I will post some pictures later. I can't access Photobucket from work and I don't really have any good photos of it yet anyway.

As most of you know, I've been struggling with the long-term restoration of a '67 123GT. I'll make a little progress, I'll let it sit for a month or two. A little progress, more time off. I just can't seem to get a good rhythm going.

One day I saw a fairly nice '67 122 2 door on eBay, for a pretty solid investment of money. It was the dark green one in our Kijiji thread... The pictures were scarce and didn't show a lot of the detail work, but it got me to thinking: Why am I busting my hump on restoring this car, when for $7000 I can have one ready to enjoy? Next thought was: I could drive this one while restoring the GT, and get to know what I'm building, and sell it later.

That turned on the lights. I DIDN'T KNOW what I was trying to build. I'd driven each of two 122s for an average of 10 blocks each, so I haven't got a real strong sense of what they feel like. Anyone who's been around me while I'm planning out a car (and frequently that's all it ever turns out to be: a plan) knows I need a solid vision and everything must fit that vision. I think I have all the physical bits figured out on the GT, but I don't know what it FEELS like.

So it's settled: I'm selling the Focus and buying something old and round. But there were two hard criteria: the first is that it cannot distract me from the GT, it must instead inspire me to make the GT better; and the second is that it must be easy to sell later. I contacted the seller and was pretty close to making him an offer, when it occurred to me that the first criteria would surely be unfulfilled by the presence of another 2 door in my life.

So I looked around, and turned to John Paulson. He had a pretty solid mom & pop 4 door he wanted me to come look at. It had no engine, but he had a solution for that too: another '66 that had to get crushed. I went out to look at it.



It's not perfect but it's a great base with which to start. The interior is all there, save for a boogie van diamond tufted dash pad and some questionable floor rubber. The trim is all there, albeit not all in perfect shape but still all present and accounted for. The fenders & nose cone, hood, floor, and rockers are all steel - no apparent rust or bondo. There is some sin behind the rear axle, a couple of rust holes in the inner fenders and some rust holes below the (removed) reflectors, but is otherwise fairly solid and unembarrassing. The car should be 79-1 white but is now painted some sort of single stage burgundy metallic that needs a hell of a wash.



The engine came from a very rusty '66 that some kid had bought and abandoned with John. The engine had good compression when he tested it but hadn't been run. It came with carbs, transmission, driveshaft, and all the accessories I wanted. I later determined that it has a thinner head so the compression ratio has been raised (the thickness matches that of a B18B), and that's as far as I have dug into it at this point.



The car was originally sold in Calgary and appears to have lived its entire life around here. John picked it up from a guy in Okotoks or Cochrane or somewhere around here, but it hadn't been driven since the '80s. The tires suggest the same: sticker residue and all the moulding flash still present so they've never turned a mile, but so incredibly cracked and aged that I doubt they'd now make it a mile.





So a deal was struck and I had the car towed home, & went back the following weekend to pull the engine. The plan now is to get it on the road as quickly as possible and enjoy it for the summer, and in the winter I will deal with some of the cosmetic issues.

The first thing I did was to roll it back outside and wash it. I got it on jack stands and sprayed the underside with degreaser & the topside with detergent, and went at it with my pressure washer. The paint was BLEEDING red, the rag I used to spread the detergent around went from white to red. I rubbed the corner of one fender with a little polish and some shine started to show, so later on I think a day of scrubbing will be in order.



Once it was clean, it went back on jackstands in the garage. The rear hubs were pulled and I was treated to nice drums and new shoes, but seized wheel cylinders. No matter, I had new wheel cylinders I bought for the GT that I'd outgrown, so I can use them here. The parts were blasted, drums & backing plates were painted, axles were pulled, bearings were greased, new felt seals were installed (didn't think to get inner seals - will do that this winter), and the new E-brake cables I similarly bought for the GT were installed.





The front end was in similar shape - the rotors were rusty but I've cleaned them up as best I can, allowing for some surface pitting that may not get cleaned up with some time on the lathe. If I do any more they'll be below the discard thickness, so I'm going to try them out this way first and if they pulse, we'll work on Plan B. The calipers had new pads but I have new metallic pads for them. I had another set of calipers in my possession that I pulled apart, cleaned up, and will be tonight reassembling with new pistons & seals and treating to some paint. Wheel bearings and seals were in fair shape so I'm just cleaning and repacking those.

The rear suspension had taken a hit, evidenced by a bent panhard rod. I had another, and while I was at it I installed my Bilstein rear shocks & new limiting straps. Matching front shocks and an IPD front bar will be joining the party. This winter might see my 123GT limited slip installed along with some other goodies. I did say that this car wasn't going to distract me from the GT, didn't I? Hmm...



This weekend I'm getting a little help from the Professor, and we'll be replacing all the hydraulic lines with new steel. I already had new front hoses and I got a new rear hose to go with it, and I've got some fairly new clutch and brake master cylinders & a good clutch slave cylinder that I'd also bought from him for the GT.

Wash, clay bar then polish. If you don't clay it, you'll just grind surface contaminants into the paint. That's some of what causes the swirls people curse...

Congrats Matt, sounds like fun.

+1 on the clay...

Excellent! We have volunteers to perform the proper polishing technique! I already have the clay and the polymer sealant, just need some polish. And to get the car to make vroom vroom noises.

Hooray!

I have polishers, pads and polish, but not that fancy shmanzy German stuff that Craig has which shouldn't be an issue as you have an aftermarket single stage finish that should be pretty soft.

My cars have never EVER looked prettier than they run. I'm not very concerned with paint, as a rule. One day I must get over that, but I predict that this car is going to run a lot better than it looks until the day I'm ready to sell it.

But it should get a polish, at least.

This weekend was mostly a success. 9 hard lines flared, bent, and installed in a day. Unfortunately the hoses I thought were right were actually very wrong, so we couldn't finish the job. Another order from Olof, I guess.

In any case, I got to witness the genius of Craig's tube straightener. Oh my god, is that tool a success!



https://youtu.be/nbS70qVnWVQ

This tool is also magic:



A wonderful technique for patterning the main line to the rear:





A little rusty area got scrubbed, metal-prepped, and primed:



And now I've got everything (loosely) mounted, awaiting front hoses and some brake fluid.









Next up, I will at least tighten down everything that's in there and get the car back on it's wheels, so I can roll it outside and start disassembling the engine, painting wheels, and generally spreading out for a little while.

Congrats, Matt! It looks like it's in good shape, should be nothing but straight-ahead progress. I find there's nothing like another project to get good results on. That only drives you to get cracking on the other tasks that need to get done.

Nice work you guys, you made some good progress already. Yeah that paint is OXIDIZED, I'm thinking another wash with something stronger than carwash soap and clay at the same time to try and pull as much dead paint before polishing.

This week was a lot of tedious work, with some family stuff thrown in so the production seems low to me. However, we must sometimes take what we can get.

I spent at least a couple evenings cleaning out the fuel tank, using POR-15 degreaser and metal prep. Initially the tank looked AWFUL but the more I scraped and scrubbed, the cleaner it came. 50 years accumulates a lot of dirt and crap inside a fuel tank, when the only ventilation is through the cap. It makes it tempting to at least add a vent with a filter... Anyway, with much agitation and with a heavy chain rattling around inside the tank, I managed to get enough crap off the floor that I feel good about putting it back in the car now. I was GOING to add POR-15 sealer, but there are still a couple areas of goop that I can't reach so I can't scrape off, but they're so well stuck that I don't think they'll ever be a problem, but they WILL be a problem if I try to coat over them. The last thing I need is an imperfect coat of tank sealer lifting up and plugging the fuel system! I degreased & scraped the outside of the tank & gave it a coat of paint, and I think we're good to go.

I also spent many partial evenings priming and painting wheels. The wheels going on this car are old Ford cop car wheels, 16x7 ET12, which should fit fine if I keep the tire size reasonable. I was thinking 205/55. They're a touch heavy but at least I know they won't bend on a pothole! Anyway, they're epoxy primed, with a base/clear in Lotus B121 "Storm Titanium". They're a teeny bit dark for me, but with shiny trim rings, center caps, & lug nuts, I think they'll look fine.



Now I'm on to scrubbing, disassembling, painting, and reassembling the engine.

Knowing that tank as I do...I'm going to toss this out there for your consideration. Get some coarse gravel and some lighter chain (you had some big honking chain in there on the weekend that I saw) - then fill as before. Place the tank on a couple of tires. Then find/buy a cheapo palm sander and strap that bad boy down to the top of the tank. Turn on sander and run it until smoke comes out of it. Ultrasonic cleaning the garage way. Then seal it up.

Your advise is generally good and I'm learning not to even question it. Washed crush gravel is probably worth a try, with all the sharp edges & such. I have to move on soon, though, and having explored inside with my boroscope, it really doesn't look bad. It's not shiny clean metal, but it's not at all crusty. If I don't get the one or two remaining turds with gravel I'm going to live with it. It's not my forever car.

I've taken the past week off and tried to accomplish as much as possible, after trying to accomplish as much as possible the week before. Most of it involved painting parts and cleaning up from a flooded basement brought upon by a dishwasher that decided to keep filling and filling and filling.

I painted a bunch of parts to match the wheels:



Also did the intake manifold, and bolted up the carbs I had rebuilt by Rhys:



Stripped the interior and removed the sound deadening:





Polished the block:





Painted the block:





And mounted the new boots on the car:



That's the stuff I took pictures of. When I disassembled the block I discovered that it had been rebuilt fairly recently. .040" overbore pistons were installed and the crank had been ground .010". The assembly wasn't the cleanest I've seen, let's just say that, but overall it's in very serviceable shape. I took the block to the machine shop to have it zero decked and honed. The cylinder head was also rebuilt: hardened exhaust seats have been installed, new guides, and it was either heavily decked or was built off a B18B core. I sent it to the machine shop as well, to have a 3 angle grind done. It had an A cam in it in decent shape, but a reproduction D grind is going back in.

I must say that I really like the look of the wheels on this car. I should give Craig most of the credit for them, it was his idea to use Titanium as the base colour with the trim rings and the center caps. Trim rings came from Hubcap Mike in the US and the center caps came from Oakcreek, for a Yamaha golf cart. They fit perfectly, which was tricky because the center bore on these wheels are rather unusual and people don't dress up steel wheels anymore.

The floors were a pleasant surprise. The jute under the rubber floors were wet so I pulled the mats, stripped the jute, and stripped the sound deadening. Amazingly, the sound deadening came up easily and yet the floors are solid and clean. The rear mat is destroyed so went in the trash, the front mat is alright and went back in without anything beneath it for now. Could be a bit noisy for a while...

I'm sort of rambling here, just giving an update on progress. Cleaning and assembly of the block begins tomorrow.