Another Project, 1964 Chevelle

About a month ago I hauled my dad's Malibu to a new home and luck would have it that the new owner would have a project he was tired of. My dad decided it would be a good project for us, mostly because my dad is 73 now and I'm just a beat up mid 40's guy and most of the hard work is done or has a good headstand on it. My opinion is the guy rushed to paint a car that was no where near ready to paint and to make matters worse he decided to spray paint some kindergarten looking yellow flames on it! It actually made me sick to my stomach to look at the paint job but after looking at his receipts and the parts already installed and what he wanted for it, it was too hard to pass up. He also gave us the original recovered low back bucket seats and a trunk full of other parts to go with it. It has a newly rebuilt engine and transmission (800 miles) new digital gauges, rebuilt rear end, 4 wheel disc brakes, new fronted that needs to be aligned and new vintage AC. Needs things straightened out like air intake, probably a hood, door handles, throttle cable fixed from kinking and some body work but after getting the flames off, all in all it's not a bad car and should be a fun project with my dad.
Few pictures I took. One of the Malibu leaving then the rest are just some quick pictures I took of the '64 Chevelle.

 

Oh, yeah, that paint was putrid. But an LS under the hood sounds like a nice project just the same.

 

Excellent 'sleeper' there. Steelies and poverty caps will help complete the look. You can probably get away with making the wheels 7-8" wide without too many people noticing. Also, technically, since it's a 2-door sedan, it's a Chevelle 300. You couldn't get the 2-door sedan in the 'Malibu' trim. 4-door - yes; 2-door - no. Those sporty-looking 2-door Chevelle wagons in '64 and '65 were actually Chevelle 300's, not Malibus.

http://www.lov2xlr8.no/brochures/chevy/64chevelle/64chevelle.html

 

Oh man! You ruined a great looking car!
Oher wise you got a heck of a deal!

 

It was a original 6 cylinder car but at some point someone put a 283 TH350 in it and he had a shop put new cam, lifters, intake and carb before the shop talked him into the LS based swap. I know this because I bought the 283 and Turbo 350 for $400 and I have it in my '77 C10 I'm working on. Who knows I maybe able to buy the Malibu back in a year or two for a fraction of what it was sold to him for.

 

I seem to remember a video you posted of the motor running on the Malibu. It sounded pretty mean.....

 

Nothing sounds like a big block, it had a 502 crate motor. It was fun car but I find after about 3 years my dad and I get bored with some of the cars. The '55 Bel Air is the longest we kept any car, about 18 years now I think. I really like this Chevelle and think it will be a great cruiser to get in and drive, anywhere.

 

After a lot of sanding and buffing we started putting everything back on the Chevelle. Removed the racing bucket seats and will replace with the original style lowback bucket seats. While it maybe far from perfect, it's going to be a nice driver. I think it would be hard to find another LS powered '64 Chevelle with A/C for less then 5k.

 

Got the right seats in it now. The previous owner had them covered only to take them out to put racing seats in it. I'm thinking he thought they would look good in it, just like the yellow flames!
Here's a before and after of the seats.

 

That's better. Pretty much all that's left to do is to cut down those fondle dice cubes

I can't agree with you more

 

I think we are nearing the end of this project, need to bring it to work and align the front end, then it will be ready to start driving. Paint came out OK to be done out in the yard, have a rear bumper ordered and got the air conditioner blowing cold to beat this humid 98 degree days here in South Louisiana. Now to move onto my '71 Chevelle.

 

Put new wheels and tires on and drove it to work to get front end work done. Previous owner put some new parts under it but only about half of what was needed. It wandered all over the road on way to work, thankfully it's only about 20 miles each way. We already did a quick inspection so we had an idea of what it needed but didn't realize how bad the springs were wore out until they were out. I seen a spacer in both front Springs but after they were out, it had 5 in driver side and 3 in passenger side! It had new ball joints but bad lower control arm bushings and they decided to leave the grease fittings out the new ball joints. Now it has new control arms, Springs and some grease in the new upper ball joints along with new upper bushings with new offset control arm shafts. It drove much better when I drove it back home.
Still need to get the computer tuned but it drives nice, AC blows cold, turns 2300 RPM at 75 and even though I haven't driven it far, seems to be a 20 something mpg cruiser.

 

The wheels are definitely an improvement. They even make it look like you've got rear wheel disc brakes on it

 

Yeah, those tires and wheels are more proportional to the car. And I bet that front end handled better.