now solved.

I have located both rocker panels and both replacement quarter panels. I just have to wait to be able to get them to my neck of the woods so that I can finally begin the daunting metal work.

Found a 6cyl metal fan shroud on the forum, cleaned it up and painted it. It came out great and will really help out when I get it installed.

I also scored some nice upper door top mouldings for the car too. I think they will look great and add some flair to the overall look of the car.

Now I just have to locate all of the missing clips so that I can attach the various mouldings I bought to the car, but I am having no luck finding any with any of the vendors. Talked to Galvin's, APD & Kennedy and none had any available. So if anyone knows where to locate any of these, the help would be much appreciated.

Left & right Rear door top moulding clips: (26.034 448 0353L-52R)

(The mouldings that run along the very top of the doors.)

I also made some progress on my headliner.

After figuring out how expensive the SEM custom mixes were, I finally found a SEM color that matches and a distributor to get it from that didn't break the bank. Here was my process:

My headliner was originally a horrible faded light robins egg blue color that I did not care for. It was also drooping very badly from coming unattached from the insulation pads. I got it out in one piece with no major issues after removing the front seat. I fixed what edge issues there were & then laid it out on a flat surface and put a bunch of weight on the center of it to reform the original contours and let it sit for a few weeks.

gtoman_us wrote: Looking great Jeremy!

Thanks Ron. Appreciate that.

Another bit of progress to report on. A while back Ron kindly gave me a black replacement kick panel because my car had one that was broken. I also picked up a replacement door armrest cushion from Brent Havekost that was turquoise.

Well since the weather yesterday was unseasonably mild, I decided to do some more vinyl & plastic repainting. I am happy to report that the headliner, all four armrest cushions and both kick panels are all now the same color.

End note: SEM makes some really great products.

And thanks again for that kick panel Ron! Cheers!

I hate to paint them because they are the very cool, green, semi-transparent, vinyl mats that have gold colored glitter flake embedded in the vinyl and would look really cool with dark blue carpet behind them.

Unfortunately, I have tried so many different products and various suggested techniques to clean them, all to no avail. The various weird, irremovable, red stains will not budge. There is also a very large unsightly cigar or cigarette burn right in the center of the front passenger side.

I made a mold of a good part of the mat and my idea was to possibly cut away the melted ridge and try to rebuild it by remelting the cut off part (or some other scrap vinyl) and using the mold I made to shape the melted vinyl, or to cut away the ridge and just leave it as is.

I think either living with them as they are or repainting them with the dark blue SEM to match everything else is the only real recourse at this point

Anyone have any suggestions?

I have a box of AMC clips we can rummage thru.

gtoman_us wrote: Jeremy, we should meet up.

Sounds good to me. I am available Sunday afternoon if you are. Shoot me a PM.

Thank you all. They turned out just like I wanted.

Thanks Frank. I am fully aware of how much that is true. He really went above & beyond with these. I am planning to do something nice for him to return the mega-favor that he will really enjoy.

It was a slow process that took about 10 months altogether, as I did not want the job to bite into his regular work, so he worked on them at his leisure when he had some time to spare here and there.

I told him from the beginning that there was no hurry and no worry about how long they took, because I knew that they would be done light years before the car was.