69 Chevelle from N/J
 

So I bought this car from NJ NOM SB and trans, it took while to get it home to Texas a buddy near Buffalo picked it up and decided in end of January to tow it down. I flew up to visit and help with the drive, bad part of trip was Texas roads - we had an ice storm that week. I'm starting to get this moving again as its been off road since 1989 its going to get mechanicals first then think about paint its originally Butternut yellow 4 speed some reason it came with a 68 grill. story was original motor was warranted then warranty motor was windowed the glamorous life of high-performance cars, I'm going to get it back to it's glory days.

high rpm tach. solid lifter motor originally?

Read all about it here...

https://www.yenko.net/forum/showthread.php?t=171198

Yes this is the car, surprised at the asking price then he kept several of the items that came with the car, the radiator, shaved fan shroud and he also came up with the exhaust manifolds off this car. I haven't had chance to get up on the lift yet but there was some customizing done to this back in the day- Chrome! diff cover, backing plates F&R, booster, master cap, heater box hood hinges and springs and the sway bar! the bad is all that chrome went to crap except the hinges and I may leave them since its part of its history.


remnants of build sheet that came with car show "JD" block which is L78

since I've gotten this car I found a used grill and got that changed over and also found a set of correct wheels for it, looking for 3 driver center caps. feel like its looking like it should now

----Did I miss something with the Malibu emblem on the rear quarter?....Bill S

Bill good catch its puzzled me but look at the pass side - none I've looked inside and while this has been painted there no sign that it ever had a RR Malibu emblem. I've asked on a couple boards and get mostly negative things said. if you look at top of taillight you can see the original Butternut coming through.

Maybe someone put a used quarter on it long ago???

BTW, looks much better with correct grill and wheels :)

Thanks Bill I'd say no on quarter replacement this is all original sheet metal from NJ
https://www.yenko.net/forum/showthread.php?t=173426

so It'll be put together with some original 840 heads that are at the machine shop currently

On the Chevelle Stuff site it discusses Chevelle SS cars with the Malibu emblem on the quarter. IIRC the early cars had the Malibu emblem. I am not positive though.
Car looks good, coming along.

I think only the early Canadian-built 69 Chevelle SS396 cars had the Malibu emblems on the rear quarters.

Bill I cant answer why but very strange its only on the one side not both
Here's some of the documentation that came with car

Finally got this up on lift for better look at floors and I see lots of very thick black paint thats all peely, someone told me this was undercoating?

It also shows this was customized way back with lots of chrome! it has seen better days

the Motor mounts look little strange to me, are these the original mounts?

Cool car. Regarding the Malibu emblem on one quarter, I would bet a nickel to a doughnut that it had a salvage yard quarter installed early in life.

I had a 67 SS with a 66 Malibu quarter on the psgr side. (They did at least bondo the emblem holes over and drill new holes for the 67 SuperSport emblem though.)

And I have a 67 Malibu 4-door sedan donor car that has a 300 Deluxe rear door and quarter on the psgr side. But in this case they did nothing about the trim -- the car has a Malibu emblem and all the lower side trim on the driver's side, but on the psgr side it has a 300 Deluxe emblem and the lower Malibu trim just stops at the back edge of the front door! The odd thing is that the installation was done fantastically well and along all the factory seams. If it were not for the trim mismatch (and white paint under the peeling blue on the 300 Deluxe parts) you would never know it had a quarter put on it.

I guess it was very easy for someone to drill holes for the Malibu emblem and just as easy to put a 68 grill on it. The only question is why, and the answer lies with the person that did it along with some of the chrome dress up pieces from back in the day.
Very Nice car! It is looking great already and I can' t wait to see it brought back to its former glory. Did you decide on a color yet?

Getting this car was a bit of an ordeal getting help from 2 friends to pick it up and transport it home. My friend that picked it up looked it over very well and is a career body man and he thinks quarter has never been replaced unless was factory full quarter so we may never know ...

Hey Mark! it was as you know was originally Butternut and have thought about other colors but that's last on my list of things to do.

here are few more pics

found some "Issues" with car I'm addressing, the passenger's plastic fender well has been cut clean up front leaving an eyesore of a hole and no support for the battery so I found a member here, Andy and he was able to supply me with the missing pieces and a friend of my sons showed me how to plastic weld with a couple cheap tools off amazon. also did some repairs to some cracks and repaired a broke out area where it attached to fender. It's not finished yet but I'll post up more pics after its reinstalled.

I haven't read all of this thread, but have you removed the gas tank? I found a full build sheet from my Framingham car on top of the gas tank. I also found a third under the rear seat and a third in the driver's seat back.

This looks to be a good project. I was actually going to fly out last year to look at it for a project car, but decided I didn't really have the time to do it.

Good luck with the project.

Woj, not yet but I will soon as I need to to fix gas gauge, the Sender is dead. I dont know whats best to get repro or try to have this one repaired I'm unaware who can do that but I would love to find another sheet as the one this came with was only partial. I got fender well back in and am happy with the repair. was also able to install battery tray and its now secure. I also swapped out heater box while it was easy to reach, little before and after pics. I need a couple wire retainers that mount to heater box studs not sure of hardware store would have or?

I bought a repro sender when the one in my former 69 Chevelle convert died 7 or 8 years ago. Everything was fine except for the ground wire, which was about 6" too short to ground to the original location. Called the vendor where I bought it and asked them to measure the ground wire on others they had in stock. They were all the same length, and OF COURSE they claimed that no one else ever had a complaint about them :bs: So I sent the repro back to them and sent my original off to John Wolf & Co. in Willoughby OH. They have since rebuilt the one in my current 69 Chevelle too. Excellent workmanship and they both work as good as new.

I have been following your thread here, and just saw your NCRS paperwork stating your car was a Framingham car. My 69 L78 Chevelle is a Framingham car too. Sold new at Monument Chevrolet Somerset Mass. My car needed a full restoration which is now 95% done and I have been working through the final details. Have fun with your build.

Thanks Bill I will look them up
I got the repro too - same issue with ground wire, I did install it and seems to fixed gauge
well of course you know I filled tank last time out in it so tank was a bit of a handful
so now it reads full - not pegged full

this is like 3rd Framingham car I know of here

when I dropped tank, no build sheet but this tank was replaced at some point by original selling dealer too, I cant see date on that either

AMK has some nice J clips that you can use for the heater box.

https://www.amkproducts.com/bulk-fas...forlookup=7710

B10256

Thanks Woj! I have couple but wasn't sure what studs got them as per your pic they are different than my Camaro.

So I took the car out yesterday while it was cooler here to do a shakedown drive and ran pretty well except for the carb - secondary's just dump and bog it down , need to play with spring and set screw, but temp was fine with a stainless flex fan, even without a shroud on it. car floats around needs upper control arm bushings as the age has taken its toll and I have another plastic weld to attempt.

time for update I had bought an assembled fresh short block from a member here and was ready to start engine assembly and decided to disassemble and have balance checked as i saw no signs of being balanced IMO crank is a 6223 and 7/16" rods had been added and in the past I had done this to a L72 warranty block I had 25-30 years ago and it needed heavy metal, this one didn't so I was at a crossroad slap it together or have it checked and not wanting to go through all this again... so apart it came, took to my machinist and when he spun it he said it was nominally heavy and needed minimum removed from crank, his thought as maybe the crank was out of a truck 366 or 427 - who knows. surprisingly crank was std std so its back together again

Rocker moldings?
Did I miss something?

No sir it has them several issues on this that makes me wonder it was color changed from Butternut to black a long time ago. there was a good bit of custom Chrome done my guess it was added after painting? vehicle also has one Malibu emblem on left quarter nothing on the right neither looks to have ever been changed out several have said it was a dolled up Malibu in SS clothing but the build sheet shows JD code

Just curiosity.

I know 512 427-454 blocks had the clearance notch for 7/16" rod bolts.

How did you get them to clear on your block?

Nice clean car.
Congrats

Dave this short block was built by a previous owner and I didn't notice any clearance had been done and being only a 3.76 stroke, I doubt it's needed until a 4.00" stroke is installed

Just a quick note after rereading the thread. The driver's seat appears to be original, have you tried sending a borescope into the seat back, driver's side? You can remove the seat back release mechanism and fish the scope into the seat. I did find a left 1/3rd build sheet there in my Framingham 69 Malibu. I couldn't remove it, but was able to photograph it.

no haven't done that yet but will eventually too much other "Stuff" goin on but little progress on engine - still needs Intake installed

I owned this '69 Chevelle before Zman1969, and I found a partial build sheet under the driver seat and another partial build sheet in the passenger side rear seat back. (which he has now)
Hopefully there is another one someplace else.

My build sheet was found in the back seat but I did not find it. The guy I bought the car from found it. Nothing on the gas tank, and the front seat had been recovered. My car is a bench seat.

Mark good to know I'll stop looking for anything more I just figured there would be more of it
so these 842 heads are about done they were milled enough intake needed to be milled down .060" and .125" on the ends 3 trips to machine shop anyway its fitting much better, someone did me a favor and had welded up the crossover, glad it wasn't the date that should be on the car

well, I'm glad that's finally done! now to find a weekend to do the swap the nice thing about a beater is this will only see limited nighttime use its next caretaker can make it pretty.
the drivers head has a plug where temp sender should be and it looks like its been in there a long time and I don't want to break a tool off trying to remove it - any suggestions?

That's the same 90005 FelPro gaskets that I always use. I love those gaskets. Be careful with those valve springs. Rust on a spring can cause it to fail.

those were on heads when bought and I trashed them, just best pic showing the plug I want out headshop installed outers of comp duals for break in