(Disclaimer - Thousandwords is Quatermass. I just prefer to use different accounts for different cars)
I wasn't going to do a progress thread for this car. However I personally find progress threads to be a useful time-stamped record for my own purposes, and it helps to post pics so I can then delete them off my phone and laptop, and finally I have been persuaded that it's worth doing a thread, so here is a thread.
That said, I'm posting this today and then I'm going to Canada for a month, so I may have changed my mind by the time I get back and this will be a lone post in a dead thread.
An important point to make... I write long-form. Always have, always will. I enjoy it. So if you don't like reading columns of words, don't bother with this thread.
BACKSTORY
I bought this car whilst videoing my daughter doing handstands in a Spanish swimming pool for her Instagram account. I would not be holding a mobile phone in a swimming pool otherwise. I'd just been let down by a seller who had recently taken my deposit on a 1968 AMC Ambassador SST two door pillarless coupe but texted me on holiday to say he was pulling out of the sale. About half an hour later as I sat in the shallow end of the pool a long forgotten text alert for El Caminos that I had set up many years previously finally sprang into life and notified me that an El Camino had come up for sale, and what's more it was a 1977. The 4th gen '77 ElCos are one of the least loved years for El Caminos (which were different every single year) but they also happen to be my favourite year of El Camino.
So I chatted to the seller, liked what I heard, and dropped the deposit.
I picked it up the week we returned from the holiday. Here it is waiting for me at the seller's workshop...
Seller had imported it three years previously, along with a donor car, and set about fixing some rot and transforming it into his work truck. He runs a business focussed on restoration and race prep of classic American track cars, and classic car restoration.
Here's some random (and randomly ordered) pics of the car being prepped for service as his car...
^ Big wide bumper before it was cut&shut to flush with the wings
^ Complete floor panels were not available but sections were, so the floor was made good as part of the total strip down.
So then it came home with me, and I've been driving it around for a couple of weeks, including taking it camping with my daughter for a few days...
and a local car show where it got papped a decent amount...
But there remained the problem of there being a van load of spares that came with the car, including a spare set of wheels, a spare TH350 transmission with torque converter, a complete rear axle with halfshafts, a complete set of door and rear glass, and boxes upon boxes of parts.
So yesterday I drove all the way back to the seller's workshop in a van, and brought it all home. It had to be stuffed into my tiny shed and the back garden overnight because of thieves being theives, and then dug out again this morning and loaded in the El Camino...
^ Fastest van in the UK today
^ The shed, at 50% packed stage. I was too tired to bother taking a shot of when I'd finished.
These were not going to fit. Being a desk worker, it tested me physically to my absolute limites carrying a TH350 and a complete rear axle from the van across the road, to my yard. I now know why office workers spend so much money going to the gym.
Then this morning I got up, emptied the shed out again, loaded it all into the back of the Elco, and set off...
all the way to the Elco's new home for a while. It will either just be here while I'm away in Canada, or it will be a longer term home where I can start to work on a few improvements for the car.
if the latter, there are a number of things that will need addressing on the car, and I will deal with each and post them up here as and when I tackle them and after I have resolved them.
The car met its new house mates today. The Dodge wasn't interested, the Ford was a little aggressive, but there's always that tension between Fords and Chevys. It's t be expected...
o
So that's it for now. I'm off to Canada, the car will sit there until I return.
This will either become a progress thread, or it wont.
I wasn't going to do a progress thread for this car. However I personally find progress threads to be a useful time-stamped record for my own purposes, and it helps to post pics so I can then delete them off my phone and laptop, and finally I have been persuaded that it's worth doing a thread, so here is a thread.
That said, I'm posting this today and then I'm going to Canada for a month, so I may have changed my mind by the time I get back and this will be a lone post in a dead thread.
An important point to make... I write long-form. Always have, always will. I enjoy it. So if you don't like reading columns of words, don't bother with this thread.
BACKSTORY
I bought this car whilst videoing my daughter doing handstands in a Spanish swimming pool for her Instagram account. I would not be holding a mobile phone in a swimming pool otherwise. I'd just been let down by a seller who had recently taken my deposit on a 1968 AMC Ambassador SST two door pillarless coupe but texted me on holiday to say he was pulling out of the sale. About half an hour later as I sat in the shallow end of the pool a long forgotten text alert for El Caminos that I had set up many years previously finally sprang into life and notified me that an El Camino had come up for sale, and what's more it was a 1977. The 4th gen '77 ElCos are one of the least loved years for El Caminos (which were different every single year) but they also happen to be my favourite year of El Camino.
So I chatted to the seller, liked what I heard, and dropped the deposit.
I picked it up the week we returned from the holiday. Here it is waiting for me at the seller's workshop...
Seller had imported it three years previously, along with a donor car, and set about fixing some rot and transforming it into his work truck. He runs a business focussed on restoration and race prep of classic American track cars, and classic car restoration.
Here's some random (and randomly ordered) pics of the car being prepped for service as his car...
^ Big wide bumper before it was cut&shut to flush with the wings
^ Complete floor panels were not available but sections were, so the floor was made good as part of the total strip down.
So then it came home with me, and I've been driving it around for a couple of weeks, including taking it camping with my daughter for a few days...
and a local car show where it got papped a decent amount...
But there remained the problem of there being a van load of spares that came with the car, including a spare set of wheels, a spare TH350 transmission with torque converter, a complete rear axle with halfshafts, a complete set of door and rear glass, and boxes upon boxes of parts.
So yesterday I drove all the way back to the seller's workshop in a van, and brought it all home. It had to be stuffed into my tiny shed and the back garden overnight because of thieves being theives, and then dug out again this morning and loaded in the El Camino...
^ Fastest van in the UK today
^ The shed, at 50% packed stage. I was too tired to bother taking a shot of when I'd finished.
These were not going to fit. Being a desk worker, it tested me physically to my absolute limites carrying a TH350 and a complete rear axle from the van across the road, to my yard. I now know why office workers spend so much money going to the gym.
Then this morning I got up, emptied the shed out again, loaded it all into the back of the Elco, and set off...
all the way to the Elco's new home for a while. It will either just be here while I'm away in Canada, or it will be a longer term home where I can start to work on a few improvements for the car.
if the latter, there are a number of things that will need addressing on the car, and I will deal with each and post them up here as and when I tackle them and after I have resolved them.
The car met its new house mates today. The Dodge wasn't interested, the Ford was a little aggressive, but there's always that tension between Fords and Chevys. It's t be expected...
o
So that's it for now. I'm off to Canada, the car will sit there until I return.
This will either become a progress thread, or it wont.
I wouldn't risk matting anything more powerful than a Honda Cub in there