In the fall of 2000 I bought an 1975 o2 (minted 10/74). I got it from a good buddy for $700 with a blown head and a questionable radiator. I got it with the intention of fixing it and giving it to my oldest step son for his 16th birthday. I get it home and we start wrenching on it and fixing stuff as we find it. We take the head to the local high quality machine shop and find out that it has already been resurfaced and is actually different heights at each end.
So we go home with the aluminum paper weight and start to weigh our options. Money was tight back the and I could not afford to throw another $700 at it. We talked about getting a rebuilt high performance engine from the guys in Rancho Cordova and started saving. After about 6 months the new paint job the car came with started flying off in fingernail sized pieces, so we decide to take it to bare metal. We worked our asses of and got about 3/4's of the way around the car. We found some rust under the bumper rubber on the passenger rear. We found a lot of bondo on the front right fender and then we started to look more closely. It had a "new" nose that had been stick welded in and poorly at that.
The car sat for a long time.
I found some money and a '76 Chamonix that had been sitting literally across the street from the ocean in Santa Cruz for four years. The engine had 3000 miles on a rebuild when it was parked, family health issues caused it to be parked. I bought the car. It was melting but the running gear looked good. I made a temporary gas tank out of a gas can, put our battery in it and turned the key. It started right up, it ran for about 5 minutes and the oil filter was so rusted that it sprang a leak and sprayed oil across half the neighborhood. I ran to Kragens fixed the filter and drove it away. We pulled the running gear and transplanted it to the '75. We now have a runner.
We started putting everthing back together, we had pulled the rear suspension and gone through it replaced all of the fasteners painted it etc..
I get the car all legal so that my boy can take it to Wyoming for school at Wyotech and his Dad gives him a 4runner (used 95 limited) so the car sits some more.
He comes home from school, we charge the battery, it starts right up and we head off to make some friends in the mountain community that we live in (SLOW DOWN YOU ASSHOLES, you know friends).
He and his brother are out dicking around in the car and it has a tragic loss of power. I pull up on the way home from work and say "what happened guys". My younger step son says "Dylan told me to stall it on purpose so I would know what it feels like and we heard something pop and it will not move anymore". Jordan was learning the stick so I figured they had tossed the clutch lining. The car sat some more.
We moved I now have a garage, I get the car over here put it in the garage and we decide that we are going to finish going through it. Dylan is now a diesel mechanic and making good money so he wants to make it special.
I get it up on the stands and figure out that the drivers half shaft had come loose from the diff, hence the pop and tragic los of go.
I am now taking the car all the way down. I am going to send it out for media blasting, fix the stick welded nose job. I just found rust in the passengers floor boards today so we will be fixing that. All new steering, all new bushings, all new suspension, 130+ hp, new seats etc. etc. etc..
We are going for hot street/auto X (I sent him to Skip Barber for his 16th birthday).
I will get some photos up soon I have been meaning to get a digital camera but have been lagging.
There you have it and I will keep you folks posted.
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Justin
76' 2741300 3.23.1976 021 Malaga
75' 2361164 12.20.1974 076 Amazonas
'75 o2 blog
00' 4runner (fishin machine)

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Last edited by albawhore on 3-29-07 02:26; edited 2 times in total