Projects I bought a nice 62 Rambler I need your advice and opinions

Update on the Rambler. I am convinced that someone put no smoke oil in this car! There is a special place in hell for these people. I absolutely love this car though and I have no regrets buying it. I have put a few hundred miles on it since I got it and love driving her. I am going to pull the head off and take a look at the cylinders today. I am going to hone it and re-ring it if it looks OK after I pull the head. Going to get the head off see what I have and order my parts this week. Farna where do I find Parts? Car Quest seems to be a bust. They cant even find a valve cover gasket.

We at the shop think we know why Rambler named it a classic. " Super bad sweet ass ride" wouldn't fit on the fender!

 

Galvin's Rambler Parts will have them -- www.ramblerparts.com, but so does Kanter Auto Parts (www.kanter.com). I use Galvin's when I can because he's an all AMC supplier. As far as I recall his prices are about the same as Kanter. NAPA might be able to get some parts, but don't hold your breath!

 

We had Ramblers when I was a kid. Still remember getting the pink and black 58 Classic station wagon from the new car dealer with the extra cost clear vinyl seat covers with little gold stars. Later we had a 64 American 440 2 dr. that I took my driver's test in. I HATED those cars! No one wanted to be SEEN in a Rambler, yet alone rod one. I have to admit, though, I really like what you've done with Classic, nice tasteful mods to a clean car. Best of luck with your smoking issue.

 

Here is a name of that I got some of my '62 Classic S.W. parts from. Ken Havekost. Web: nashparts.com ; I have a cpl of more but I'll have to find there names and #'s.

 

Really good looking Rambler....

 

No pictures but the motor is apart. Head is at the machine shop. Needs all new valves. Looks like 487 bucks ouch! Rings were not stuck at all. Small ridge but was easily removed with one pass of the ridge reamer. Pistons look great as well as the crank. I can see copper on the bearings but no scratches or groves. Everything is standard. Going to hone the block and re-ring it.

Here is a question for you farna Replacement bearings only have on hole for oiling out of the rod. Looks like it oiled cam and wrist pin. I think the missing hole is for the wrist pin. Run as is or drill.

 

The missing hole is for the cylinder wall oil squirter. It should face the cam. The cam doesn't need the extra oil, but since it's spraying around inside the block you may as well spray it on the cam. I'd go ahead and drill it. I think I'd install the bearing in the rod then run a drill bit through the squirter hole (if the bit is long enough). Doesn't matter if the drilled hole is slightly smaller than the hole in the rod.

DO pay attention when mounting the rods to the pistons! The rods have a raised "dot" cast into the front, and as I said the squirter hole points to the right side of the engine. The small flat on top of the piston is to the left. The piston should have a small notch in the edge, which goes to the front. Finally, the rod caps should have a raised "dot" on the front side, and they will be lightly stamped with a number on one bolt boss edge on the cap and rod for position. Position doesn't really matter, but matching the cap to the rod does!

It's easy for someone to not notice that the rod and piston are marked for the front and put them on backwards. I had that happen once. Didn't notice the rods were backwards because the pistons must go in the correct way. I put the pistons and rods in numbered order, then put the numbered caps in the correct order. I failed to notice that the numbers were stamped on opposite sides of the cap and rod -- didn't look! The cap is marked for front. I laid them out in order and put them in one at a time. Engine was a little tight, but not enough to worry about. I burned a hole in a piston due to a stopped up jet (was running 2x1V carbs). When I pulled it engine had maybe 15K on it, but rod bearing was down to copper! Checked the mains and they were perfect, but all rod bearings were worn badly. That's when I noticed numbers on opposite sides! So had to pull them all. The machine shop was concerned about cracking a piston if they tried removing the rods, so they resized the big ends with the rods still attached to pistons and they left the big ends with numbers opposite. So it went back together that way -- and squirter wasn't pointing at cam. Ran it for 5-6 years like that with no problems.

 

Its official the rambler is kicking my ass. Got it back together and everything went extremely well. Motor is tight, compression looks great, no blow by, drove it a few days to burn out the oil in the exhaust but it keeps smoking at idle. It starts building up but never starts to miss or anything. Smoke is blue until i clean it out and it turns black. I don't think its too much fuel because it will idle all day and never load up. I think it may be coming from the fuel pump. I unhooked the fuel line and filled the bowl with good fuel and it seemed to clear up a little,hard to tell the way I had to keep it running. I pulled the radiator to have it recored and plan on rigging up a siphon tank to try my new theory. I hope I can get this fixed soon.

 

It's going to burn a good bit of oil until it gets broke in good if you put new rings in. If you used anything but standard cast iron rings that's going to take a while! I had to run mine hot before it broke in. Slow piston speed = long break-in period with chrome or moly rings. There used to be a few tricks the old timers would use to speed up break-in, but I forget what they are now! Maybe someone on here will remember.... Getting it good an hot and driving a bit will help, but you don't want to boil that thing over. 200-220 degrees would be nice. Make sure the radiator cap is a good 16 psi one -- new!!

It really sounds like everything is as it should be though. 1000 miles from now it will clear up if standard iron rings were used, otherwise plan on 1500-2000 before it stops using oil. At high speeds that thing will use a little oil anyway, about a quart every 1000-1500 miles once broke in. But don't panic -- that's if you're cruising down the interstate at 65-70 a lot! It shouldn't use more than a quart every 3000 miles running around town and more sedately cruising (50-60) on occasion.

 

I used a hastings cast ring. Didn't smoke at all at first then started getting worse at idle? When I get the radiator back I am going to bypass the fuel pump. If it still does it I will head out for a good road trip.

 

Sounds like a plan! Clean the plugs first though.

 

Good looking Kelvinator!

 

Alright time for a Rambler update. Sorry it has taken me so long but this fn car has been kicking my ass for the last month or so.

(My 8 year old son has also started kart racing and that has taken an unbelievable amount of time and money. What did I get myself into now!)

First as you know this car has smoked pretty bad and I re ringed it and still had a problem with it smoking really bad at idle. The longer it ran the worst it smoked. Oil started clearing up and I could tell it was fuel. Reset the float and played with the idle mixture but couldn't get it to stop. Regular driving it was perfect just the longer it sat at idle the more it smoked. I disconnected the vacuum reservoir and the wipers and have made the biggest improvement yet. It will now idle for 2 or three min before it starts to smoke! It was instant when it was hooked up. I think it is the power valve. I need to put a vacuum gage on it and see if it is excessive vacuum or lack of vacuum. I think it is lack of vacuum. I will let you know but I think I am about to get this figured out. Man its not supposed to be this hard when you leave something stock! Here are some updated pictures of the engine and the new re-cored radiator

 

Hey, that car looks good, way better than my 1963 Rambler station wagon. I'm not sure if you found a good supplier for parts, but there is a guy in my area (far from you) who has a lot of NOS parts. He's had everything I've ever needed. If you get stuck, send me a PM

 

O yea for all of the rambler owners that watch this post I would consider trading the seats out of this car for an original set of seats and a small amount of boot. These seats have been reupholstered gray and it is a great job that looks fairly recent but the more I look at this interior the more I wouldn't mind doing a light light gray or white interior. I don't want to re do a perfect set of seats. And thanks for the comments as always. Im glad you guys like it.

 

It looks like your coming along with your project. I haven't moved on my '62 wagon lately bu I hope by summers end to have it up and going. Take care!!! Beep Beep

 

Even the old 196 can look good when cleaned and dressed up with a little chrome! Do you have a vacuum booster fuel pump or are you using a vacuum canister instead? If a vacuum canister check the check valve. It might be leaking down and causing a slight vacuum leak. Old carbs have rubber parts that get bad, mainly the accel pump. The pump won't affect idle though. Might be something else in there plugged or leaking -- could be a small leak at a gasket or pulling in at the throttle shaft (bad news/harder to fix). The carb is just OLD and needs attention most likely! May as well get a kit for it and thoroughly clean it.

 

Thanks for the update, I have been wondering how things were going. The motor pics have me inspired to go do some more cleaning on my 62!

 

your rambler is one sweet machine. My 62 was going to be a gasser untill the wife saw yours. now it is going stock/custom. how hard was setting up the bags up front? and what size tires are you running

 

Lets hear an update on your engine problems.

 

i cant believe last time i checkedthis was a year ago!
Car looks awesome aired out, and the new engine bay real nice too.
hope you sort all the gremlins soon.

 

Great lookin car. Love the tonal striping. Nice talking with you today

 

Thanks Chad. Same here.

Still having light smoking at idle. I just rebuilt an original carb for it and took off the later 1904 style Holley one barrel. It is now a good bit better. I also feel I had the idle speed set to low. I can almost slow this thing down to a ridiculously low idle and it still runs smooth. I bumped it up and it seems to have helped more than the new carb. I am going to remove the late model valve seals and install the original umbrella style seals soon. Still runs like a top. I hate I haven't done more to it but I needed to take a break after I re ringed it only to have the same problem.

 

If you haven't driven it a lot it SHOULD still smoke. The rings need to break in. If you used chrome rings that will take quite a while. Light smoking for 1000-1500 miles is normal, with chrome rings it might take 3000 miles to fully seat though.

Idle should be 500-600. It is low, but the thing is grunty -- ready to pull right off idle!

 

Yea Farna I think I still have a combination of blow by, carb, and I hope valve stem seals. Its not bad. The biggest improvement came from bumping up the idle and going trough the carb. When I built the carb I found that the plug was missing on the side of the fuel enrichment circuit so it is ineffective and always open. I ordered a 50 and 52 jet to lean it out a little as I plan on leaving the enrichment circuit open. I think now that I don't have the carb really putting the fuel to it at idle the rings will seat and get to a livable level. It doesn't smoke driving only if it sits 30 to 45 seconds. And gradually gets worse. Cant hardly see it in the day but at night it looks like the thing is a piece of junk and thats why I haven't had any fun with it. By the way it was just a steal set of hastings rings.

 

It's a cool little car.... make it yours, don't waste a lot of time on it, just do it when it feels fun to change something and then drive it some more.

 

I'm not so sure leaving the enrichment circuit open is going to work, but I'm not a carb expert. Just seems to me the designers wouldn't have made it that way without a reason, but I've deviated from design on other things for my own reasons before too.

Blow-by can build at idle if its bad, but sounds like the carb may be loading up at idle -- most likely due to that open circuit. Increasing idle speed would make that situation improve some...

 

Hot damn I'm closing in on it! Farna by eliminating the enrichment system I am basically removing the power valve. Instead of blocking it off I am leaving it open and rejeting accordingly. I have seen Holleys blocked off on plenty of streetcars. You have to give it a little more throttle pulling off when its cool but that is the only noticeable thing other than less and less smoke! It is what it is. It is just a cool cruiser. I wont be trying to pass a line off 18 wheelers on a two lane road but thats not what I am doing with this car. I love driving it as my everyday transportation. I needed a break but now that I feel I may be getting this smoke deal handled I can start working on some of the other aspects I want to improve on. If it runs lean I will fatten it up

By the way I have a guy that wants me to look at his 65 wagon. He need money and the carb on the V8 keeps flooding. Man I am going to regret it but I am going to look at it. Its suppose to be a nice car.

 

The 65 uses a Holley 4150 if it's a 4V (only around 450 cfm, could use a nice 600!). Only the 327 Ambassador got the 4V from the factory, and it could be a 2V 327 (the 2V 327 was introduced in mid 65). 287 came in the Classic. The 2Vs are Holley 2209.