Meet The Players

Last week I took in another short term job. This is a 1965 Chevrolet Malibu convertible, it has had some good restoration work done to it but the builder had to bail out at this point in the job. My client purchased it with the intent of making it a running, driving car and then selling it (hopefully for a profit...).

The body was taken off the frame at some point and the chassis was fully restored. It's nice. The body must have had rusted floors because the entire floor has been replaced with brand new sheetmetal. It was also painted at some point but the car has suffered some dings and dents since then probably from being moved around for a few years.

I started by making an inventory of parts we needed, and then got to work on installing the motor and transmission. The motor is a 350 from a 1974 Chevrolet pickup and the transmission is a run of the mill turbo 350. I really couldn't just drop the 350 in with all the smog stuff and painted blue, so I stripped off all the accessories, thoroughly cleaned the motor with degreaser, a pressure washer and detail brushes. Then I spray painted it Chevy orange. I used almost three cans of paint but it came out nice! Hope the motor runs well after all that work...

A quick blast from the pressure washer took care of the years of bondo dust and grit. It looks like the work was done well.

Overall not too bad.

Looks like a typical forgotten project. A whole host of parts tossed in the car for safe keeping. That gas tank will go out for cleaning and painting next week.

Here's the donor motor as it was delivered. It's loaded with smog stuff.

Air tubes on the exhaust manifold, smog pump, enough vacuum lines to choke a horse.

And here's the motor looking like a proper small block Chevy. It took four hours of cleaning and prep and three cans of Chevy orange spray paint.

I put a lot of paint on this motor.

And here it is in the hole. Next up, I wire the whole car.