You need to get underneath the car and look at the floor pan braces and also look at the body mounts inside the rear wheel wells. That will give you a good idea of what is involved to repair the car.
Heck yea it’s worth saving. My advice would be, by no means, take it apart. As other said get it rolling and stopping first. Then work on getting it running. I’m sure once it fires you first response is to try to drive it. As for the floors, grab a wire wheel or a wire brush and clean it up. Grab a fiberglass kit and put a layer or 2 of glass over the bad areas to make it safe and keep the fumes out. Paint it with a brush black and move onto another area. You can always come back to the floors later. Looks like a fun project, get it on the road again and have some fun. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
I’m going to go against the grain a bit, that flux core welder should be fine for floor patches. You may have to grind the welds a bit to get them smooth, but you’re gonna cover the floor with carpet anyway so it won’t matter if they aren’t pretty. Just do small tack welds, skipping around to keep warpage down. I’d patch them for now and get it running and driving, then if you still like it, you can always get another welder and some new pans and make it like new.
There's lots of stuff to do on the car, so pick one off at a time. Sounds like the points need to be adjusted if they don't even open. Also, remove a piece, inspect, clean and put it back, if it looks okay(not bad). That means, brake parts, gas lines, etc. It's definitely do-able, and you'll learn and have fun.
yes it is worth saving. get it running , make it stop then have fun. i'm dumb enough to save this one. all brakes and suspension come from rock auto less than $1800. including springs and shocks plus hubs , gas tank etc. really cheap if you keep it stock. also easy to rebuild.
This is the Hamb. We like stuff like points. It's simple and it works. It's period. Many folks try to get to what you already have under the hood. There's a lot of cool stuff on that car. I suggest you learn to fix stuff like that. It can only help your skills. It helps you save money as many assume everything needs an upgrade. Unfortunately since they do not grasp how the thing really works they throw modern zippity doo dah parts at it and call it an upgrade. I see this all the time on the discussion forums. Why do my new brakes not work? Why does my car run poorly with this new jiggabob from Speedy Rodz? I installed the new and improved suspension upgrade from Johnny Speeder and now my car only travels in a slow turn to port......Much like the wounded Bismarck, I really miss turning right, it makes traveling oh so much easier. Most of these " essential upgrades" were poorly done and to come right down to it good rebuildable stuff was replaced with substandard new and improved parts. Learn how the old stuff works. It makes you a much better mechanic. Repair if you can. Replace if you have too. There is such a thing as false economy. The gas tank is a good example. Folks will spend hundreds of dollars on magic potions, solutions, coatings and fixtures to try and fix a rusty tank. They'll try to make do with filters. In the end they ruin carburetors and fuel pumps because they could not spend the 300 bucks for a new tank. They blow a thousand bucks or more in components and wrecker bills trying to save a 300 dollar part. A 300 dollar part they wind up buying anyway. It's much like the Kenny Rogers song the Gambler. Know when to fold them. Know when to walk away. Know when to run. You have to choose your battles. Save what can be saved. Mourn what can't and move on. I already mentioned a shop manual. I mentioned getting it movable. Do you have a place to put it? If so How will it be stored? I'll tell you right now the blue tarps caused the floor damage. Plastic tarps kill cars. They turn buildable cars into scrap in a matter of months in the Southeastern United States. If you must use tarps build a tarp shelter. Make a Quonset type hut out of stock panels. Put roll roofing on the ground. Boom! For not much money you have a pretty fair place to put one in mothballs for a while. Too, it looks like you give a damn which makes the neighbors happy. You might want to build one for your other projects as this one takes it turn in the garage. The right tools..... Steve mentioned gas wire welders.....real MIGs. I concur and think you should look at TIG as well. Eastwood has a steel TIG for around 300 bucks. Tractor supply has MIG TIG combo for a little more. One advantage a TIG has is the weld is as soft as the parent metal. In MIG and especially flux core the wire is hard while the parent metal is mild. This causes cracks and grinding difficulties. TIG is a lot like torch welding where the welds are soft, thus better for sheet metal. This car is eventually going to need lots of welding. Get the best tools you can afford. It's the whole false economy thing I mentioned earlier. You can eventually peel one potato OK with a spoon. It can be done.If you have a bushel of potatoes a good peeler or even a sharp knife would be so much easier. Draw your own conclusion. Doing good work. Try to do the best work you can. My personal goal is to make the stuff I do look like Period Factory work. Run the lines as neat as you can. Properly route, tape and loom wiring with the right stuff. Use the right connectors and clamps. Do things that show, Well.....That you give a damn. I have seen many very nice cars with crappy work. It just takes away from it. I'll admit some of my past work was like that but I have learned better. It's easy to become a bailing wire and bubble gum mechanic and sometimes you have to make do but always strive to do clean period work if at all possible. Things like this really help resale. People like it but don't know why. Project overload......A wise man said, " A man can't serve two masters. He will love one and hate the other." The same can be said for 2 or more unfinished projects. One will always suffer for the other. If you swap back and fourth and bounce to the third .....all suffer because none get your undivided attention. That and there's other things in life beside cars. Priorities......An extreme example is a rusty hulk needing everything and the new owner is picking out Custom wheels and interior material. In his mind he's on Step 7000 when he should be concentrating on Step 2. Wants... Needs.... Must Haves..... Got to haves.....like last week dammit. Progress...It's no fun swimming in quick sand. Sometimes it good to do things that show progress even if the work will be redone or revisited in the future.. Each step helps but sometimes making a big cosmetic improvement helps morale. Shine up the old girl. I guarantee she'll shine up for you, she'll surprise you. They say beauty is only skin deep but ugly is plumb down to the bone. When it looks like a piece of crap, you tend to treat it like a piece of crap and think of it as a piece of crap. Wash it. Scrub it. Maybe even use some elbow grease and compounds to bring back the shine. Put a coat of wax on it. Shine up the brightwork and the chrome. It's new to you and will look 100 times better. This acquaints you with the car and helps morale. The floor. Yep patches are in the future but......take the carpet out. Pull the seats with maybe he exception of the drivers seat. Prepare for stuck bolts. Try to lube them if you can. You may wind up replacing some of the captive nuts. Removing broken ones is a chore. Wire wheel the floor vacuum. Wire wheel some and vacuum some more. Degrease and paint the floor with rust oleum rusty primer "red oxide". A brush is ideal as there is no overspray getting on everything inside the car. Do the trunk too. This is a lot of work but it pays off. Like shining up the car painting the floor gets you familiar with it. It gives you a clean place to work. It stops or significantly slows future rusting. It looks 100 times better and most importantly, if this car is stored outside it's much more waterproof with the carpet removed and the seats stored away. Instead of rust continueing the paint helps seal it. Again it's a clean place to work that helps morale. If you find that it's just too much for you, cleaning the car up can really help sell it.
There's nothing wrong with a Pontiac! Especially one with no rust and that runs. I say get the Chevy running, stopping and working properly. Clean it up and sell it. I'm sure you will make money on it to pay back the extra you spent on the Ponti. Unless you really have had it with the Ponti, then sell that and fix up the Chevy. You have to do some soul searching and decided what you want. Good luck!
With the looks of the floor & trunk pans, I'd get that up in the air & take a real hard look at the underneath before proceeding. And I'm a huge fan of this era X-frames....
If you need a bit of help sorting out the ignition system, this should be worth a read-through. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/hot-rod-technical-library-basic-ignition-systems.983424/
You know, I would not touch the floors for right now, get the vehicle up and running and go through the brakes. Get it to the point that you can open the door, get in, turn the key and drive away. Once you have reach that point, strip out the interior, buy the floor pans and pull off the exhaust. Take it someplace that you can trust and have them install new floors and exhaust system. I would only do the floor pans if you have a place where you can work, plan on doing another car,and know how to weld. why make a career of learning a skill that you are only going to use once. I don't think that you cannot go wrong with the type of car you have with the options that someone installed.
My thoughts, using your words to think from your point of view which is what matters: -You liked the car enough to talk the neighbor into selling it. -You were excited enough to have already acquired it. -You like the Impala more than your Poncho. -You are not versed in metal work, but super eager to learn and have a welder. DUDE! You're saving this car and you're happy to be doing so! Enjoy it! It doesn't have to be a money pity...If the Frame and floor braces are solid, you're golden. Use the HF flux welder for now....tack weld, bouncing around to spread heat. HF sells grinders too! Your first welds dont have to be pretty, just solid.....grind em' to the aesthetic you see fit. I still stick weld shit with an HF inverter buzz box....its OK. This is a nice learning platform that the aftermarket supports in force. Parts are super easy to find and with the advent of Youtube, The Hamb, etc, you dont need someone to physically teach you. You've won.....now go have fun and learn some cool shit! Im also in East TN. Live in Sevier County and work in Knoxville. My ear is always to the ground. Let me know if I can help! James
Worth saving? That thing looks like a driver! Get it running an stopping. Wax it and go. Sent from my LGLS992 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
If you really like the car it's definitely worth saving, but you are going to have more money in it than you think you will. We all do. I can tell you from experience those floors are shot. Remove you seats, wire brush the floors and then stick a drop light under the car. If you really want to do the car and keep it you can get a one piece floor with braces for around $1250. I if you want to do it cheaper and your braces are good you can buy floor halves for about $120 a side. That will be money well spent even if you sell it down the road. There is no bigger turn off than looking under a car and seeing a bunch of mickey mouse floor patches and that is generally a good indicator of the type of work the owner did on the things you can't see. Good luck with your project.
I thought about this a lot....... Clean up the 64 and sell that Joker! If you loose a little money on it you'll still be ahead. Sell the Bonneville! Sell the race car! Save some dough! Buy the One Car that scratches your itch! Otherwise you are on your way to your own mini junkyard or "Project Purgatory ". It's a well known fact....good deals begat junk. Eventually junk begats junk like dog begats dog and you'll have a yard full of them. Sell, sell ..... even take a loss. What money you get and what you save, get something really really good. If this '64 is your dream.......No...nope, I'll stick with the above. Sell them all and get a better'64.
If it's got rust penetration in the floors that you can see when you pull up the carpet and insulation on the floor, it most likely has some hidden rust that you're not seeing. Did the car come from an area where they use salt on the roads to melt ice in the winter? Look at your rocker panels. Go over them with a magnet to see whether you have solid metal or a Bondo sculpture. Especially look at the back side of the rockers under the car and above the rear wheel openings. The back side under the car will rust through before the outer part that shows. On these X-frame cars, the rocker panels are important to the structural integrity of the body.. Get it up on a rack and poke around on the frame with a big screwdriver or punch to check for rust penetration on the frame. The Chevy X frame design was very prone to rust penetration on cars that were exposed to a lot of road salt.
Yes, definitely worth saving. Wish my floors were that good/bad when i find a car here in Europe's rustbelt
You bought it then hauled it home, and now wonder if its worth it? Yeah, its going to need a lot of work for those floors, and youll find far more that needs fixed. Do what you can, and keep that "Friend" away from it
For similar reasons, I began working on my own cars/trucks years ago. But try to consider that building/restoring a car is usually NOT a profitable endeavor. If you think that you are always going to make money doing this, think again. The TV shows let everyone believe that you make thousands of dollars building up rusty cars that need a lot of work. Reality however, it's usually the other way around. I build cars because I love them. Once in a blue moon(1980's through 1990's) I have broke even, but nowadays, with the high cost of parts, and lack of availability (for us non Ford and Chevy guys), there is no way you can demand a profit. I build to keep for my projects for my own pleasure, and to preserve history. I no longer keep tabs on cost. If you can flip cars and make money, good for you, but the cars aren't as plentiful as they used to be. I wish you well, and I hope that if this is just a money making deal for you, you can make a go of it. To answer your question, YES! That car is totally worth saving. I have saved much worse. That is a cool car for sure. Sent from my Moto Z (2) using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
If you are thinking of passing it on, don't do any rust repair unless you can fix it correct. My help the buyer not to have to fix a botched up repair.
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