I have been a “gear head” pretty much all my life. I have had some cool cars (my opinion anyway), some not so cool cars and I have killed (its a fact!) some cars. One of my favorites was a 1964 Nova wagon. It had a 327-300hp engine that was salvaged from the junk pile at Jack Douglass Chevrolet. Its previous life was in a Corvette that had spun a bearing. Turned out the bearing wasn’t all that spun and after a quick rebuild – just bearings and rings without a visit to the machine shop – it was up and running. Bucket seats, Muncie 4-speed, headers, aluminum intake, Holley 4-barrel and a duel point distributor from a Corvette all made for a great time in that car. This odd fetish of mine, continuing to this day, has resulted in my owning (quite proudly) a 1965 Chevelle (300) wagon. Chevrolet produced 1668 of these “long-roofs” and I doubt whether many survive today. The purchase and subsequent rebuild is a really long and tedious story so for now I won’t bore you with the details. Don’t miss the picture gallery for images from the car’s sale listing, its delivery, the work required to make it into a solid reliable driver and, did I say, a really cool car. By the way – a huge thanks to Randy and all of the guys at Midwest Hot Rods – they rock!
GM Performance ZZ383 factory rated at 425hp / 449lb-ft torque with aluminum Fast-Burn 62cc heads fitted with 2.00″ intake / 1.55″ exhaust valves, 4.00″ bore and 3.80″ stroke, 9.6 to 1 compression, four-bolt main block with forged pistons, crank and rods, steel hydraulic roller camshaft .509″ / .528″ lift 222º / 230º duration and1.5 to 1 aluminum roller rocker arms.
Hedman Hedders ceramic coated headers.
Streets & Performance (S&P) chrome accessory drive system with chrome alternator and A/C compressor.
GM chrome (S&P) Ramjet Electronic Port Fuel Injection managed by GM 1227730 (Z28) OBD1 ECM.
GM polished (S&P) distributor with Taylor blue spark plug wires.
GM 700R4 4-speed automatic transmission, lockup torque converter with Derale heat sink transmission cooler.
Polished aluminum raditor with dual electric fans.
Flowmaster mufflers connected with 2.5″ exhaust.
GM 12 Bolt 3:46 gear set with Richmond’s Powertrax traction (No-Slip) system.
Saginaw 700 variable ratio power steering box by Mullins.
Wilwood 12″ brake rotors, 4-piston calipers and integral parking brake.
Painless Wiring 18-circuit wiring harness with all new sub-harnesses.
Energy Suspension motor and transmission mounts.
Global West tubular front and rear control arms and sway (1 ¼” front and rear 1″) bars.
Classic Performance Products 2″ drop spindles.
Edelbrock Inertia Active System (IAS) classic shocks.
Budnik (17″ – 7″ front 17″ – 8″ rear) wheels and “Stinger” steering wheel.
Pirelli “P” Zero (235 /50/17″ front 245/50/17″ rear) tires.
Vintage Air heating and air conditioning system.
Original Parts Group gauge cluster with tachometer.
Ididit chrome steering column with tilt, 4-way flashers and headlight dimmer.
Original Parts Group door panels.
Dynamat Xtreame sound deadener and heat shield.
Julianos 3-point OEM style shoulder and lap seat belts.
Glide Engineering reclining bench seat with center arm rest.
Shaved door handles with remote electric door release.
Ken Harrison AM/FM Cassette radio.
The images below are of the car from the day I first saw it listed for sale, its delivery to Chicago and some of the work being performed. If you see a picture that is interesting, you can click the image to display a larger view.
It started – 10 below zero – Nice Chevelle too but it needed a jump.
Journeyman (performed by the previous owners) metalwork – NOT!
Another shot showing the butchering of previous owner.
View from the rear, paper was installed to protect from welding.
Trans cooler – hard plumbed.
Mid section you can see the new floor pans.
Masked off for 3m undercoating.
Drove the car today – minor punch list (alignment, brake tune-up, headlight problem) car will be ready next week. I can stow wheelchair in the car.
Power (4-way) seat, added winter of 2008-2009. Now I can slide my wheelchair in and out of the backseat without removing the wheelchair wheels.
This image is date from the ECM as collected and displayed by the Datamaster program. Since I grew up on carburetors, feeler gauges and continuity testers this is just amazing stuff.
A&W Cruise July 2009 – Judy and yours truly.
Willow Springs Car Show – August 2009.
Don’t know what class or place. Could be for “Best Blue Car Owned by Guy in Wheelchair” award for all I know. They did have real judges with real criteria but I still find the whole thing amusing.
Downers Grove Car Show – September 2009 – “The Lil Girls” at the last show of the season in DG.
Tilted Kilt Car Show – September 2009 – Its gotten pretty popular, I wonder why?