One rough SC/Rambler
 

So I won’t go through the whole 25 page thread over on the AMC forum, but since this forum seems to like American Motors products I’ll show a little of the history of my SC/Rambler here.

I’ll start back in 2022. My 1970 Challenger is running and driving. It’s a great car. I love driving it, but I want a new project. Always being a fan of AMC, I decide that I was a RWB car, leaving me with either a Machine, TA Javelin, or a SC/Rambler. I had heard of a gentleman named Ralph who lived about 30 minutes away and had a “collection” of rough AMC cars. Getting his number I gave him a call. Sure enough he tells me he has about 40 different cars including several SC’s. My dad and I take a ride over to his place and he has 3 SC Ramblers. 1 very very rough parts car, 1 decent body but missing most of the SC specific parts, and 1 rough but mostly complete looking car with an incorrect 1968 343 4 barrel installed.

Looking over the last car I realize there are N50’s out back and that this car lived a rough life. Hindsight being 20/20 I should’ve walked away. But that’s not what I wanted. I now had my heart set on this car. What I ended up purchasing from Ralph was that SC, another 68 290 auto Rogue for parts, a 1969 complete 390, and a newer Patriot Performance STR-11 crossram because I knew it was going on that car.

Getting everything home that day I began to survey what I purchased. And what I purchased wasn’t great. On the way home the right side shock tower separated from the frame rail due to the amount of rot, nothing on the car was straight or pretty, and it was very clear that the mini-tub job done for the N50’s was done in a backyard and of questionable quality 50 years ago. And now was downright scary. But I still fell in love with the car, though I’d call it more of a love to hate it type or relationship.

The original plan was to do some type of Nostalgia SS style race car. However the amount of rot meant that I’d basically have to build another car to do that.

Then it got accepted into the Barn Find area at MCACN 2023, so a new plan was hatched. The block was as the machine shop and I was already building a 13:1 390 using BBC rods, Pontiac 455 pistons, the largest Mechanical flat tappet cam that Lunati makes, and ported 291C heads. Why not have this thing running and driving like a vintage pro-stocker while it looks like it currently does?

Unfortunately I had started stripping the interior of the car to start the bodywork. So over the course of months I reassembled most of what matters, and tackled the largest metal job that needed to be done… that right frame rail.

It was junk. So my dad and I, without fear or any idea of how to do it, chopped the right front frame rail out of the perfectly good 290 parts car and began mocking it up in the SC. There were some changes from 1968-1969, but nothing that couldn’t be overcome. Soon enough there’s a complete frame in the front.

Now back to the engine. Assembled in my garage and after all clearances are checked, it was installed not painted and ugly, along with the original T10, though there’s no vin on it the dates line up perfectly to the build date of the car.

Story will continue in next post…

So at this point I’ve condensed about a year’s worth of work into the last post. The engine is back in the car with the trans, the frame seems like it will support it without falling apart, and I’ve put the interior back together enough that I can mount 1 seat bolt into each seat since there isn’t enough floor left to install any other hardware.

Looking at the rear one day I realize that not only is it crooked, but both spring perches look like they were eaten by a T. rex. I had purchased a NOS set of 4.44 gears for an AMC 20 months earlier. Figuring now was as good a time as any, I pulled the rear out of the car and replaced the spring perches and rebuilt the rear with new bearings and the deeper gears.

While installing the perches I found that part of my issue with the rear being crooked was that 1 perch was welded onto the rear backwards. But even after fixing that the rear is still slightly off in the back of the car. Measuring underneath shows that the mini tub job is about half an inch off. Pushing the right side tire closer to the front of the wheel opening. The next post will talk about the cars history and how I found it going back to about 1973. I’d love to trace it back further but hit a dead end. Enjoy the photos.

So the history of this car and what happened to it…

When I bought the car it came with a NY transferable registration from the 90’s. Giving me the owner before Ralph. I was able to find the guy on FB even though I don’t have it. My wife messaged him and he gave me a call weeks later. He didn’t seem too pleased to hear the car still existed, and gave me almost no info other than he bought it out of Queens NYC in the late 80’s and never drove the car. He sold it in 2008ish and it sat outside in his yard until he sold it. When he bought it the car barely ran and didn’t run soon after.

My trail went cold there, then, months later I decided to take the rear window regulators out to free them up. Inside the drivers side quarter window slot I found a For Sale sign with a phone number. Googling the number I eventually tracked down a disconnected phone number to Astoria Queens. Bingo.


Further digging revealed 2 boys who grew up with that phone number. So I start calling numbers for the people listed. Eventually getting a woman whose husband was the guy I was looking for, named Brian.


Brian was very helpful. He bought the car in 1985 when he turned 16 and learned how to drive stick in the car on the way home from picking it up. He sold it in 87-88 getting ready to head for college. He also gave me the name of the guy he bought it from, who mini tubbed it in a backyard on Long Island. Brian also confirmed my suspicions that even though the car currently has a quasi A scheme paint job, this was built new as the rarer, though less outrageous, B scheme paint job. One of only 297 built.

Eventually I was able to get a hold of Bob Gianelli, the gentleman who had done all of the bodywork to the car back in the 1970’s. He started a business called “Narrow It” and mini tubbed cars. This was one of his first ones and his wife liked the car so he owned it for quite awhile. He told me about 1973 he bought it. But having owned close to 400 cars in his life he had no other info about where he bought it from. But according to him he bought mostly local cars. So I believe this car spent most of its life in NYC/Long Island.

Brian was kind enough to send me photos of when he owned the car. The photos are from him getting ready to go to a car show at the now torn down NYC coliseum.

You've been very diligent in your digging for history. Congrats on all that you have found.
Nice work on the shock tower. Good that you had a donor to remove intact. I've rebuilt/replaced a number of those on Mustangs, which are very similar.
Is this going to be in the MCACN Barn Finds this year ?

Now time to get the engine running and spend time getting everything else together. As I said, I’m condensing a years work into a couple posts. If people want to see the whole progression of this car I implore you to go to the amc forum and read the 25 page thread I’ve written there.

I ended up going to MCACN 2023 with this car. I will include some photos from the show probably in the next post.

Photos from MCACN 2023 and a preview of a Hemmings photoshoot that was done a month or so later. The photographer is still working on the article. Very nice gentleman named John.

I saw it at MCACN, car is a lot of work but they are rare and cool. Enjoying your updates!!

Yup saw this beauty at MCACN!!! I help with move in so I might have waved you in to barn finds?

I’m a big fan of 4 Speed, small/mid sized muscle, and non normal cars, and patina :-) so this one speaks to me!!

And I have a bit of a shifter addiction (had three RamRods for a while)

Ryan W

Beauty is a stretch lol.

I did see it briefly, but was drawn to the piled up Buick in front of you. I didn't have much time to look thru there, as I was working with the Vintage Certification crew.