Playmate AMX restoration begins..

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Here's some links to check out first..
http://www.playmateamx.com/
http://mightypilot.smugmug.com/PlaymateAMX/Restoration
http://www.youtube.com/user/playmateamx

Back in July of 2010 I picked up the pink 1968 AMX given to Playmate of the Year Victoria Vetri by Playboy. Other than hauling the car to Las Vegas in November of the same year for an AMCRC show hosted by SNAMC, the car has sat quietly in a garage for two years waiting for some TLC in the form of a major restoration.

After two years of plotting the course of action, and buying up many fine NOS parts on eBay, the restoration of the Playmate AMX started last weekend on Sunday, June 10th, at the home of John Siciliano, a SoCalAMX club member.

My friend Mike Haley used his Ford 350 to haul the car about a hour's drive from my area to John's. By 10am we had about 7 members from the club there helping tear the car down. About 5 were tasked to remove the front bumper and grille, and prep the engine compartment to pull the engine and transmission out. Two other members invaded the interior, pulling the seats, console, dash, rugs (whats left of them), headliner, sun visors, and rear bumper. We stopped for a hamburger and hotdog bar-b-q, and then got back to the business at hand and pulled the beast 290 engine out. Before the day was over the fenders came off as well. At the end of the day all parts were moved to a local storage unit. That's it for the first day.

The second day of action was yesterday, Saturday June 16. I spent some 7 hours at John's again and the two of us pulled the complete wiring harness out, removed the AC unit, fan blower motor, windshield wiper motor and arms, and hacked at the sound deadening material from under the carpet for several hours. The interior is completely stripped except for the steering wheel and column, and pedals (we need to steer the car while we move it.) 

The next day of action won't be the following weekend because we'll be driving north to Reno/Sparks, NV for the AMCRC National Show. But when we get back about the only things left to do are remove the fuel tank and exhaust pipes, windows, and front and rear suspension. We will then build a rotisserie for the car which will allow us to roll the car over and clean the bottom as well as the top. 

There's still a lot of planning to do, but we'll address each issue as it comes up. There's rust cancer in the lower right rear quarter panel, and by peeking in an inspection panel from the inside we can see there was some damage to the lower right front quarter panel that was fixed years ago with a lot of bondo. There are two small pin holes in the right floor pan, and the hood has a hole in the front center from where a security pin/pad lock had been installed once and then removed and covered up. We'll have a better idea of the scope of body work after the paint and bondo deposits are removed soon.

Use this link to view a Youtube video we shot of the front end suspension linkage. Wow, the car was driven from Hollywood to Venice Beach, where I bought the car, and it didn't crash along the way! The other links at the top of the page will show many more pictures and videos of our progress. 

I'd like to thank these people for their help on the project! It couldn't happen without their skill and labor!!

John and Shelly Siciliano
Allen Tyler
John Caley
Randy Kirby
Dale Crum
Richard White
Mike Haley

Edited by UNFORD - Jun/18/2012 at 12:26am