After many years of dreaming about american muscle I made a move and spend pretty much all my savings on a decent 67 Coronet. Had it imported with the idea of it being a solid car that needed some work to keep it on the road for many years to come.
About this Mopar:
I always wanted a project to work on instead of sitting on the couch or playing videogames in the evening. However, I am from the Netherlands and some of the coolest american cars rarely show up here, especially with gas being almost 2 euro's a liter (do the math yourselve and be amazed). If they do show up, they are often in great condition and way to expensive. So, I searched for quite a while and finally pulled the trigger on a solid 1967 Coronet and had it shipped across the pond. I drove it for about 2000 miles this summer as I got it and I plan to go through it completely but step by step and more importantly drive it as much as I can in the meantime. This garage is about the stuff I run into and do with it. If you are someone that has a lot of experience and see me doing something wrong or stupid, let me know. I am learning everything as I go and I love to get to know the car from top to bottom on the way. Future plans (for now) are: Cleaning everything up, installing floor shifter and console, Getting new more original looking (or orgininal) seats, redoing window mechanism and sweeps, Fixing the front disc brakes because they are ticking while driving and in the far future a complete engine rebuild + 4-speed install. Join me on my journey!
Update 1 (btw if anyone knows how to create a new post for updates please let me know in the comments) :
Noticed the ticking of the front brakes and tried fixing it in my parents driveway. Seemed to be better but not quite satisfied but I'll come back to that during the winter... So after just driving it some more around town and going on a short 300 mile camping trip with it, it suddenly started stumbling when coming to a stop. Figured it should be something vacuum/carb related and decided I would replace all vacuum lines and do a full carb rebuild since the secondary circuit was leaking a bit anyway. Also, cleaned up the general intake area while I was at it. Works perfectly after tuning it with a vacuum gauge, gained some HP but also decreased the MPG by about 10/20%. I'm happy, it is all about smiles per gallon right?
Update 2 : Untill recently, I had to do everything outside as I did not have a place to store it and work on it at the same time. Luckily I found a nice hall that I am now renting with a few friends. There I started right away with the trunk. It had a bunch of surface rust in there and I wanted to tackle that right away to prevent it getting worse. Removed the old paint and rust and treated it with POR 15.
Update 3: Winter is here and so has the time to do all the jobs that i was planning to do. I started with making new window sweeps. I had two strips of two meters length but then I noticed that the original ones were attached with these clips which I did not have. I decided that parkers and speednuts would do the job for now. Next time I will get a set from cat whiskers though... much easier to install. To do this I had to pull the seats out and remove the panels. This gave me a chance to do some additional things: Clean, find the original seatbelts for the back seat, and find the buildsheet in the backseat! I am not sure if it is the original sheet to the car but I will discuss this in a seperate post. After that, I focussed on replacing a couple of older parts with brand new ones like radiator hoses and filters. I also decided to pull the entire dash for paint and prepare the wiring behind it to install three complementary gauges: Oil pressure, water temp and volts. I made a circuitboard and connected them all to one relay in order to minimize the chance they will become a fire hazard. The dash has its nice chrome edges back! Water temp is the only one remaining because the pipe plug is stuck in the waterpump housing after being in it for 54 years. In the upcoming weeks I plan on changing all the fluids and with them the old pan gaskets, installing a new window channel guide for the drivers side window, and finally tackle those pesky front brakes. First bleeding them and if neccesary replacing the pads and rotors. That'll all be part of the next update!
Update 1 (btw if anyone knows how to create a new post for updates please let me know in the comments) :
Noticed the ticking of the front brakes and tried fixing it in my parents driveway. Seemed to be better but not quite satisfied but I'll come back to that during the winter... So after just driving it some more around town and going on a short 300 mile camping trip with it, it suddenly started stumbling when coming to a stop. Figured it should be something vacuum/carb related and decided I would replace all vacuum lines and do a full carb rebuild since the secondary circuit was leaking a bit anyway. Also, cleaned up the general intake area while I was at it. Works perfectly after tuning it with a vacuum gauge, gained some HP but also decreased the MPG by about 10/20%. I'm happy, it is all about smiles per gallon right?
Update 2 : Untill recently, I had to do everything outside as I did not have a place to store it and work on it at the same time. Luckily I found a nice hall that I am now renting with a few friends. There I started right away with the trunk. It had a bunch of surface rust in there and I wanted to tackle that right away to prevent it getting worse. Removed the old paint and rust and treated it with POR 15.
Update 3: Winter is here and so has the time to do all the jobs that i was planning to do. I started with making new window sweeps. I had two strips of two meters length but then I noticed that the original ones were attached with these clips which I did not have. I decided that parkers and speednuts would do the job for now. Next time I will get a set from cat whiskers though... much easier to install. To do this I had to pull the seats out and remove the panels. This gave me a chance to do some additional things: Clean, find the original seatbelts for the back seat, and find the buildsheet in the backseat! I am not sure if it is the original sheet to the car but I will discuss this in a seperate post. After that, I focussed on replacing a couple of older parts with brand new ones like radiator hoses and filters. I also decided to pull the entire dash for paint and prepare the wiring behind it to install three complementary gauges: Oil pressure, water temp and volts. I made a circuitboard and connected them all to one relay in order to minimize the chance they will become a fire hazard. The dash has its nice chrome edges back! Water temp is the only one remaining because the pipe plug is stuck in the waterpump housing after being in it for 54 years. In the upcoming weeks I plan on changing all the fluids and with them the old pan gaskets, installing a new window channel guide for the drivers side window, and finally tackle those pesky front brakes. First bleeding them and if neccesary replacing the pads and rotors. That'll all be part of the next update!
