'58 (nash) rambler american family project

[mygasser]

after selling the daimler hemi and box out of the '46 chevy truck project i took as px against my valiant i swapped what was left for this '58 rambler american. it's a 2 door sedan, originally 3.0 ltr flathead six with 3 speed and o/d manual (they're on my garage floor now) it will be getting a ford 2.0 pinto and 5 speed manual instead. we've swapped a wilwood dual circuit master cylinder for the rusty single circuit jampot original, run all new hardlines and braided flexis and resealed all the wheel cylinders. it'll be getting discs all round at some point. these cars are 5 x 4.5 wheel pcd and i got a deal on a set of late bullit mustang wheels, 9x18 with 275/35's front and 10x18 with 295/35's rear. this is a small car (same wheelbase as a mk3/4/5 cortina) and those wheels fit and clear surprisingly, we even had to space the fronts out to clear the upper ball joints. we made 60mm blocks for the rear and took 4 coils from each front coil to see how it'll look. i have now pieced together all the parts to fit airbags all round, buying from here and there to get the best deals with not all being specifically made for air suspension.
this is a project our ashley and his sister terri will be doing with and for me as my back won't let me do hardly any of the stuff i used to any more (play violins, lol) so it's good that 2 of our 5 kids are into cars.
if anyone's interested i'll put updates as we go, but here it is up 'til now.
neil.

ps seats update...... the jag' xf black leather seats i got locally for £90 i've swapped for front and rear red bench seats from the mk2 zephyr in for welding. fitting jag seats to the zephyr is now added to the job list. next as the zephyr rear bench is 3" too wide for the nash i've sold then to a mate who's working on a chopped 46 chevy coupe for £200 (£110 profit, keep up). tomorrow i'll be collection a set of black leather seats from an alfa romeo 147 that are only 6 miles from me for £100. so i end up with a nice set of seats and £10 up on the whole deal, result . you gotta love a deal, lol.
neil.

[mygasser]

i have the alfa seats in the back of my car now. too dark for pics but here's one from the ebay ad.
neil.

[Pete]

You DO like a project, don't you!!!

Entertaining as ever!

[Captain Chaos]

That’s different and really quite cool. I’d buy a lottery ticket with the tenner

[mygasser]

You DO like a project, don't you!!!

Entertaining as ever!

yes pete, i really enjoy 'the build' that's for sure. it's on hold for a bit as there's now a mk2 zephyr here with a 351c/c4 fitted. that needs all the usual zephyr/zodiac rust repairs but he has new inner, outer and membrane parts of the sills both sides already so that'll help.
neil.

[mygasser]

sooo...... ash came round for dawn to cut his hair this afternoon so i roped him in to dig the holden v8 out so we could test fire it. i bought it as a good runner from an nsra member and sure enough (once i took the leads off the cap and put them in the right order) it fired right up. it revs good and idles sweet so it's good to go. it came with a 4-2 barrel adapter and an old holley 2 barrel loosely sat on it. i bought a used small 4 barrel holley, again off an nsra member and although it needs setting up (rear floats too high so flooding there) and the accelerator pump lever doesn't sit over the cam so needs modifying it seems good too. with an ebay spread bore to square bore adapter it bolted on a treat.
the thing is now i've confirmed the engine runs good it'd be rude not to use it in the nash. the pinto will make as much or more than the holden engine as whichever i use the other will be sold. i'll see if the capri 5 speed box will adapt to the v8, if not i'll change the rear axle for the capri atlas axle and use the holden 4 speed. the nash axle is 4.11 ratio which is ok with the o/d 5 speed but with the non o/d 4 speed the capri axle's 3.75 ratio will be better suited.
neil.

[mygasser]

we took the holden box off of the engine so measurements could be compared with the 2.0 type 9 5 speed box i have. as i suspected the input shaft is almost an inch short, 23mm to be exact (yes imperial 'and' metric but i use whichever side of the tape looks closest, lol). i checked input shaft lengths (4 cyl' are shorter than v6/diesel) online and burton do a 16mm spacer to fit between the box and bellhousing which along with trimming a bit off of the spigot part of the shaft will allow the v6/diesel box to fit a 4 cyl' bellhousing and engine. but i digress and the point is the longer shaft box will work for me. i rang a mate who's work i've done for years as i knew he wanted to fit a 5 speed to his 2.0 cortina. so that's sold to fund a long shaft box and he wants it fitted over the winter too so we're both happy.
neil.

[mygasser]

i made an offer on ebay for a 2.8 capri box and after a haggle too and fro we agreed on £225 including delivery. he's in chepstow and i'm in kent so that's fine with me.
neil.

[ScottyDave]

Lots of figuring out there, think I'd have brain fade

[mygasser]

Lots of figuring out there, think I'd have brain fade

yes mate, i love a haggle and of course mixing n matching parts. the 4 cyl' box cost me £300 and was sold for £425 giving me £125 profit, the 6 cyl' box cost £225 meaning it actually owes me £100
neil.

[mygasser]

last night i ordered a pair of mk3/4 lwb transit rear arches for the nash. i've used them before on other projects and like the fairly radiused shape while being big enough for larger wheels. i will probably only use the actual arch shaped bit itself but they were cheap at only £40 so i had to have them. i'm not keen on the stock nash swept back arch shape so these will cure that as well as doing away with the beaten to death passengers arch. plus trying to make/match one from scratch to be the same as the good drivers side would be tough. there's enough to do replacing the sections of pass' side 1/4 panel as it is. i'm trying to get as much ready parts wise as possible so when we start on it it'll be a quick build, fingers crossed.
neil.

[mygasser]

add to the purchase list a new 3 row ally rad for a 70's v8 bronco off ebay for only £50.40 inc' post from germany!!! sure it's chinese but isn't most everything these days? what a bargain and the hose fittings are the right way round for the holden v8 too.
neil.

[mygasser]

so..... ever since i started collecting the airbag parts dawn's said ''why do you want it low when you'll struggle to get in and out with your back''? i guess it's because 'a' i've not done air before and 'b' the plan was for the pinto engine so it'd be a cruiser. i asked her last night if she minded it being low (read 'on the floor') or would she prefer it a bit higher? she said a bit higher so that's 'red rag to a bull' talk and i'll be making a straight tube axle for the front now. well, as it's now getting a v8 with a manual box for the right sound track it won't be all show an no go as it were. she did say a 'bit' higher without specifying how much so it's her fault, that'll be my excuse anyway.
neil.

[mygasser]

last week we made attachments for my tyre changer to allow it to be used for steel wheel banding. so it occurred to me today that now i can band steel wheels why don't i band the stock nash 15" steels for the rear of the nash? fronts can stay the stock 4" width so they're fine. i'd only need to do the rears and i can go to 10" as i know they'll fit, especially as i'll probably radius the rear arches. bonus is i'd lose more of the damaged o/s rear 1/4 panel too. bonus, bonus is i can sell the 4 1/2" and 8 1/2" slot mags i have which will add to the build budget.
neil.

[mygasser]

in the time since my last post on this i'm on my 2nd (is that 3rd?) set of wheels. there was a set of centreline champ 500's (very 90's) that were 14x15 with m/t 31/18.50/15 and 4.5x15 with 155/15 for that pro street look (as i said very 90's). now i've bought a set of are torque thrusts, 8x15 and 4.5x15. just arrived are 295/50/15's and 165/15's so i won't need to cut'n'tub the car now.
on a more mechanical front the holden v8 and boxes are for sale as i couldn't resist a ford fe big block that came up. i've had a few (including the 390 i put in my anglia gasser) and really like them. they're no big block mopar but they make good power and are more economical. it'll be lively in the little nash for sure.
neil.