[JeffInVA]

New year, so I though I would kick off a thread about my latest acquisition. My dad had 2 1969 Grand Prixs, a maroon automatic car and a gold 4-speed car. He had the maroon car when I was a teenager back in the early 80s and he picked up the gold car more recently. His bad health in recent years meant he did not have the energy to work on any of his cars, so a couple years ago he mentioned selling them and I said I was interested in the gold car. Log story short he passed away unexpectedly this past July before we could complete the sale. I was able to negotiate getting the gold car from his widow (not my mother – he was remarried), but it was not pleasant.

Anyway, since the car did not have wheels or tires, my brother and I threw some Rally II’s from his 68 Firebird in a rental car, drove to Florida, put the wheels on and trailered the car back to Virginia with a rented Penske truck/trailer. Here is a shot about half-way home



The car is a rust-free Texas car with a 428HO and factory 4-speed, no air conditioning. Dad had completed most of the work, I just need to finish things out. The engine is recently rebuilt, bored .030 over and was rebuilt by his neighbor. I think he kept most of it stock, but not sure. He did some engine compartment detailing while it was out, so it looks pretty decent.



The car was repainted in the factory color – passable job, but not great. Interior is pretty much done except for a few minor things like droopy sun visors.





It sill needs a few things:
- exhaust system – it has some pipes and mufflers they used for breaking in the engine, but needs a complete system
- rear differential seal leaks
- brakes seem not to work, but have not checked them out too much yet

Main problem now is that it won’t start – no spark. I’m still investigating that. My brother and I pulled the distributor to manually prime it, since we didn’t know how long it has been sitting. The priming worked great, just hoping that we didn’t screw something up when we pulled it out.

I’m sure I’ll have questions as I go, so I wanted to start a “build” thread to update as work progresses. My plan is to get it running and just enjoy driving it. When he bought the car, it was missing the engine and I think the rear end, so those are not original. I believe he replaced it with a 428HO from an automatic car. So not a numbers matching survivor or anything, but it has sentimental value to me and should be a cool car to drive around. If anyone here knows any history about this car, please let me know. I believe he bought it from someone in Texas in the early 90’s.