propav8r
F*ck Edgar
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2010
- Location
- Franklin, NC
So for a long time I've been looking for an Amazon coupe or wagon. Most everything that's come up around here has either been out of my budget, way too far gone, or hoovered up before I can get to it.
This car had been listed for sale for a long time, like a couple months. Because of work and life I had a hard time making time to go check it out, but finally got over there this past Friday.
I actually missed out on this car in 2015. It was posted to Asheville Craigslist for $800. I called the guy and told him I was coming, and was about halfway there when he called back and said don't bother, someone else just bought it.
So anyway eight years later, I got in touch with the seller and was able to go check it out on Friday. It's uhhhhhh....rusty. Like really rusty. The rockers are pretty much all gone, as is most of the driver's front floorboard. Oh well.
The car did also come with a rebuilt B18 and a spare M40.
I poked around a bit and was honestly on the fence about the thing. I asked the guy what he wanted for it and he goes "well it's listed at $2,000, but I'm moving in a couple weeks, so any real offer takes it."
I said "$600?" and he said "Sure."
Whelp, guess I own an Amazon now. I went home, grabbed the dolly, and went back the next morning to pick it up.
So some history on the car, since it came with a stack of service records:
The paper trail picks up in 1966, when the second owner bought the car for $1600. He kept meticulous records of EVERYTHING. Every time he put gas in the car, oil changes, tune ups, everything in these little logbooks.
His name was Rowland Sager, and he lived in Whittier, CA with his wife Virginia.
Some highlights from the service history:
-Complete motor rebuild in August 1969 ($1357.11)
-Custom blue interior in August 1980 ($580)
-Replace burned valve in March 1981 ($158.09)
-Repainted in 1982
There's plenty more too...
Anyway, Rowland owned the car from 1966-2006, when it looks like it was sold to his son Greg, which is where the service record trail falls off.
In 2008, Greg sold the car to Earleen Finan of Ukiah, CA. I did find a video of her performing a song of hers here:
After Earleen, I'm not sure what happened, but somehow between 2008 and 2015 it came to the east coast. The next owner I can find is Ronald Ulman of Asheville, NC. There's a bill of sale from April 2015 where he sold it to Jacob Ebert for $800, which is the time I missed out on it. A bit of searching turns up these pictures from mid-late 2015:
Finally, in early 2017, Jacob sold it to Erik Weigel, who I bought it from. That would appear to make me the seventh owner of the car.
So yeah, that brings us to today.
I got it home and immediately set to work getting it running. It cranked over strong with a good battery but wouldn't fire. I pulled the distributor apart to see what was going on and realized that I couldn't read a short with the meter when the points were closed. I cleaned up the corrosion on those, set the gap to 14 thou, hit the key, and it fired right up and purred nice and smooth. I couldn't believe it.
The reason the car was parked back in 2018 was the clutch. The slave cylinder failed, and although the previous owner bought the parts, he never installed them. That took about an hour and I was all excited to take it for a drive, but I couldn't get it into gear with the car running. It didn't even occurr to me that the clutch was stuck to the flywheel.
So at that point, I put it in gear up on stands and started it. 1-3 were fine (though I couldn't shift smoothly without the clutch) but in 4th gear it kept trying to jump out of gear and made really bad grinding noises. I resolved to throw the spare transmission in.
The original transmission came out easy enough in about 30 minutes, but I couldn't get the replacement one to seat in there. After about an hour I gave up and called it quits for the night.
I came back out this morning after a cup of coffee, held my mouth different, and the new transmission went right in! I was then able to crank the car in gear with the clutch depressed and free up the clutch.
Set it down, and went for a drive to get some fresh gas:
Unfortunately, the replacement transmission ALSO does the grinding/popping out of 4th under any sort of load, so that's fun. I guess I'll either throw another M40 at it or track down an M41, idk. We'll see.
I'm not sure what I'm really going to do with the thing. I have visions of fixing the rot and running it as a 00 car for area rallies with some sort of cool livery on it, but idk. First order of business is to get it cleaned out and de-bugged. I'm working on that today.
This car had been listed for sale for a long time, like a couple months. Because of work and life I had a hard time making time to go check it out, but finally got over there this past Friday.
I actually missed out on this car in 2015. It was posted to Asheville Craigslist for $800. I called the guy and told him I was coming, and was about halfway there when he called back and said don't bother, someone else just bought it.
So anyway eight years later, I got in touch with the seller and was able to go check it out on Friday. It's uhhhhhh....rusty. Like really rusty. The rockers are pretty much all gone, as is most of the driver's front floorboard. Oh well.
The car did also come with a rebuilt B18 and a spare M40.
I poked around a bit and was honestly on the fence about the thing. I asked the guy what he wanted for it and he goes "well it's listed at $2,000, but I'm moving in a couple weeks, so any real offer takes it."
I said "$600?" and he said "Sure."
Whelp, guess I own an Amazon now. I went home, grabbed the dolly, and went back the next morning to pick it up.
So some history on the car, since it came with a stack of service records:
The paper trail picks up in 1966, when the second owner bought the car for $1600. He kept meticulous records of EVERYTHING. Every time he put gas in the car, oil changes, tune ups, everything in these little logbooks.
His name was Rowland Sager, and he lived in Whittier, CA with his wife Virginia.
Some highlights from the service history:
-Complete motor rebuild in August 1969 ($1357.11)
-Custom blue interior in August 1980 ($580)
-Replace burned valve in March 1981 ($158.09)
-Repainted in 1982
There's plenty more too...
Anyway, Rowland owned the car from 1966-2006, when it looks like it was sold to his son Greg, which is where the service record trail falls off.
In 2008, Greg sold the car to Earleen Finan of Ukiah, CA. I did find a video of her performing a song of hers here:
After Earleen, I'm not sure what happened, but somehow between 2008 and 2015 it came to the east coast. The next owner I can find is Ronald Ulman of Asheville, NC. There's a bill of sale from April 2015 where he sold it to Jacob Ebert for $800, which is the time I missed out on it. A bit of searching turns up these pictures from mid-late 2015:
Finally, in early 2017, Jacob sold it to Erik Weigel, who I bought it from. That would appear to make me the seventh owner of the car.
So yeah, that brings us to today.
I got it home and immediately set to work getting it running. It cranked over strong with a good battery but wouldn't fire. I pulled the distributor apart to see what was going on and realized that I couldn't read a short with the meter when the points were closed. I cleaned up the corrosion on those, set the gap to 14 thou, hit the key, and it fired right up and purred nice and smooth. I couldn't believe it.
The reason the car was parked back in 2018 was the clutch. The slave cylinder failed, and although the previous owner bought the parts, he never installed them. That took about an hour and I was all excited to take it for a drive, but I couldn't get it into gear with the car running. It didn't even occurr to me that the clutch was stuck to the flywheel.
So at that point, I put it in gear up on stands and started it. 1-3 were fine (though I couldn't shift smoothly without the clutch) but in 4th gear it kept trying to jump out of gear and made really bad grinding noises. I resolved to throw the spare transmission in.
The original transmission came out easy enough in about 30 minutes, but I couldn't get the replacement one to seat in there. After about an hour I gave up and called it quits for the night.
I came back out this morning after a cup of coffee, held my mouth different, and the new transmission went right in! I was then able to crank the car in gear with the clutch depressed and free up the clutch.
Set it down, and went for a drive to get some fresh gas:
Unfortunately, the replacement transmission ALSO does the grinding/popping out of 4th under any sort of load, so that's fun. I guess I'll either throw another M40 at it or track down an M41, idk. We'll see.
I'm not sure what I'm really going to do with the thing. I have visions of fixing the rot and running it as a 00 car for area rallies with some sort of cool livery on it, but idk. First order of business is to get it cleaned out and de-bugged. I'm working on that today.
Please continue the round fender proliferation.
