[Mwieczorek]

This is gonna be my restoration/build thread.

I posted about bringing home a 66 Bonneville 2 door hardtop and a 66 Catalina convertible.

The Catalina will be in its own thread at some point, for now it is solid and runs and drives and I'm going to leave it be...

I'm going to focus on the Bonneville for now.

According to the PO, the car was in a barn in North Carolina, it does have a NC inspection sticker from 2001, so that checks out. It was apparently bought and brought up here by an older gentlemen around 2010, and he stuffed it in his barn and passed away in 2016, then the PO bought it from the estate. He stuffed it into his barn and left it sit for another 5 years, and I bought it from him a couple weeks ago.

It did start and drive in the yard, and it was really straight, so I bought it.

The engine is a389/4bbl. Code is YE so it should be 325hp. At least it's not the absolute base engine! It has a THM400, and an open diff with highway gears. It's a bench seat/column shift, so nothing exciting inside to speak of...

Did I mention that the the body on this thing is razor straight? The only real rust is in the trunk floor. There was a rotting cardboard box in the trunk when I got it and I'm sure that didn't help.

The interior stinks, I'm sure I'll find something dead when I get into it. At the very least the carpet needs to be shampooed. The seat covers are mostly pretty good, so that's a plus!

It does have 95k miles on it, and the 389 seems a bit tired. I dug my compression tester, multi-funtion meter, vacuum gauge, etc out of the tool box today so I can see just how tired it is and tune it up as best I can.

The brakes were toast, both front wheel cylinders were junk and spewing fluid, so I rebuilt the front brakes with new cylinders, shoes, springs, etc. They seem to work but the pedal is SOFT, so I need to get into the rear brakes. The wheel cylinders I took off appear to be original Delco-Moraine parts, so I kept them for later.

The carburetor was covered in filth and it wouldn't run at all after a week of sitting, so I pulled it off and rebuilt it over the last couple days. It must have had a half pound of green sludge in the bowls. I put it all back together and dumped some fuel down the vent tubes and a little down the throat and she fired right up. That felt good.

I was trying to adjust the carburetor today, and the radiator leak reared its ugly head. The seller told me it leaked and the car came with a replacement, so in it goes... But I'm stopping to clean and paint the core support and all the body support stuff I can get to while its apart, just to keep it from deteriorating.

I'm trying to ride the line between hacking it together to keep it running and tearing it apart and doing a full blown rebuild. It's too easy to go down the "while I have this apart, I may as well do that too" rabbit hole, next thing you know the engine is out and headed for the machine shop and the car sits for the next 5 years. Been there, done that!

As usual for a barn find, the list of things to do is a mile long... I can scratch front brakes and carburetor off the list... Radiator should be in with new hoses in a few days and then I can move on to the rear brakes and do the tune up and see if I can get it rolling up and down my street. The tires are dry-rotted, and I'm not a fan of hubcaps, I need to order some wheels and tires... I gotta admit, I read the whole wheel and tire sticky and it didn't help... As far as I can tell a 15x6 is with a 225/70 R15 is the safest bet? I'd love to run some 15x7s but that seems to invite problems with hitting the fender? If anyone has a definitive answer of what size and backspacings are "safe" I would appreciate it!

That's all I have for now. I'll try to add some pictures later...