This is the Self-Preservation Society

So, it's been a while since the last update, but work has been slowly progressing.  Mostly I've been pulling parts off Matilda to try to get her ready to go to a body shop.  Haven't located a body shop yet, though.  I keep thinking that there's just a couple more things to pull off, but once I have those couple things off, I'll notice just a couple more.  But, every little bit is progress, I guess.

I did get the dash removed, which was cool, because seeing how it goes together gives me some ideas for a few things I could do to customize it.

 

I also pulled out most of what was left of the rear interior, which was pretty much just the sail panel boards, and they were pretty much shot.  In fact, pretty much all of what was left of the interior was pretty well shot.

One thing I forgot to mention in an earlier post was that I found what appears to be an interesting suspension modification in the rear.  As far as I know, there's only supposed to be two springs in back, one on each side.  But when I got under there, I found four springs.

In the photo, the front of the car is to the right.  The spring closer to the front of the car, which seats in a pocket in the frame and extends down to the trailing arm, is the stock spring.  The spring closer to the rear of the car sits on a base that is attached to the axle housing with a U-bolt clamp and apparently contacts the bottom of the frame around the rubber block above it.

When I saw the extra springs, I remembered that I had read that moonshiners, back in the 1930s, used to bolster the rear suspensions of their cars so that when they were loaded with gallons and gallons of moonshine, the police wouldn't notice that the car was sitting low in the back and arouse suspicion.  This stiffening of the rear suspension turned out to be a benefit for handling, as well, when moonshiners started racing their cars in the contemporary version of what would eventually turn into modern day's "stock car" racing.

I don't know if that type of modification was still in practice by the time Matilda was built, and I've never thought of Texas as a hotbed of moonshining, although I suppose I could be wrong.  If I took the time to ask a Texan, they would probably assure me that Texas invented moonshining, and also springs, cars, police, and the unit of measure known as the "gallon" (derived from the volume of one tenth of a Texan's hat, no doubt).

I thought maybe the springs were added as part of a "tow package," but I don't see any evidence that Matilda ever sported a hitch.  The car was originally an SS, so I suppose the springs might have been added as some kind of performance modification by an amateur drag racer in the car's past.  I don't know.

But then I remembered The Italian Job--the original The Italian Job, that is, of course--when Michael Caine, as Charlie Croker, explains that the rear suspensions of his gang's Mini Coopers have been reinforced to support the weight of the solid gold bricks that they plan to steal from the FIAT payroll convoy.  This not only culminates in the most absurdly gratuitous car chase in the history of cinema, it also dovetails perfectly with my theory from an earlier entry about a bank robbery gone bad resulting in Matilda being run through a field during an off-road car chase, and giving her undercarriage its distinct "farm-fresh" scent.

Yes, I am now 92% sure that Matilda was used in an elaborate plot to steal millions of dollars of solid gold from a Mexican government payroll convoy, and that this crime was later developed into the screenplay for the major motion picture "The Italian Job."

Get your skates on, mate!

meet Matilda

Matilda, out front of World Headquarters.

She sits with her nose in the air, but don't think she's a snob.  She's just waiting for a big block.

Comfortable in the garage, at last.

Bumpers already removed, pulling off trim and front grille to get her ready for bodywork and paint.

Front grille and trim removed.

The expansive dashboard.  There are two giant gauge pods.  The one on the driver's left is split into quadrants for a fuel gauge, temperature gauge, oil pressure gauge and ammeter.  The one on the driver's right is a giant manifold vacuum gauge.  It's actually probably closer to the passenger than it is to the driver, and for some reason I find its size and location hilarious.  I think I might replace the giant speedometer with custom-mounted gauges for a speedo, a tach, and some small gauges for temperature, oil pressure, volts and fuel. Then I could relocate the giant manifold vacuum gauge to the driver's left and I think there are factory clocks that will fit in the spot where the manifold vacuum gauge is now.  It's a great looking dash, though.  On the one hand, I hate to spoil its 1960s style.  On the other hand, I'd like to have a tach somewhere, and I think the modified dash would give more of a "race car" look.  Although, I once got to look inside a real 1966 NASCAR stock car, and I think it only had a tach and an oil pressure gauge.  But I'd like a little more than that, though.

I probably should have taken pictures before I started gutting the interior, but there wasn't really a whole lot here even as the car was received.  I pulled out the back seat and used a Shop Vac to suck a bunch of garbage out of the car before taking this picture.

Out on the patio, here is the bottom half of the back seat, and the crappy bucket seats that weren't even bolted down in the front of the car.  From the looks of them, I'd guess they came out of a late-model minivan in a junkyard.  They're still on the patio now, but Monday is the city's next day for "bulky item" trash pick up.

Looks like a great place to put a Mark IV big block V8.

"It's all relative."  The Corvair was Chevrolet's first "compact" car.  It doesn't look real "compact" by today's standards, but here it is with the Impala's bumper on the floor in front of it.  The edges of the bumpers are lined up on the driver's side, and it can be seen that the Impala bumper is a good foot past the Corvair's bumper on the passenger side.

The gas tank is out, and on the floor.  The exhaust is removed, cut up and on the floor, too.  I guess sometimes it's a little strange what I get excited about, but I was delighted to see the track bar rear suspension.  The track bar, or "Panhard rod," as Europeans might call it, is the long bar that runs diagonally down, left to right in the picture above.  It locates the rear end laterally under the body.  It is a design that is sufficiently antiquated that even Bertha didn't have one, and yet it is used to this day under NASCAR "stock cars."  So, modern NASCAR's roots can be seen here, and Matilda's NASCAR roots, too.

identity crisis

All right.  I'm calling it.  A large part of the reason for the long pause between posts was because I've been struggling to decide what to call the Impala.  But there comes a point where you just have to make a decision.

I guess it wasn't clear to some people that the Impala was supposed to be called Bertha II (and/or Bertha, too).  The idea was that I wanted Bertha to live on through the Impala, and there just really isn't any name that's better than Bertha.  But, I guess some people didn't get that, and other people keep telling me that the Impala should have a different name.  Perhaps most importantly, I'm starting to realize that it's just confusing to refer to both cars by the same name.  So I guess it is time to pick a different name.

The first name I considered was Maybelline.  This would be kind of a natural progression, because Bertha was named after one of Darrell Waltrip's race cars, and at the same time that he was racing Bertha, his team had another car named Maybelline.  There's also this classic Chuck Berry song.  On the other hand, Maybelline just doesn't sound as rugged and reliable as Bertha, and as for the song, I hate to think of myself broken down on the side of the road, asking my car, "Oh, Maybelline, why can't you be true?"  Plus, the song refers to "my V8 Ford," and we already know my position on Fords:  OK for Mark Martin; not OK for me.  So, no Maybelline.

The next name was Roberta - sounds more rugged than Maybelline, almost has the name "Bertha" contained in it.  But most importantly, I ain't mad at you, so don't you be mad at me.  This was really the front-runner until I thought of...

...Matilda.  This name is awesome, and it shares a number of characteristics with the name Bertha.  (1) it sounds rugged, (2) I don't know of any songs about it, (3) it's an American name with German roots, (4) military equipment has been named after it.  Also, it means "mighty in battle," which is pretty awesome.

So anyway, it's settled, the Impala is Matilda.  Long live Matilda.  If you have other ideas about what the Impala should be called, please feel free to let me know (be prepared to be ignored).

In the meantime, I've been pulling stuff off of Matilda to get her ready to go to a body shop.  The bumpers and the front grille are removed, and I pulled out most of what little bit was left of the interior.  The exhaust piping has been removed, and the gas tank.  I still need to remove the taillights, a little bit of interior stuff, and various other miscellaneous items.

While removing some of the exhaust hangers, I noticed that the underside of Matilda smells a lot like what I remember of Uncle Howard's farm equipment.  I would like to think that this means that Matilda was once used as a get-away car after a bank robbery that went wrong, and she was driven through a soybean field while fleeing from the police.  But, she was built in Arlington, Texas and has probably been in Texas her whole life.  So in all actuality, it was probably just a barren field of dirt, and not a soybean field.

Also, I looked up Matilda's VIN, and it turns out that she's an original SS car, so that's pretty cool.  It won't really have much impact on how I build most of the car, but I feel like it entitles me to get the cool door panels with the SS logos on them when I re-do the interior.

Now that that's all settled ... pictures should be coming very soon.

teardown

The Monte Carlo and the Corvair, in the garage.  Getting ready to pull the engine.



Unbolting the headers, getting ready to pull the engine.  Once the Monte Carlo's giant fan shroud was out of the way, and the headers were removed and all the accessories removed, there was actually enough room to squeeze the engine out without removing the hood or the radiator.

The engine, out of the car and on the stand.

A look at the valvetrain that gave the Mark IV big block the nickname "porcupine."

Down to the bare block, ready to go to the machine shop.

A table full of parts.  The camshaft is standing on end at the right side of the picture.  The pistons and rods and cylinder heads are in the foreground, in the background you can see the oilpan and carburetor.

The main bearings.

The TH400 transmission and crankshaft.  A box full of pushrods and rockers, and a bucket of lifters.  These will all be replaced with new parts, so no need to keep them organized.

Bertha is dead, long live Bertha

So, whoever said that time heals all wounds must not have studied physics.  If that person had studied physics, they would know about entropy.  Look it up.  It basically says that, unless you do something to prevent it, everything only ever gets worse.  Now you know why physicists always look depressed.

Well, I didn't do enough to prevent it, and Bertha got a whole lot worse.  I kept thinking that some day, when I had all the proper facilities and the means, I would fix her up the way she deserved.  In the mean time, she was rusting and rusting and rusting, and by the end I felt like she was too far gone to save.  Pretty much every major body panel was rotted out, and the frame had actually gotten so flimsy that I probably shouldn't have had it on the road.  Anything can be fixed, but I felt like by the time everything had been replaced that needed to be, it would be like the guy who says he has his grandfather's hammer, but he's replaced the handle three times and the head once.  It wouldn't be the same car.  So, me and Bertha enjoyed more than 100,000 great miles together, but I decided it was time to let her go.

Well ... that is to say, I decided it was time to let go of the rotten frame and body.  I pulled her 402 big block out, with a plan to rebuild it and transplant it into a new car, so that Bertha can live on.  The intended purpose of this blog is to document the project for anyone who's interested in following along.

I stumbled on to Bertha through dumb luck when I bought her.  Once I started thinking seriously about transferring her motor into something new, I had to decide just exactly what that "something new" was going to be.  I knew it would be a Chevy, of course, but that still left a lot of possibilities.  I didn't want to do a Chevelle or a Camaro.  Those are beautiful cars, but I feel like their popularity drives up their prices too much, and I wanted to do something different, anyway.  Something that you don't see as much.

At first I thought I wanted to do a 1968-72 Nova.  But I'd also always liked 1967 Impalas, the two-door hardtops.  Then I started to get into hot rods.  For a long time I really wanted to do a hot rod.  Finally I started to realize that a hot rod wouldn't be real practical for daily use, and whatever I build, it's important to me that I should be able to drive it regularly and reliably, just like I've always done with Bertha.  I think I could build a hot rod to be reliable, but with no trunk space and the engine exposed to the rain and other things like that, it just doesn't seem like a practical choice.  So, I started thinking about other options.  I think 1962-64 Impalas are real cool, and I thought about something along those lines, maybe a '64 Biscayne.  After a while, though, I was back on to 1968-72 Novas.

I love looking through photos of old race cars from the '60s, and one of my favorite series is the SCCA Trans Am series from the late '60s and early '70s.  The Trans Am series most famously featured Camaros and Mustangs, but it also featured Cougars, Firebirds, Barracudas, Challengers, Darts, Javelins, Corvairs, and--on a couple rare occasions--Novas.  Those Novas were the 1966-67 body style, but I thought it would be real cool to do a "what-if" 1968-72 style Nova done up like a Trans Am racer.  But, Trans Am cars were limited to 305 (5.0L) cubic inch motors, and it just didn't seem right to put a big block into a car that was supposed to look like a Trans Am car.  It's just too much weight up front for such a small car, especially if it's supposed to be able to handle at all.

So, the more I thought about it, the only old race cars I could think of that ran big blocks and made turns were NASCAR cars and Can-Am cars.  While it would be pretty amazing to have a daily driver modelled on a classic Can-Am car, that still didn't sound real practical, or affordable.  That pretty much left NASCAR.

Chevrolet didn't have much of a presence in NASCAR during the second half of the '60s, but there were 1970-72 Monte Carlos, like Bertha, in NASCAR in the first half of the '70s.  And I knew that there had been a few 1965 Impalas raced, too.  So when it came down to time to buy a car, I was looking for either a 1971-72 Monte Carlo (I don't like the 1970 Montes as much), or a 1965 Impala.  I was having a devil of a time deciding what to get.  The Impala has more class, in my mind, and I liked that about it.  On the other hand, there's something really cool about the Monte Carlo's early-'70s tackiness.  One practical advantage of the Impala is that, in 1965, NASCAR was still requiring the cars to run showroom-stock bodies, whereas by the early '70s the bodies were being modified, especially around the wheel wells.  So that meant that it would be easier to get an "authentic" look with a '65 Impala without chopping up the body.

Well, this story's already long, but to make it a little bit shorter, a '65 came up on Craigslist, and it looked like it had potential.  The purchase process was a bit drawn-out, with a bunch of separate trips to go look at it, similar to the purchase of the original Bertha.  I had about talked myself out of this one, but then the owner said that he would knock a bunch of money off the asking price if he could keep the engine and transmission.  I didn't want the engine and transmission, anyway, so that suddenly made the car more attractive.  When I found out that it already had a 12-bolt rearend under it, that made it a little more attractive, still.  I was still debating whether a 1965 Impala was really what I wanted, but finally I decided that it was and I pulled the trigger.  I am now the owner of a 1965 Impala.  "All it needs" is some body work, paint, an engine, a transmission, some suspension modifications, and an interior.  Nothing that a massive investment of time and money can't fix.  But the body and frame look to be pretty solid, and I think it's a good starting point.  A lot of what it needs is stuff that I would have wanted to re-do anyway.

One other thing I should probably clarify is that I am not actually building a race car.  I want the car to have the look and the feel of an old race car, but in the end I still want it to be practical, reliable transportation that I can enjoy driving every day.

So.  All that being said ... here we go.  Like I said earlier, I will attempt to use this blog to document the project.  I wanted to write these first two entries to kind of "set the stage," but in the future I think that entries will be mostly just pictures with captions, and maybe a few paragraphs here and there.  We'll see how it goes.

Bertha's engine has already been pulled and stripped down to the block. Her transmission is sitting on a pallet in the garage. Last weekend, what was left of the Monte Carlo was hauled away, and the Impala is now in the garage.  Nothing to do now but a whole bunch of work.

Bertha is dead.  Long live Bertha!

every story has a beginning

Pretty much everyone who knows me knows that I am a die-hard Chevy guy.  Sometime when I was a little kid, around third or fifth grade or so, I saw Dale Earnhardt's "pass in the grass" against Bill Elliott in the 1987 Winston.  I don't remember if I saw it live, or on a highlight replay, but I do know that I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen, and from that point on, Dale Earnhardt was my guy.  And Dale Earnhardt drove a Chevy.

In the spring of 1998, I decided that I wanted to buy a car. I was just finishing my freshman year at the University of Illinois, and when I came home for the summer, I started looking for a car.  By that time, for about ten years, and about half my life, I'd been a Chevy guy. But, as I was starting to look forward to buying a car, the realist in me knew that I might not be able to find just exactly what I wanted.  At that time, EBay was in its infancy, if it existed at all, and Craigslist wasn't even on the horizon.  I would be limited to whatever was listed in the classified ads in the Suburban Life newspaper.  The goal was to buy a car right away, so I could drive it to my new summer job in Elmhurst.  That meant I wouldn't be able to wait very long to see what might become available.  With all this in mind, I started making a conscious effort to shed my biases and open my mind.  I didn't have any strong objections to other GM makes, especially Oldsmobile.  I had always liked the 1971 Cutlass S that my dad had when I was a kid.  And Plymouth and Dodge were not a real hard sell, either.  I could even stomach Mercury.  But desperate times call for desperate measures, and I was even trying to warm up to Ford, just in case that was all I could find.  I remember that the best thing I could think of, to try to come to terms with Ford, was that Mark Martin drove a Ford.  After all, you've got to respect the hell out of Mark Martin.

I remember the first car that caught my eye was a 1968 Plymouth Barracuda. Boy, that would have been cool, right?  At the time, I didn't even know what a 1968 Barracuda looked like, I just knew that I liked cars from the late-60's and early-70's. But it was listed in the Tribune, and it was somewhere in Chicago, and I never did go look at it.  Turns out they're pretty awesome.

Looking through the Suburban Life, I saw two prospects.  There was a 1974 Pontiac Grand Prix for $3800, and there was a 1972 Monte Carlo for $4200.  I called about the Grand Prix, but it had already sold.  I wasn't really sure if I wanted a Grand Prix, but when I heard it had sold so quickly, I felt like I must have really missed out.  Man, am I glad now that I didn't get that Grand Prix.

I called about the Monte Carlo, and arranged to go take a look at it.  It was in Berwyn, and I think the first time I went to go look at it, I might have gone with my buddy Jason.  We looked at it, and that was about it.  I went back later with my dad, and we test drove it a bit.  It seems like there might have even been a third trip before I made an offer.  Dad put a vacuum gauge on the engine, and it looked OK.  He pulled out his old rubber hose "stethoscope," and didn't find anything too objectionable.  Then we test drove it around the neighborhood.  Brakes worked OK, the car ran pretty smooth, although the idle was a little high.  Dad said I should get it up to highway speed on the test drive, so we took it on to I-290.  I remember the car felt so huge, and the spot where we got on 290 had us merging into the left lane.  I was white-knuckled trying to maneuver that thing into traffic at speed, with a concrete wall on my left and cars flying by on the right.  The huge C-pillars didn't help visibility, and the massive hood stretching out in front of me looked like it was just inches from scraping everything around us.  But we survived, and the car ran smooth enough.  We took the car back to the guy's building, and I told him I'd think about it.

I called the guy on Friday and asked him if he'd take $3500.  He said he'd think about it and call me back after the weekend.  At the end of the weekend, I still hadn't heard from him, so I called him on Sunday night.  He said he couldn't take less than $4000.  So, that was that.  No Monte Carlo.

I was disappointed, but I think maybe a little relieved, too.  I think I had been nervous about making such a large purchase, of such an old car, such an unknown quantity.  I still needed a car for the summer, so I bought my dad's 1992 Buick Skylark (a two door), which was affectionately known among my friends as "the Dynaride."  It was a great car, and it got me to work and back every day.  I also drove it to New Orleans and back one weekend in June.

At some point, probably in July, I think, the Monte Carlo owner's wife called and left a message on my parents' answering machine, saying that they were ready to accept the $3500 offer.  I called her back and said, sorry, I already bought a car.

But, as the summer wound down, I kept thinking about that Monte Carlo.  As it got closer and closer to time to go back to school, I was thinking more and more:  I want that Monte Carlo.

But, I had bought the Skylark, and I still felt like I needed my dad's permission to make such a big decision.  Plus, I'd need him to buy the Skylark back if I was going to have the money for the Monte.  While he was at work one day, I told my mom that I wanted the Monte Carlo, and she said something along the lines of, "Well, talk to Dad about it."  That night my mom had some place to go, and me and my dad were sitting in the family room watching TV.  I have no idea what was on, I was just sitting there trying to figure out how to start the conversation.  I thought he was against the idea of buying the Monte Carlo, although I don't remember if he ever explicitly said so.  Hours passed, and I didn't say anything.  Then my mom came home.  I saw her car go past the window as she drove back to the garage, and suddenly I was panicking, imagining her walking in and saying, "So, are you going to get the Monte Carlo?" and my dad saying, "What?!"  So, I hurriedly said something like, "If it's all the same to you, I think I want to buy that Monte Carlo."

I don't think my dad even looked away from the television.  He just said, "Well ... it's your money."  I couldn't believe it.  I was ecstatic!  I had been bracing for a discussion, a debate, pros and cons, fiscal philosophy, and so on.  I got, "Well, it's your money."  It was better than any outcome I had even dared to hope for.

So, I called the seller back and we agreed to $3500.  It was arranged that I'd sell the Skylark back to my dad for a little less than what I bought it for.  We went and picked up the Monte Carlo on Sunday, August 23rd, the day before I was supposed to drive back to school.

My dad drove me over there, I paid with a check, the seller had a contract written up on a piece of paper torn out of a spiral notebook.  That's about all I remember about the actual transaction.  The seller also said he'd just changed the alternator.  Probably not a great sign, but I didn't much care.  I was getting a Chevy.

My dad followed me home, and we were into La Grange, a couple of miles from home, when the engine died.  That was when I first found out what a 1972 Monte Carlo drives like with no power steering and no vacuum-assist brakes.  I wrestled it to the curb and my dad pulled over behind me.  At this point, I did not feel good.

I think my dad had to be thinking I had just bought a junker, and maybe even kicking himself for not talking me out of it.  But one of the many things I admire about my dad is his ability to put those kinds of things aside when I problem comes up, and just focus on finding a solution.

We popped the hood and poked around, or I probably mostly watched my dad poke around.  The fuel gauge was close to "E," and the best guess after looking around was that the car had run out of gas.  Dad went home to get a gas can, and I stayed to wait with the car.  As Dad drove off, I got in the car, shut the door, and when I went to rest my arm on top of the door, I accidentally pushed the lock down.  I remember thinking that it seemed uncomfortably metaphorical, locking myself into this car that wouldn't run.

It felt like forever, but eventually Dad came back with some gas.  Somehow, the car re-started, and I was able to drive it home.  I don't remember for sure, but we must have had to jump it.  It made it the couple of miles back to the driveway, and when we got it home, we popped the hood and started looking around again.  I didn't hardly know what I was looking at, but somehow I found a plug hidden under the heater hoses that had not been plugged into the alternator.  The car had died because it was running off the battery and it had run the battery dead.  I plugged it in, we jump-started the car, and my dad followed me as I drove it down to Joliet and back, to road test it and charge the battery.

I was back on top of the world.  I had survived my first breakdown, I had found the problem and fixed it myself, and I now owned a 1972 Monte Carlo.  I named her "Bertha," after a Chevy that Darrell Waltrip raced in the late 1970s.

So, that was the beginning of my story with Bertha.  Over the next 14 years, I would enjoy over 100,000 miles with Bertha, with not a whole lot more than routine maintenance and upkeep.  I have learned so much since I bought that car, and I learned a lot of it from working on that car.  I think that car was, without a doubt, the best purchase I ever made.