Rare Ragtop Rogue Refurb

The first little project was finishing up the pinch weld seam trim replacement.  As I had stated before, I really like the material that AMC used in the 70s, as it is still very usable stuff today - sure beats that old frayed nylon factory stuff.

The rear quarter door jam was replaced in the 90s with some of that plastic reproduction stuff, and the fronts were original frayed nylon.  I bought a bunch of black 70s version for cheap money - cleaned it up and cut my pieces from the best condition sections of the trim.  Here below I am showing why I like it so much as a nice replacement on driver cars of the 60s.  The top piece is the reproduction stuff, the lower piece is the 70s AMC used stuff I put on - it looks so much nicer installed than the repop stuff.  Go the extra mile - get some from a 70s parts car!

Alex from AMCPARTSWAREHOUSE agreed this past summer to reproduce the very hard to located rear Rogue "J" trim pot metal that "eyebrows" the taillights.  Alex sent me the first set for test fitting, so I needed to get the old pieces off and the new ones fitted and installed.  Of course nothing on a mostly original car is straight forward.  The stainless trim that goes between them was really beat up on this car and while I didn't have intentions of worrying about it for initial car refurbing, I learned that I had to take that piece off to install these potmetal corner pieces that slide into it.  Sooo... I had to do something with the trim.  So many times I feel like all I'm doing with some parts is polishing a turd.  That's what this trim piece was all about.  It's better than it was but its still just a turd - hopefully someday I'll find a super straight and clean replacement for it, but for now, its back on with Alex's new reproductions!

You can order yourself a set here:

Hopefully these fresh new or NOS trim pieces on the car will distract attention away from the crappy paint!

I had mentioned before how great the floors were in this car.  I'm amazed at the front floor pans.  However I did find under the rear seat that the mouse house piss worked its evil and ate through the factory paint on the rear seat hump are and it needed treatment (and it was still not so pure), so I scrubbed it the best I could and then used a 3M Skotch wheel to prep the surface and decided to use some phospate based sealer I had here in a quart can - the Eastwood Internal Frame Coating paint - its very good stuff for sealing of semi clean surfaces.  Got it brushed on last Saturday.  Looks better (and smells better too).

Before above, after below

I had pulled the steering wheel a few weeks back as I wanted to do some repairs on the wheel for cracks and to swap out the horn ring with the sportier version used on AMX/Javelin, etc.  I prepped the wheel and then mixed up the PC7.  First time using that stuff - rather interesting filler/bonder.  I am just doing localized repairs and hoping to just use some touchup paint to blend it in.  I just wanted it good enough that my hand didn't get caught in the cracks and to clean up the look a little bit.  Now in the process of carefully sanding it down - going to take some hours doing this project!

Tonight I just finished up re-installing the shifter / tunnel hump.  I had pulled the shifter out for a mild rebuild to tighten it up.  The tunnel hump had been pulled once before and the reverse switch was missing!!

A fellow 67 4spd friend put me onto AMARK having reproduced a small qty of those special switches a while back and thankfully AMARK still had them on stock!  I ordered that item up and a number of other rebuild items for the shifter and pulled the shifter for a refresh.  What it looked like on the bench:

I tore it completely down, plastic bead blasted all the parts going back in, treated them with my secret preservation sauce, and put them back together with some good moly grease and the new components - there was still a lot of good original zinc plating on the parts.  Not bad for a 55 year old car with 119k on it.  Ready to go back in:

And tonight - with cleaned and waxed chrome shifter arm assy - installed back in the car:

Some would ask, why go to all that trouble to rebuild one of those horrible factory shifters?  I would agree these aren't great, and I'd rather be stirring a Hurst, but this car really needs to keep that original defining feature.  Its what make it so rare in the first place.  I don't plan to drag race it, so hopefully it will be good enough for farm country Sunday drives slow rolling through the gears.

Progress must continue now to get this on the road this driving season.  Stay tuned.

The steering wheel is done and except for a little more cleaning and polishing the black, its ready to go back on.  I was happy with the driver quality effort on this.  For just the price of the PC-7 2 part epoxy filler, and my time, the wheel is good for another 10 years it looks.

I got all the big cracks sanded out, without affecting the rest of the wheel:

Next I raided my paint cabinet and found some non metallic brown paint and mixed in drop of white to soften it up a bit and started hand painting the fresh repair:

And some gloss black touchup for the back:

The result wasn't bad,

But I decided tonight to try my hand at a little wood graining to help blend those spots a bit.

I got the smallest little dremel bit I had and started cutting down through the brown for a little depth, then found some AMC 80s Mocha Brown that I had around and carefully applied it to the cut and did a quick finger wipe to make it look a little more natural.

It helps mask it a lot better and doesn't have that abrupt grain stop look it had before I started.  It was fun just trying to see how good I could make it look for zero dollars.  Compared to where it started, the wheel doesn't look bad.  The top is wearing smooth and thats OK - it looks original to the car!

How it looked before starting:

Earlier this week, I pulled the top well cover and replaced the rear shocks with some new Monroe coil over shocks to keep the rear end from sagging with a full house on a Saturday night ice cream run.  This job was almost too easy...  had to wonder why for a minute!

Pulled the convertible top pump out for flushing and seal kit rebuild.  We are ready to reinstall and hopefully get the top operational in the coming weeks now:

Looks like someone had put Brake Fluid in it at one time, however these later units were supposed to run on Type A (Dextron) ATF, so I will be using ATF now that we have a full flush underway.

Thursday was a 73 degree day here in eastern PA, I came home from work to this view peaking out of the garage.  Would have been a nice evening for a quick spin in the middle of winter.  Soon enough I guess!

The new AMARK brake pedal pad got installed - they are a pain...

The top motor / cylinder lines system has been bleed and filled with new transmission fluid.  While it still groans a little starting up, the system works smooth and I'm happy enough with it.  Not ruling out a long-term needed change of drive cylinders, but they work ok for now.  When the top was down I took the opportunity to take the sunvisors and rear view mirror off and clean / polish everything.  Mirror chrome is in stellar condition.

View with the top down, first time since I've had it:

The other week I ordered a blank black aluminum license plate and a chrome surround, and pulled out my small stash of collected emblems from last year to put together a unique one off front license plate.  I was given a very nice used Rogue emblem, found a really nice used 290 emblem with good color, and the "6" and "7" letters at the Knapp Garage sale in Kenosha - they were on my shopping list for this project.  I ground off the pins on the back of each and decided on the layout.

Next up was the mounting, and I asked my little 2 year old grand-daughter if she wanted to help PopPop on the yellow Rambler.  She enthusiastically agreed so she got to help screw the plate on the front of the car.  Memories.

The finished look:

There are still a few minor things in the engine bay, one being getting the fresh PCV valve and new hose to the carb base installed.  I didn't like what I found with the car and wanted a elbow molded hose for the back of the carb install on the 67s.

After striking out with Napa being able to help find a generic hose, I started doing research on-line and found a proper hose type for oils/fuels that I could make into the hose I needed.   Dorman 46060 (from a Subaru or something) has a double elbow.  Ordered it off Amazon, got it in two days and installed it.  I cut the hose right at the start of the bend on one end and it fit pretty much perfectly!

Installed:

This week I tore down the left door, I want to grease the window regulator, swap on an NOS door handle, NOS lower ribbed trim piece, new door rubber, and new window fuzzies all around.

With the fuzzies off I decided to repaint the tops on the left side as the drivers down is worn down to surface rusted bare metal from arms on the door.  It won't be a fussy job, just good enough to clean up the look and taking the time to do it while the fuzzies are off.

Weather is supposed to be nice Sunday so I can open the door and rattle can this project to completion in the afternoon.

Next weekend, I will have a little help and we plan to swap out the transmission mount (dropping pipes, cross member), and bleed the brake system finally.  New carpet will start soon as well as re-assembly of the drivers door.