66 Coronet Deluxe

[Sprag]

Howdy all, I just joined today and thought I should start a thread for my new project.

Last year, I scored a decent '66 Coronet survivor locally and somehow managed to keep it hidden from my woman. I was initially planning to build this into a decent street/strip ride but I already have too many projects, so after a good cleanup and some mechanicals, this one is going to be a surprise for my woman on her next birthday in March. Her first car was a '65 Coronet and she really misses having a 'fun' car so I thought after a 30+ year hiatus from mother Mopar, she deserves to be behind the wheel of another cool ride. In keeping with the birthday surprise, I'm basically trying to fix it up with spare change and a little horse trading so the expenses will go undetected and remain a secret to her. With that, the focus for now is to first make it safe to drive along with just a little cosmetic work also. After she gets it, she can decide if we do anything major with it and then she can foot the bill!

Anyway, here's a photo from my Welcome Wagon thread but more pics will follow with the upcoming work;

 

[Jeremiah]

I love it!

 

[tpodwdog]

dude....thats too nice of a car to waste on a woman.

 

[Sprag]

I'm not worried about it, I'm sure to get more seat time in it than she ever would anyway. Besides, it's S6 powered and way too nice to mess with now so I'll wait until she gets bored with it and then mess around with it.

 

[roadrunnerman]

definitely a nice car.

 

[Flys-Lo]

Nice car - great gift!

 

[Ron 73]

I think its a great car and one heck of a birthday gift for your lady! You very well may get more seat time, but remember, its a Mopar, Ill make you a friendly little wager, in a years time after you get the "seat time" you;ll either have one or will be searching for the one to make totally your own! Enjoy..

 

[Sprag]

I got the wheels done a few weeks ago but just discovered I have enough photos to show you some of that progress (insert yawn/snore here) and I also took some good photos of the various stampings on the wheels that I might post in a separate thread for reference purposes if anyone seems to give a snot about that. Aside from the missing spare, the wheels appear to be the original matched set so I'm kinda jacked up about that.

Unfortunately, I failed to get 'before' photos so here's a few crummy looking crops taken from my larger photos to show the typical surface rust that I started with;

Somehow I managed to coerce my nephew into blasting the wheels for me while I hid in the shop and watched cartoons. Here's a shot of his results, I think he done good;

Next, I managed to convince my buddy to paint these things for me while I chowed my way through a case of dorritos. Damn, this guy is good eh? He even donated the rubber, two of which are branny new hoops and the other two (not shown) are near mint take-offs he managed to score somewhere(?).

While the wheels were in process, I worked on getting the brakes un-stuck and doing some more evaluating. I discovered the brakes need a little of everything except drums (I hope) so I started gathering parts. This time I managed to get some before photos so I will show those along with the after photos once the brakes go back together.

 

[Propwash]

Cool Deal...Mighty swell of ya. Nice looking ride.

 

[kb67mopar]

Very nice. A good clean find. I do have the spare you are missing and 2 more of those wheels that came off of my 66 deluxe 4 door. (though they might be in service here for a little bit while I get another set of wheels). Let me know what you are missing or in need of since I still have quite a few parts I won't need.

 

[Cranky]

Man, that looks like a nice clean car for having been sitting! Mine was nearly free (66 Belvedere I) of rust but had some in the left rear floor. The car had working ac with full rubber floor mats and that combo usually meant right front floor was totally rusted out but this one is solid. What size brakes does it have on the rear? Mine was 10x1.5! Try to find that size drum! My drums were scored pretty bad and I didn't have the parts to change it over at the time so I turned the drums myself and even after taking out .100", they were still not cleaned up. I did give them a good test to make sure I wasn't driving a wreck waiting to happen. Drums are pretty tough and that .060 max cut is just a big safety margin for the corporate legal eagles. Ran em for two years before swapping out the dinky rear for an 8 3/4.

 

[Sprag]

Thanks to all for the kind words. :hello2:

After lurking around here a bit, I feel humble for finding such a solid car near home, dumb luck I guess, but every time I get near this thing I'm thankful for that. There's simply no way I could take on a full blown project right now, I know I wouldn't have the money and seriously doubt that I have the determination to tackle what many of you here have gotten involved in under similar circumstances. Finding the time/money/motivation to work on this outside has been a struggle already and it's not even cold out yet!

I did manage to secure *free* indoor storage for the winter but I won't be able to work on it there so I have to get this thing rolling along here soon. Today I should get the axle seals so I have the rear brake assemblies ready to go back on and she will at least roll. Then I will be able to get it into the shop the next time the hoist is open and get started on the brake lines, leaking fuel tank, etc, etc, etc.

- - - Updated - - -

.................Ill make you a friendly little wager, in a years time after you get the "seat time" you;ll either have one or will be searching for the one to make totally your own! Enjoy..

Thanks Ron, but I wouldn't take you up on the wager, I've only driven this thing about 30 feet and I want another one to mess with!

- - - Updated - - -

Very nice. A good clean find. I do have the spare you are missing and 2 more of those wheels that came off of my 66 deluxe 4 door. (though they might be in service here for a little bit while I get another set of wheels). Let me know what you are missing or in need of since I still have quite a few parts I won't need.

I saw your project thread on your 'Net and cringed a little when I saw that I missed the decklid you had a while ago. I wish I was more on the ball with this back then! I'm in the far north 'burbs of ChiTown and think I need to come visit you sometime, your project looks great and with the Hemi going in, well, that's just awesome!
I might be interested in the wheels you have when you're done with them, but for now I really need to score a rear bumper and decklid. I'm even considering switching it over to '67 style or a mix of both to broaden my choices and maybe reduce the cost on that stuff. Call it sacrilege, but right now I don't care if the car has 4 back up lamps or none at all, anything would be better right now considering the non-existent budget for this. I can always correct it later too so if you have a straight bumper bar or deck, let me know please. Mike

- - - Updated - - -

.......What size brakes does it have on the rear? Mine was 10x1.5! Try to find that size drum! My drums were scored pretty bad and I didn't have the parts to change it over at the time so I turned the drums myself and even after taking out .100", t.......

I believe the drums are 9" all around, but don't remember. I'm going to visit this thing today and will look at that.
Again, I really lucked out here (sort - of), the brakes froze solid up front from sitting but the drums cleaned up very nicely with a very minimal cut. The only problem with that so far is that the parts store meathead that turned the rear drums let the cutter chatter badly all the way across on both of them so I have to address that. Again, I'm humbled by this thing and not going to get worked up over it (yet)!

 

[copper67440]

I've got a set of 10" rear drums you can have for shipping cost. I took them off my 67 when i went to 11".

 

[kb67mopar]

I saw your project thread on your 'Net and cringed a little when I saw that I missed the decklid you had a while ago. I wish I was more on the ball with this back then! I'm in the far north 'burbs of ChiTown and think I need to come visit you sometime, your project looks great and with the Hemi going in, well, that's just awesome!
I might be interested in the wheels you have when you're done with them, but for now I really need to score a rear bumper and decklid. I'm even considering switching it over to '67 style or a mix of both to broaden my choices and maybe reduce the cost on that stuff. Call it sacrilege, but right now I don't care if the car has 4 back up lamps or none at all, anything would be better right now considering the non-existent budget for this. I can always correct it later too so if you have a straight bumper bar or deck, let me know please. Mike

I do not at this time have a spare bumper or decklid but I do have a 66 bumper I intend to use on my 67. So if you find a straight 67 bumper I would be game for a trade. Its not perfect and would need re-chroming eventually and one spot of metal repair but next spring I will take care of the metal repair part and then I am painting them silver until I can eventually afford re-chrome. Its a shame you didn't pick this up last january I sold my spare bumper and a clean decklid. It pained me to sell the decklid to the guy I did. He took a 4 door Coronet welded the rear doors shut and ground all the paint off and thats how they keep it...had to replace his decklid because it got too thin from the grinding.....shame

Thanks for the compliments. I should mention the rear axle under my car right now is the 7 1/4 from my 66 so if you need drum parts I don't intend to use any of those and from what I can tell they are in good shape though I never bothered pulling the drums off.

 

[Sprag]

@copper67440
@kb67mopar
- PM's sent to both - thank you.

Yesterday I finally got the right axle seals (the worlds most expensive non-NOS axles seals in the history of all mankind BTW) and got the axles and backing plates on the rear. Now I wait until we get some free time on the hoist and I'll roll it inside and build the brakes and replace the hard lines. It will be nice to give it a good look once it's in the air, pics to follow with progress.

 

[mrkinger]

Very nice,keep the pics comming

 

[Sprag]

I must admit, it seems weird to post a bunch of pics for such a simple car and basic mechanical overhaul stuff, I didn't think anyone would give two schlitz! Going forward, I can only hope I don't get my balls broken about skipping a lot of the details and stuff, this isn't going to be a resto, I just want this car to come back to life again. Despite it's '20 footer' looks, this thing has had a loooong rest and I think if I didn't grab it when I did, it might have sat where I found it for another twenty years!

 

[kb67mopar]

I must admit, it seems weird to post a bunch of pics for such a simple car and basic mechanical overhaul stuff, I didn't think anyone would give two schlitz! Going forward, I can only hope I don't get my balls broken about skipping a lot of the details and stuff, this isn't going to be a resto, I just want this car to come back to life again. Despite it's '20 footer' looks, this thing has had a loooong rest and I think if I didn't grab it when I did, it might have sat where I found it for another twenty years!

We all love car ****, so even simple stuff is fun to look at. Its why I post pics of everything because usually I dissapoint without an update. That and its interesting the number of people that thank you for just posting simple things because they are learning how to.

and 20 footer looks is not bad...its the 60 footer you gotta watch out for! I think you needed to be about 110' away from mine to avoid noticing the rust holes when I bought it

As always if you need assistance let me know, I always like helping out a fellow mopar man. (bonus on a 2 dr post!)

 

[kb67mopar]

make haste with the car ****, I want to see more. lol

 

[Sprag]

I'm tryin' man! Can't get squat done lately, we're staying just busy enough in the shop with paying jobs to keep the rack tied up and I'm way, way too lazy (old/tired etc) to do this stuff out in the cold!