The “2nd Best” ‘60 Chevy wagon build…

Well, a lot of you (at least, those of you that read my “Best ’55 Cadillac build” thread here on the HAMB) have asked me to post a build thread on the ’60 Chevy wagon I’m tossing together…so be it…and since we’re starting, we’d just as well start at the very beginning, right…???

Here’s the first installment of the build on a 53 year old vehicle…and in reality, this build should be called “The Nothing Special Build” simply because we’ll be putting the vehicle together without any kustomizing…not going to change the grille…not going to remove the door handles, not going to chop the top, not going to modify the dash.. WHY…??? Because I’ve seen enuff on the HAMB to know that most of the youth of today building cars prefer near stock vehicles –just cleaned up and everything re-done/rebuilt…safety first…besides, the wagon will eventually go up for sale.

So, let’s go back to the beginning (and that’d be way back in 2010)…there was…winter, cold, snow, cars in storage and…thots of Springtime. Right in the middle of that ColoRODo winter was Christmas…I knew, in another week or so, we would be on the down side of winter, the days would become longer and we’d be barreling for the warmth of Spring. But, as it was, it was still cold and Dan (my brother) and I were invited out to my son’s place for Christmas day.

To jump slightly ahead in the day…my son gave me this wagon, as a gift, on Christmas Day, 2010…he had it wrapped in a blue tarp with a big red bow on it. When we drove down his block long driveway to his home…it was the first thing I saw…and wondered what was under it and who it was for…??? The very next thing I saw was a smaller ‘lump’ alongside the first tarp, it was also covered with a like blue tarp with a like red ribbon on it…my bro and I both wondered aloud what could be under those tarps…???

Both of us were quite surprised when we exchanged gifts later that morning. Chris (my son) finally asked if we’d seen the bows on those tarps. “Yes,” we said, “we wondered.” He then said, “Those are for you two…Dad gets the big one, Uncle Dan gets the smaller one.” We pulled on our coats and hurried outside in the 20 degree day to see what was under those tarps…I figured it was some kind of car, but was really surprised when we uncovered a two door wagon…and a Chevy at that…a Brookwood wagon…NICE…!!!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v415/rajjetter/IMG_9375_zpsdee87c63.jpg[/IMG]

Here’s Dan standing in front of the wagon…yeah, this is the “something old” in the headline above…

We looked it over and noticed the front clip had seen better days…one fender looked like it had been driven under a stake bed truck and it was bent good. There was rust in the bottom corners and some around the grille area…we’d need another clip for sure I didn’t want to think about repairing the rust on this one. The front bumper was missing and the “pan,” under the grille, had been relieved of some metal with a torch, we assumed so the front bumper could be taken off…why it was cut, I don’t know. The hood was askew, sitting up on the hinges – inside the engine compartment was nothing – no engine/tranny…well, that’d make it easy for us – we wouldn’t have to get rid of anything we didn’t want, besides we already had an engine under my counter…waiting for…something…!!!

[URL='http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v415/rajjetter/IMG_2944_zpse825f39a.jpg%5b/IMG']http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v415/rajjetter/IMG_2944_zpse825f39a.jpg[/IMG[/URL]][/B]
[B][/B]
[B][I]Yes, there is potential here…it’ll just take some removing, cleaning and fixing up to find it…!!![/I][/B]
[B][/B]
[B]The rear bumper was still on but it had been backed into a pole a couple of times that didn’t budge and had nice huge V’s in it. Guess we’ll need another bumper or it’s going to cost us big time to get this one straightened. The tailgate was missing a lot of its metal ,[/I][/B] meaning it was rusted badly, especially at the bottom and around the hinges. Big problem here where were we going to find another tailgate...??? Can't be that plentiful...!!! Looks like we'll need to patch this one and that's going to be a huge J-O-B...!!![/B]
[B][/B]
[B][IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v415/rajjetter/IMG_2948_zpsccea4c71.jpg[/B]
[B][/B][/SIZE][/FONT]
[I][FONT=Arial][SIZE=4][B]Missing some taillight lenses, but the original “Luby” Chevrolet badge is still there…and that was a huge Denver Chevy dealership many years ago…I bought my 4” bore bare block from them for my ’64 Chevy Impala way back in 1967…!!! The ’60’s right fin took a hit too, bent it in…and the trim is missing…how rare is Biscayne trim…??? We were about to find out. That’s my son’s ’61 Biscayne in the background.[/B][/SIZE][/FONT][/I]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=4][B][/B]
[B]The driver’s side window was down but the door opened with ease –we found out the glass had fallen off the mechanism, wouldn’t roll up…the floor on the driver’s side (front and rear) certainly needed replacing…looked like whomever had it previously used some really good (LOL) galvanized for the floor…and a whole box of sheet metal screws. Bet there ain’t any floor below that…!!! FWIW, the passenger’s side wasn’t much better but it wasn’t patched. The column and steering wheel was missing, and, strangely enuff, the stock push button radio was still in the dash, as were all the gauges and the windshield was still intact -- not broken – it looked halfway decent. In the rear, the seat was laid down and stacked to the roof was a bunch of parts…we spied a driveshaft, a front bumper, a fender, couple of bumper pans, a bucket full of headlight rings, three wiper motors and a bunch of wiper arms, a power brake pedal assembly…and a whole passel of other parts and stuff we didn’t recognize…and some very old ugly green shag carpet covering the floor, under all those parts. The window crank on the tailgate was open so I tried to roll down the window…it moved part way and stopped…not going to get the tailgate open until we get the window all the way down…I tried several more times and finally got it all the way down…opened the tailgate to find a cut up Coca-Cola sign covering the inside of the tailgate…along with more rusted sheet metal screws. Surprisingly, the spare tire well was rust- free, although it held a lot of leaves, twigs and dirt, nuts and bolts, dead bugs, spare parts and another windshield wiper motor stored there…that one makes four…!!![/B]
[B][/B]
[B][IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v415/rajjetter/IMG_9377-1_zps9a39901c.jpg

Needless to say, the interior certainly needed cleaning…

The cold was beginning to get to us so we hurried to open Dan’s gift. Imagine our surprise when Dan unwrapped his gift…there sat a ‘near new’ front clip…complete with super straight grille, bumper, hood, hood springs and all the inner panels we’d need for the wagon – now we can forget about cutting out rust and welding in new stuff on that old ragged clip…we’ll use this one –thanx Chris. I could tell this was going to be a fun build…but, unfortunately, it would be a couple of years down the road…we had another wagon - a ’60 Pontiac Catalina Safari nine-passenger we were putting back together to finish up first.

I gotta back up a bit here…and here’s the “nothing new” in the headline above…the story on that ‘near new’ clip is something I have to share…shortly after he’d purchased the Chevy, Chris was perusing Craig’s list – on it he found a body shop up in Buena Vista, ColoRODo, up in the mountains southwest of Denver, that was quitting business…they’d listed some parts and a few of their leftovers –one happened to be a complete ’60 Chevy front clip they’d found stored…seems it had been in the back of the shop for many, many years…matter of fact , it was in such good shape it could be called NOS. Apparently, some time in the distant past, a ’60 Chevy got rear-ended on some highway up in the mountains and of course, totaled. The car itself wasn’t that old at the time, so they pulled the clip intending to use it on something else –that something else never ever came into that body shop they could use it on and time hid it well…until the day they decided to give up the business. Chris immediately contacted them, bought it before anyone else could, then borrowed a pickup and drove the 160 miles one way to pick it up and the 160 miles back home. A one day trip for another great gift….!!! We were going to have some fun building this wagon simply because two door wagons are rare…only 14,667 two door wagons were built in 1960…!!! The Brookwood we have is the equivalent to a Biscayne model sedan.

Well, Spring finally arrived and with it, still some work on my ’55 Cadillac before I could take it on some summer trips…in case we have some new readers here, you can see “The Best ’55 Cadillac build” here, just clik on it:

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=329070&highlight=the+best+55+caddy+build

The ’60 Chevy wagon was in a good place at my son’s acreage, no one would bother it, we covered it back up with the tarp and it wasn’t going anywhere, besides, my garage was full of Pontiac station wagon and we still had some work to do on it…



This shot right after we got it drivable in February, 2012…

It was a nice looking wagon…and the first time Dan and I had worked on a Pontiac.

But, the engine that was in it was junk when we got it, so I spent $200 for another complete 389” that had “just been pulled out of a ’60 Pontiac hardtop” – figuring we could simply poke it back in and be done with the car. Nope…!!! I was told the manifold gaskets were missing and that I’d have to buy new…OK, no prob. What I failed to notice when I was looking at the engine, was that all the gaskets were missing…we loaded it up and brought it home…after cleaning it up and purchasing new gaskets, we decided to ask a Pontiac aficionado to take a look at the engine to see if it was good enuff to simply regasket and put it back in. “Looks good to me,” he said. Well, I let my mind get ahead of my wallet, figured as long as it’s part way apart, what’d it take to rebuild the whole thing – make it new…??? A small block Chevy would run around $1200…figured a Pontiac engine rebuild couldn’t be that much more. Wrong…the rebuild bid came back at $2900.00-3200.00 and "This one needs rebuilding -there are several bearings that are scored and one head is cracked. Uhmmm, sorry, just not spending that much on this Pontiac, I’ve already spent $200.00 too much on it!!! I knew where there’s a couple of good complete 350” engines for a lot less and a couple of small blok engine mounts that’ll only cost a few bucks.

It took us most of that 2011 summer (cuz we go rod running a lot) and that winter to get the car together: we had to correct some electrical issues, re-do the complete brake system including the booster, find another radiator to replace the single core Mustang unit in it, find/add a fan shroud, add a tranny cooler and lines, figure out new linkage for the column shift, find a new heater radiator and figure out how to make the heater work, again, find an electric tailgate motor for the rear window, shorten the driveshaft because of the Chevy engine, add a new battery, add new light blue carpet and have the front seat redone in original vinyl, have the dash recovered cuz it was all worn and ripped, find four good tires, hang a new dual exhaust system on it…oh, and make the door panels presentable. By February, 2012, we had a driver, but I still wanted new carpet in it. I’d mentioned the build on the HAMB a couple of times and was contacted by a HAMBer, wanted to know if I was ready to sell the wagon…??? We hadn’t planned on selling the car right away, intending to play with it that summer, but when cash is offered up, my plans can change. We stated how much we needed for the car, the price was accepted. We had the new carpet installed and then we hooked up the 20 foot box to Dan’s pickup, loaded the wagon inside and late March, 2011, made the trip to Abilene, Kansas to deliver the car to NoSurf’s place. He’d store it until it could be picked up and delivered the rest of the way.

But I gotta stop here about the Pontiac and go back to my son’s place…the Chevy wagon would have to wait until the Pontiac was gone and the summer of 2011 wasn’t quite here yet…I had work to do on the Cadillac and Dan and I were looking forward to taking both Cadillacs on a bunch of rod runs…

R-

 

I just subscribed to this thread because I have got 2 of those brookwood wagons and want to learn to do mine the right way.

 

Great read Roger,,,just like all you titles. HRP

 

Nice!

 

I have NEVER seen or even heard of 2 door wagons in that year. So cool. Can't wait to see what you do.

 

I'm buckled in for another one of your fabulous build threads Roger!

What a cool Xmas gift (cool son!). Something in the Jetter blood.

 

Looks like a kool project. I enjoy your build post, I should slow down on mine, maybe I
wouldn't make as many mistakes on mine. Lol!!

 

what a great son! looks like your best Christmas present ever

 

I'm not sure, Frog...IF you're being facetious here, or not...!!! I can tell you that I may not do a car "the right way," but when I get done with it, it'll be "new" and it'll be done correctly...

BelAir...did you note I said (above) there were only 14,667 two door wagons built...of course, that would cover all the various models Chevy built in 1960...it's a semi rare car...matter of fact, I just found a Broookwood four door wagon in ColoRODo Springs yesterday, complete with 348" engine (and needing about as much as my wagon does)...sad to say, it'd already been sold...!!!

Thanx for watching, all of you...I'll post another update next week...

R-

 

Envious, I have been looking for a 59 or 60 wagon myself! Keep us posted.

 

SWEET, SWEET SWEET, love the 59/60 2 dr chevywagons. been wantin one for yrs.ill be watchin this one with plenty of envy! lol did i tell you that that thing is SWEET. just wanted you to know....lol

 

I love those wagons and can't wait to see what you do with it! I like your taste in cars...


Posted from the TJJ App for iPhone & iPad

 

Nice, two doors are rare.

 

I can tell I'm going to like this one.. Subbed.

 

Subscribed, Thank You for sharing

 

Nothing like settling in for a good story! Thanks for sharing your adventures, Roger!

 

Good job!

I saw a '63 Chevy wagon enter a demo derby last summer. I wanted it to be saved, but already have too many orphans of my own. Im glad some are still on the road.

 

Sorry poor choice of words on my behalf not being facetious at all just wanted to say I am following this thread to do my wagon the way it should be done...back to original in everyway possible.
Looking forward to your build and really enjoyed your caddy build as well...you do nice work.

 

Thanx Frog...our '60 wagon won't be 100% "original", but it'll be close.

R-

 

Very cool. Even more so is that I get to see it first hand in it's transformation.

 

A new build is always exciting. I was at the Lincoln swap meet a few weeks ago and there was a 60 sedan delivery for sale...wasn't cheap but also wasn't rusted.
I'll be peeking in to see how you're doing with this wagon.
What did you do with the old 389 from the Pontiac wagon?

 

Thanx Rocky...

I let the rebuilder (that gave me the quote) keep it (and gave him the original one, too)...figured he spent his time tearing it all apart and scoping it out he should get something out of it...wasn't going to do me any good anymore.

R-

 

Roger:

I have all of the high end tailgate stainless for your wagon, a few small dents and some polishing it would look great. Make me an offer.

BB

 

Looks like a twin sister to Denise's Pontiac wagon.........

 

Roger:
Are you sure that the car came from Denver? There was also a Luby Chevrolet in Boston Massachusetts back then.
I remember finding a 60 two door wagon in a boneyard back in 1969 and scavenging the rear seat out of it for my 60 sedan delivery.As I recall the wagon wasn't in that bad shape;some front end damage.

 

No, not 100% positive, but the rest of the car is in good enuff shape (very little rust) to believe it's been a ColoRODo car all its life. Did not know there was another "Luby Chevrolet"...

This wagon has the folding rear seat in the original upholstery and original rear panels...

R-

 

Looking forward to seeing your progress, Roger... Can't beat a 2-door wagon!


Malcolm

 

Just checked and there were actually THREE dealerships with that name.Two were in Colorado(one in Denver and the other in Lakewood)and Luby Chevrolet on Boylston St in Boston.Not sure if they are still in business or not as I haven't lived there for 20 years. What I do remember is their tag line that was on all their radio commercials:" I Love Luby);obviously a play on the television show I Love Lucy.

 

Nothing borrowed…something Blue…

Alrighty then, here’s the second update…

Sometimes I need to put in some backstory to make the following understandable…sooo-ooo…one of the events we have around here is called “The Front Range Air and Classic Auto Show…” Basically, it’s a free airplane show at a small local airport, 15 miles east of Denver, but they like to put on a car show at the same time…and it’s F-R-E-E…!!!

Something a lot of shows are not these days. This late August event packs in cars from all over the eastern slope (that’s what we call the Rockies since they face east here in Denver…and the entire north to south area east of the Rockies is known as the ‘eastern slope’…and there’s a lot of towns east of Denver out on the plains and, consequently, a lot of car guys, parking their cars out on the runways of this airport.

So, it’s not unusual to see over 500-600 cars gather on the airstrip that Saturday. With the ‘car show’ in full swing, from about 6 AM, the airport handles the air show part…they invite several pilots to bring in their planes for static displays and even some for aerobatics…there are old transports, C-47’s, old commercial planes, Biplanes, WWII Texan trainers and Mustang fighters, and last year, several WWII fighters were brought in for display, including two Russian fighters (can’t remember the name of them) and a couple of Texan trainers.






Love them old prop jobs…

This past summer (2012) we enjoyed a USAF (retired) Starfighter, a USAF (retired) Sabre jet and a Russian Mig …what a thrill to see those.

Dan and I drove our Cadillacs out to show them off and found something new out there that year (summer of 2011)…the Denver Old Car Council decided to move their huge swap meet to this show…and that gave everyone something else to do. The western edge of the airstrip was divided up into swap meet spaces and there was a ton of stuff for sale…what’s better than walking around a car-oriented swap meet when an aerobatic performance is going on just above your head…??? Not much…that’s what…!!!



Looks like everyone is watching the aerobatic show…while Dan was shooting pix of our Caddys. Actually he was trying to get the biplane doing aerobatics, but his digital was too slow to capture it as it sped past…think he needs a better/faster camera.

When Dan was finished shooting pix, he and I walked the swap looking at what was available. I happened upon some ’60 Chevy stuff…the first thing I saw was a pair of bumpers laying on the ground…was flabbergasted that someone had them out here, for sale…as I approached, I saw two tailgates lying there…then saw a partial floor out of a …yeah, that’s out of a ’60 Chevy, driver’s side – we NEED that…!!! Those bumpers are straight as an arrow …and the chrome was really good. “Dan, we need that stuff, we better find out about it.” I quickly rounded up the owner and asked him about the tailgates…one was from an El Camino, the other a wagon. “How much?” I asked… “You just want the tailgate…??? “Hell no,” I replied, “I want all that ’60 Chevy stuff…uhm,… wait…don’t need the El Co tailgate…”



Yep, it’s the ‘something blue’ in the headline above.…came off a Kingswood wagon...straight as the proverbial arrow…but missing the guts…no prob, we’ll pull what we got out of our tailgate, transfer it and trash the rusty tailgate we have. That’ll save me from doing rust duty…!!!Did I just get lucky or what...???

He then said, “ I know you.” Yeah, I thot, I’m a ‘world famous author’ and a GoodGuy’s columnist, lots of people “ know” me…turns out he did…and I knew him but hadn’t seen him for many years. “I’d take $200 for all of it,” Al said. “Done,” I replied, “but I have no way of getting it home right now.” “No prob, I’ll leave it on the trailer and take it back home, you can come up and pick it up next week…you remember where I live…???” I didn’t, so he gave me directions…it’s a good thing I bought the stuff when I did cuz right behind me, waiting patiently for me to finish the conversation with Al ( and handing Al some cash...That was the first amount of money we spent on the wagon) was another guy wanting all the same stuff…I’d surmise he’s building a wagon too.

So it’s now late August of 2011…work on the Pontiac continued, the brakes are done, the seat is at the upholsterer and we’ve gotten the electrical sorted out…now all we have to worry about is the engine/tranny…then maybe it’ll start to look and act like a car again.

My neighbor, Fred, is a car guy…matter of fact, most of my car guys friends live within six miles of me…and Fred is a master at transmissions – he built the T-400 for me in my Cadillac and several for my friends…anyway, I was aware he had about 9 or 12 Chevy engines setting in his garage… Told him I was looking for a 327” or a 350” and would he sell one to me…??? One of them was a complete 350” crate with about 25K-30K on it. He said he took it out of a later El Camino and said “Sure, and you can have your choice.” He then asked if I needed a tranny…???” “ Yep, I’ll need one.” “Got a T-350 I just rebuilt, I’ll toss in a torque converter if you want it too.” I did, we made a deal on both and Dan and I hauled it home. That’ll go into that Pontiac wagon real nicely and we definitely won’t worry about keeping it all Pontiac. SBC’s are so much easier to work on…!!!

I was anxious to get the Pontiac done and drivable so we could get started on the Chevy wagon…but I learned a long time ago – don’t spread yourself too thin by taking on several projects…it gets expensive for more than one, and it’s hard to keep track of what’s been done to what car (cuz I’m getting old and suffer from CRS) …so we forged ahead on the Pontiac. Dan and I only work on our projects/cars on the weekend. The rest of the week, I’m designing T-shirts and doing some kind of illustration…or I’m working on writing my GoodGuy’s monthly column or working on one of my novels I’ve got going. Besides, all of that keeps me out of the bars…!!! I don’t know what Dan does during the week, I think he naps a lot during the week…

The rest of the summer we did a couple more rod runs in our Cadillacs…nothing special but we could see the Fall coming waaa-aaay too fast, and following that – dreaded winter. Awwww, ya know, winter doesn’t bother me…it really isn’t that bad around here…not bad enuff I’d want to move anyway. Long about the end of December we were close to having the Pontiac done. The upholsterer called and said the seat was done and asked about carpet. Told him we now could move the Pontiac under its own power but we needed exhaust next. That would be the last ‘mechanical’ thing we needed to do…or have done. We spent the next month cleaning the car, buffing the original paint and putting the re-done door panels back on, hanging the front bumper and hood and putting the top of the dash back on since it was branny new padded and upholstered. We went and got the seat and it looked great…we put it back in with one only one bolt per side knowing it’d have to come back out for the padding and carpet.

Around the last of January the exhaust was finished on the Pontiac and we drove it to the upholsterers to install the carpet…Dan and I had laid the jute padding but we aren’t so good at sewing carpet and fitting it. It took a week to have the carpet installed and we drove it back home…sounded like a new car - all quiet inside.



Here’s the new light blue carpet…matches well, eh…???

The car handled well and we were looking forward to driving it that summer…but then our minds got changed…we only got to drive the wagon around and put on maybe 300 miles for a couple of weeks before we had to deliver it. In March, as stated previously, we delivered it to Abilene.

It was now time to think about the ’60 Chevy…and this time we could get to work on it.
In May…or June, 2012, we went to my son’s place to clean the rear of the wagon…it took a couple of hours to pull all the spare parts out of the back and store them in one of his horse barns, but we got it clean. The next thing we did was to remove the rotten green carpet that covered all the panels and toss it into the trash…what a job that was…most of the carpet had gotten wet over the last two winters from blowing snow coming up thru the rotted floors…and of course, being out in the country, more than one animal found shelter in the wagon…there was animal feces in the rear…so we wore a couple of face masks while we removed rusty screws and ripped out smelly carpet.


After we removed all the spare parts in it out at my son’s place and tore out all the green carpet…some of the panels were rusty cuz they were wet most of the time, but it’s only surface rust…a couple coats of epoxy will take care of that. If you look closely you can see remnants of the green shag carpeting and the linoleum glue they used to hold it down…ugh…!!! That’ll be fun to remove…!!!

For the remainder of the summer of 2012, Dan and I mostly stayed around ColoRODo with our Cadillacs…the only long distance trip we made was over the mountains to Grand Junction (260 one way miles) on the western side of the state in late August…we did some sight-seeing on the way home…what is usually a five-six hour trip home took us better than 12…we drove up and over the Grand Mesa and spent a lot of time seeing stuff , and taking roads we’d never been on…it’s strange - I’ve lived in ColoRODo since 1966 and still have never seen all of this state.

With our rod running almost done for the summer/year, NOW we were almost ready to have the ’60 Chevy towed to my place, it was a good thing too cuz Dan and I were getting bored…late August thru September we had nothing to work on the weekends we weren’t gone to some rod run.

Problem was, all four tires on the wagon were shot/flat/wouldn’t hold air and we knew it wouldn’t tow well with flats…so we had to round up some good tires. The first of September, 2012, we found a couple good tires and some old pink rims, mounted them up and took them out…Dan had a pair of five-spokes in his basement so those would work for the fronts.

I called a friend and told him where the wagon was and how to get to my place.


Right after it was delivered…now it’s in my garage and we’ve already removed the tailgate…

FINALLY , it was time to finally get on the wagon build. This is going to be F-U-N…!!!

Watch for the next update in a week or so…

R-

 

im with ya on this one.