On Tue, 27 Apr 2021 12:07:28 -0700 (PDT), DerbyDad03
wrote:
On Monday, April 26, 2021 at 9:20:46 PM UTC-4, wrote:
I had a '70 AMC Gremlin. That really should have been Car of the
year. They made more money on parts than the car. It _had_ to be
profitable.
I had a couple friends with AMC cars - they seemed to have the
weirdest things break - a Gremlin was the only case that I have ever
heard of a seat breaking - drivers seat-back - the car wasn't
abused and no extra-large drivers.
I had a 1966 Rambler Ambassador 990.
Weird thing to have break: The vacuum booster pump that was mounted
to the top of the fuel pump, causing the windshield wipers to stop working.
I solved the issue by pulling the hoses off both sides of the pump and
connecting them to each other. It worked great as long as you didn't mind
the wipers stopping mid-wipe when you accelerated, like you might do
while getting on a highway. :-O
Oh, I'd forgotten that part. I remember the wipers slowing on
acceleration and going a mile a minute when decelerating. I don't
remember a booster but I did have to replace the vacuum wiper motor
several times. Good thing it was easy and relatively cheap
("relatively" because I was a poor student).
No one would believe that vacuum wipers still existed.
The same thing happened to my buddy's AMC Javelin while we were driving
from Cleveland to NJ in a 40° rain storm. In that case the wipers failed in the
up position, but would come back down if we turned them off via the slide
control. Off brought them down, On sent them up - until the cable inside the
dashboard broke. That's when we tied a wire to the wiper arm itself so the
passenger could pull them down and then let them go back up. If you don't
think that that is a thing, ask the Marines:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyPI438nGjI
Then there was the time I had to replace the starter on the Rambler. I went
to the parts store and found out that there was 3 different starters used
on that car. The only way to determine which one I needed was to bring in
my old one and match up the bolt pattern. AMC designed body styles
but used parts from various manufacturers, so you never knew what
you'd find while working on them.
My Gremlin had an Auburn clutch. The parts guy gave me a Borg clutch.
While it didn't look at all like the one that came out of there, the
hole pattern matched, including three extras. Thinking that it was a
later upgrade we put the clutch in anyway. Nope. We took the new and
old part back to the parts store and the guy couldn't believe anyone
had used an Auburn clutch in 20 years (at that time). He felt bad for
me so took the old one back (we'd damaged it) and ordered the right
clutch (which wasn't in his book). Of course we had to do the job
twice and were without a car for several days.
The reason we had to replace the clutch was that the starter took out
the ring gear. I got pretty good at jump starting the car and could
do it by myself (not all that safe but I was 19 or 20, invincible) but
SWMBO wasn't pleased with the situation.
Oh yeah, then there was the vertically mounted AM radio. I wanted to swap
a AM/FM stereo into the Rambler so I started taking the OEM radio out. Turns
out that they needed to make room for the AC ductwork, so they used a radio
that was tall and shallow vs. the more normal short and deep.
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/plwAA...T88/s-l300.jpg
The rolling greenhouse Pacer
was said to be a nightmare for getting parts - mid year model
changes & a parts/supply chain that couldn't cope
I knew a guy that was an auto mechanic and also plowed snow as
a side job. He built a plow truck by mounting a Pacer body on a 4x4
truck chassis. He said he wanted the extra visibility provided by the
Pacer's expansive glass. Funny looking vehicle, but it got the job done.
Uh, what model is it?
Well, it's a '49, '50, '51, '52, '53,
'54, '55, '56, '57, '58, '59 automobile
It's a '60, '61, '62, '63, '64, '65, '66, '67
'68, '69, '70 automobile