#67 caprice

[sammythemetallicar]

Sammy ||  May 15, 2017

For some reason I was feelin’ squirrelly (my fave new word, apparently) after I got home from work today, so I broke out the nifty new ratchet set and went to town on the bumper bolts.  I’ve only been putting this particular task off for, like, months. 

Anyhoo, I’d been soaking the threads in a releasing agent for weeks, and it went pretty well.  I knew to remove the license plate light first, and it was just a matter of wrestling with each bolt. 

Of the 6 bolts holding the bumper brackets to the frame, only one sheared off.  Each bumper end has five bolts, and of those 10, four sheared apart.  Not bad for fifty-year old, rusty nuts & bolts.  And no skinned knuckles or blood was shed!  Woo hoo!

So I’ve still got to remove the towing light socket from the center section, but the Impala bumper ends are ready to bolt back on.  Once I get new bolts, that is.  The RH bumper corner is NOS and pretty sweet, while the LH corner is driver quality, but good enough for now.  Once the unit is re-installed, no one could ever tell that Sammy started out as a Caprice. 

New bolts on the way, so up next:  Install the new fuel tank and sending unit. 

[sammythemetallicar]

Sammy ||  April 15, 2017

Took our boy out and about for the classic car show at Muscle Car City up in Punta Gorda.  One of only four four-doors in attendance. 

[sammythemetallicar]

Sammy ||  February 19, 2017

Finally decided to mess around with restoration paint, so I picked up a couple cans of M43 Gold from The Parts Place via ebay.  (Still wasn’t ready to go the Light Buckskin route).  Started with the discolored front armrests, and they turned out REALLY nice.  Then I got a little squirrelly...

Used three cans and part of a fourth, and the application went well.  Decent spray pattern for a puff can, and it set really nice and fast.  The ambient temperature was around 77 degrees, and I really needed to get this done before the sweltering Florida summer.  Which hits the end of April.  Lol.

The plastics turned out REALLY nice, even the repop retractor covers.  Two coats did the trick.

Lookin’ really good!  I had to sand the glovebox door, and one unhappy spot where things bubbled up a bit, but another session with the tape and newspaper, and he’s lookin’ good as new.  Next up:  take care of the remaining Caprice woodgrain...

[sammythemetallicar]

Engine & Tranny Rebuild  ||  July, 2016

Here’s Sammy’s stripped 327 block back from the machine shop, bored .40 over and lookin’ good.  The heads in the second pic, completely overhauled and ready for Uncle Paul.  We decided on a faithful, mostly stock rebuild.  Finally, a shot of Sammy’s original TH400 tranny in the process of being rebuilt.

It didn’t hit me until after we started this, but we were overhauling Sammy’s drivetrain almost exactly 49 years after his build date in July of ‘67 at Janesville.  Wild, huh?

[sammythemetallicar]

Sammy  ||  June, 2016

Way behind in updating, but it’s been a busy summer season.  Anyhoo, after years of dithering (and plenty of scrimping and saving) it was time to overhaul Sammy’s drivetrain.  After much discussion with Donnie and Uncle Paul at JR’s, we dropped Sammy off on June 24.  Here he is the following Monday, looking more than a little forlorn under a billowy tarp. 

With his 327 and tranny out, lookit all that room under the hood!

So began the four week overhaul, during which Donnie said that if he’d had $20 for every passerby that inquired if Sammy was for sale, he’d have had a boatload of $20 bills.

Sorry folks, but Sammy’s taken!

[sammythemetallicar]

Sammy  ||  May, 2016

A little progress toward Sammy’s transformation from Caprice to Impala:  The dealer-installed side marker lights have been removed from the fenders and rear quarter panels (Yay! for more holes in sheetmetal!) as well as the Caprice trunk emblem.  Impala taillight lenses installed, and the reverse lights re-wired and functional!  We have NOS Impala rear bumper ends to replace the Caprice bumper ends (with the now non-functional original reverse lights), but THAT little job will wait for another (cooler) day.  Can’t really tell from the pics, but new taillight bezels also installed.

The really big change: correct Impala trunk lid trim installed!  These trim pieces are EXTREMELY difficult to come by, let alone in usable condition.  We were very lucky to find this nearly flawless trunk trim, though the Chevy emblem that came with it was junk.  We re-painted the insert area and installed a re-pop emblem, and it turned out really nice.  A HUGE part of the Impala conversion!

[sammythemetallicar]

Sammy ||  March 2015

We weren’t able to do much with poor Sammy for the first few years after the move south, so he just languished in the garage.  He’d been running poorly just prior to the move, and several months after we arrived in SW Florida, he conked out. With over 113,000 miles, his original 327, though in good shape, was definitely very tired, plus his transmission was in dire need of overhaul, as  it was no longer shifting into third gear.  Money was VERY tight, so we just couldn’t spare a dime to try to get him going again. He was inoperative for nearly two years, until I found a local mechanic who took the time to talk to me about what was going on. Thank the Maker for Donnie at JR’s!   The problem was in the HEI ignition (among other things), and after some major fumbling and a blown module (or two), I managed to get Sammy going again.

Here’s the only video we have of Sammy running a few months after his revival, taken with my crap mobile phone.  These are also the only images of the engine compartment prior to the rebuild.  The audio isn’t the best, but it manages to capture the cool rumble of the dual exhaust.  

Sammy’s still sporting his Caprice trunk trim, emblem, and tail lights.  Brief shots of his relatively intact Caprice interior, too (door panels, horn button, dash emblem).

And last but not least, our authentic Ohio CNK 80Q3 license plate up front.

Why do we never take enough ‘before’ pics?

[sammythemetallicar]

Sammy  ||  Vital Stats

We just picked a ‘birthday’ for him, as his build date on the cowl tag is listed as the second week of July (code 07B) of 1967.  He was #192,323 off the line at Janesville that year, and #9,275 of the ‘67 Caprices produced.

Though he had just over 112,000 miles on the clock when we got him, he’d obviously been well-cared for.  Data from the GM Protecto-Plate confirms Sammy retains his original drivetrain, the 327 4-barrel rated at 275 horsepower.  Cowl Tag info indicates he was specially ordered with the beefy TH400 transmission, and the stamp on the housing (67D-532) confirms the appropriate build date as well. It all makes sense, since he had a tow hitch and custom towing lights socket installed in the rear bumper.  So what did Sammy tow all those years ago?  A nifty little pop-up camper?  A sleek Airstream?  If only he could talk, eh?

We don’t know how long Mr. Larsen owned Sammy, but we have an old insurance card that expired in 1992 listing a Mr. Harold Nielsen, also of Tyler, MN, as his owner at that time. 

We were told that Sammy spent ‘many years’ in storage as part of an estate, though again, we have no idea how long that was.  We have a South Dakota Registration slip issued on 6/2/2006 to a Mr. Josephsen, of Brookings, South Dakota.  We also have a few receipts from Brookings for the Wal-Mart there, as well as a Car Quest Auto Parts and Casey’s General Store for a battery, starter, points, condenser, and 5 gallons of fuel, which strongly indicates that Sammy may have been ‘resurrected’ then, after as many as 14 years idle.

What we do know:  Sammy was purchased from Mr. Josehpsen via ebay, spending a year or so in Rochester, NY.  That’s where we found him, on ebay once more, in our quest for a Metallicar project.  So in June 2008, we plunked down $2,500 and trailered him home from Rochester to NE Ohio.  When we hightailed it South from Ohio in late 2011, Sammy came along, and he’s been enjoying his downtime with us here in good old SW Florida ever since.

We’ve finally saved up enough to start working on him again, though who knows how long it may take to complete the conversion to the Supernatural Impala...

Again, if only he could talk.  The stories he could tell!