Some years back I drove one cross country. It was one of my brother's cars and his wife liked it. When he moved to San Diego, I took the Vega about a week later. Made the trip OK, never abused it speed wise, but it was never the same after that. 3500 miles in 5 1/2 days was too much. He got rid of it a few months later.
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I once shared the driving of a Javelin from Cleveland to NYC. AMC used to tap into the vacuum line to run the windshield wipers. Early into the trip, the wipers started acting weird. They would go up, but not come back down unless you turned them off, which was done with a sliding lever.
Whoever wasn't driving would slide the lever up, down, up, down for hours. I was doing the "levering" when the lever came off in my hand. Luckily, it happened when the wipers were up because we found out that if you manually pulled them down, they would go back up by themselves, thanks to the vacuum .
We rummaged around in the back of this beater and found just enough wire to tie to the passenger wiper so that the passenger could pull them down, let them go up, pull them down, etc. Unfortunately, to make it work, we had to let our hand go part way out of the window. Highway speeds and 40? ? weather make for some cold-ass hands. We ended up putting our socks on our hands to keep them somewhat warm. We were wet, cold and dirty by the time we reached NYC. 30+ years later I found the following video and sent it to my best man, the guy I made the trip with. We still laugh about it whenever we get together.
These guys were lucky enough to have longer wire.
The '85 was pretty bad but nowhere near the worst car we ever had. ...not even close to the '71 Gremlin (*the* most appropriately named car ever ;-).
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You never knew what you were going to get if it started with AMC. Some good , some pretty
That was particularly true for parts. It seemed like AMC would use any part from any manufacturer, even within the same model year. I remember trying to buy a s tarter for my all time favorite car: my '66 Rambler Ambassador 990.
The guy behind the counter said "You have 3 choices. Tell me your bolt patt ern and I'll give you the one you need."
Ah, the "Lay Down Rambler". Pull the front split bench forward, recline the backs and the entire car turned in a bed. A big bed, since it was a 6 passenger car.
From the song "B Movie Box Car Blues"
Next I caught a ride with a gambler's wife, She had a brand new lay down Rambler She parked t'other side of town She layed the Rambler down She said she could dig if I'd knew her
Yup - the "v8 Vega" Where a 383 stroker bolted right in - and a 502 would go in with a good handfull of grease and a shoe-horn. It wwas scary enough with the stock 350 2bbl (or even the little 265, or the
4.3 V6)
Like I said - it handled like a PIG. As for speed bumps _ was REALLY carefull because I'm sure I was no more than an inch from the bump stops.
And I'll dissagree with you - the Ranger long-box with the 4700 gvw package is a pretty capable little truck - even at 23 years of age and over 365000km. I HAVE upgraded from the anemic 14 inch wheels/ties to
235-70 16s and from the 10.15 inch front brakes to 11.85 Sport-trac rotors.(but those mods were not in place for the hardwood - and only the big tires for the Ikea load (which was a large paert of the incentive to upgrade the brakes!!!) Running the 401 with 1870 lbs af termite spit under the fiberglass cap on a half ton truck aint for the faint of heart (or the careless)
You needed a new fuel pump. The Javelin used a vaccum pump on the fuel pump to operate the vacuum wipers if yoiu didn't spring for the optional electric wipers. I was an AMC mechanic in 1972. Now the Chevies up until about 1957 didn't have this luxury - and the wipers would slow to a halt on a long uphill grade, then go so fast they'd throw a blade coming down the other side of the hill with your foot off the gas. The #48 juice can repurposed as a vacuum reservoir was almost adequate to keep the heater controls working, and the hydrovac was good for ONE application of the brakes - but didn't help the wipers for more than about a 10 second passing maneuver.
The 1984 Caravan/voyager saved Chrysler's ass. Based on the K Car platform which was certainly no worse than GM's X Car or J-Car of the same era. The later Caravan still put the "plastic vatntastic" Venture/TransSport twins to shame and were certainly no worse than Ford's Winstar
The quality control at AMC in the late sixties and early seventies was not the best - but nor was Ford, GM, or Mopar. The only SERIOUS p[roblem with the Gremmy was the door catch pulling out of the B pillar when the big heavy doors sagged on the hinges (usually from people leaning on the doors)
As for the parts situation it was not nearly as bad as Foed. If your parts man new how to read the parts book (or fische) he knew which starter you needed by the combination of engine and transmission. AMC used Prestolite and Delco electronics, with a smatering of autolite thrown in.
With Ford they'd throw 9 inch brakes from a 6 cyl fairlane onto a V8 Cyclone even when the specs said it had 10 inch drums. You HAD to measure the diameter and width to ensure you got the right parts
-making it a real crapshoot ordering parts in advance.
And while the latches broke out of the gremlins, the mirrors fell out of Torinos complete with a 100 square inch patch of rusted metal, and the tops of the Volare fenders rotted through from the inside within 2 years - - -
AMC had solved THAT problem back in 1965 (the 63 and 64 classics had the problem)
I 've owned and drove several AMCs - 62 American, 65 Rebel, 73 Ambassador, and 75 Pacer - none of them anywhere close to new, and none were any worse than any of the other clunkers I owned. My family owned several others - 63 Classic, 65 classic, 68 Rebe etc. Other than the front suspensin folding under the 62 American none ever let us down.l
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It was the same on my '66 Ambassador.
I just pulled the hoses off the fuel/vacuum pump and bypassed it. As long as I didn't accelerate too quickly, the wipers worked fine. Of course, getting on the highway during a storm was a bit of an adventure.
Clare - my brother had a Rebel "Machine" - I seem to remember that it still had vacuum wipers ? < ~ 1970 > true ?
I would DD before the term was invented, and take off from a stop light in 3rd gear < of 4 > and be half way across the intersection before realizing it ... geared LOW or what ! As far as I know it had stock rear end. On a 401 round-trip from Galt to Hogtown - you'd need to gas-up. .. 200 miles max. John T.
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the backs and the
I had a friend that put a Pacer body on the frame of a (I forget what kind) pick-up truck to use as a plow vehicle. He liked the visibility of all that glass.
My 66 Ambassador never let me down, it was my dad's mechanic that f*cked me over.
In 1980 I asked him to make sure the Rambler was OK to drive 350 miles to where I was moving to. He cut a rusted part out of the front end before he realized that he couldn't get a replacement part in time for my move. All the local salvage yard parts were just as rusted in and nobody could locate one that was already out.
I stopped by the shop to find out what he planned to do about it and notice d that my car wasn't there. "Where's my car?"
"I was just about to call you and ask you if you took it."
"How could I take it? The front end was in pieces."
"Hmm...it must have been stolen. I better call my insurance company."
Two weeks later the police called and said the car had been found. It was about 2 miles from the guy's shop. The front grill, headlights, etc, were all smashed, as if, perhaps, just maybe someone had backed a tow truck into it to make sure it wouldn't be worth repairing. The car wasn't drivabl e, due the front end being apart, so it had to have been towed from the shop to where it was found.
Of course the guy would never admit it, but to this day I'm sure he "stole" it because he took it apart and couldn't put it back together. I got $500 from the insurance company. Man, I was pissed. Still am.
If he didn't pay the pittance for the optional electric 2 speed wipers, yes. I think it was less than a $25 option
The "trac pack" 390 came with a trac-loc 3.91 - the standard was 3.54 and the automatic got 3.15 - no optional on the automatic. A 5.0:1 trac-loc was available from the go-fast parts department
-along with the "service pack" that boosted the stock 340 (conservatively rated)hp 390 to north of 440 HP. The stock 430 ftlb of torque could really torture the tires even with the long-legged
3.54 rear end. Sub 12 second 1/4s with the 3.91 were not out of the ordinary. The 5.0 gears were for the 1/8th mile.The 401 HO in the Javelin was a SERIOUS contender. The AMC v8s were an under-appreciated threat!!!!!With LOTS of extra power on tap with minor modifications.
The SCrambler was even wilder - along with the later Hornet SC - or the rare 401 Gremmi.XR. (limited edition from Randall AMC in Mesa Arizona) There were only 21 made, but they could hand a 454 Chevelle or a COPO Camaro it's ass handilly with 12.4 second 115MPH quarters on pump gas. Since the 401 and the 304 shared the same block there were quite a few "home-brewed"XR clones built over the years - just grab a wrecked Ambassador or AMX/Javelin 401 and slip it into your 304 Gremmi X.
They fit nicely on a CJ6 frame, or a Cherkee XJ, or an IH Scout. (all sharing the Pacer's 100 inch wheelbase) They were put on K5 Blazer frames too, but the wheelbase was about 4 inches too long.
That was not unique to AMC, GM and Ford used the same manual transmissions in some cases, for certain in the early 70's. And even today Ford and GM use the same 10 speed transmission in their trucks.
Might that have been the "Chevy II" which later became the larger Nova?
Wellit wasn't the NUMMI Nova, for sure - it was FWD with independent rear strut suspension. The Chevy 2 and Nova were the same car from about 1964? from 63 to 68 the Chevy 2 was the base stripped down model and the Nova was the delux. No Chevy 2 after 1968-ish.
That very well could be. I was not aware of the Chevy II having a higher trim level called the Nova. I sure you are right though. I never paid much attention to the Nova until it was only known as the Nova.
I watch TFLtruck on you tube and the guys bought a chip kit and installed on a new Ranger. They got a load more torque and HP as a result. Apparently you can reflash the chip to original when you take the vehicle in for warranty work and go back to any combinations of alterations when ever you want.
The Ranger going 0-60 before the new chip took approximately 7.44 seconds. After the chip change, 0-60 dropped significantly to 5.49 seconds.. THAT is a significant improvement in power with just a software change.
IIRC hp increased by about 55 and lb-torque increased about 88.
It is cool but, at $650 I can pass on that. Now if you see a way to turn on the rear view camera all the time so I can break the law.
If you don't mind the backup lights being on just put a switch in parallel with the reverse light switch.
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