Due to unforeseen circumstances(involving a young lady and an Infinity), Project MollyFloggin’ has been postponed, following satisfactory performance by Molly Blue in the 50 mph head-on collision test.

Molly Blue has been recovered to the Route 66 Rambler base facility for technical evaluation by the Engineering Services Department.

Seatbelt performed above expectations, for 34-year-old units sporting frayed edges. The collapsible steering column functioned as designed.

Pending further testing, the pilot appears to be functional at this time.

The other driver appeared to be OK as well.
mike

Well, Molly’s got a T5 now!     Like several of her other possessions, it is now taking up more space in storage than I have room for.    

My favorite junkyard had this half price sale a couple of weeks ago, and I knew about this ‘88 Jeep Cherokee that was an unusual TWO-wheel drive, and with a FIVE-speed, and on an AMC six cylinder to boot.  What’s not to love?  Put Molly Blue on 5-Speed, and she will be able to run 75 all day, with about 25 MPG while I flog her down the road.  Great for the two-lane blacktop tours… 

Pretty busy down there, and the sale went the next day, too.  This is the very back row of about 25 acres of parking…

I was too beat after the transmission to scout AMC’s,    just tossed it in the Gremlin and went home…

I know that some will be apalled to hear this, but yes, everything fit easily.    Healthy amount of tools, 5 Gallon Bucket, with seat lid, and a milk crate, along with a dolly to cruise around.

A Lot of work, more than I expected, and it got hot out too.  All well worth it.  Final tally was around 70 bucks.  They raised the price on the transmissions, which was ok, because I remembered the price wrong and brought enough money.  They used to be, like 65 bucks regular.  I forgot that I bought a 700R4 and a Turbo 400 at the same time for 32.50 apiece, and they’re both still pulling well.

So I was thinking 65.00, and they raised them to 100.00, but after 50% discount and a 10.00 core, that’s 60 bucks. 

 When I pulled it out, it had a tag from a local rebuilder on it.  You couldn’t tell from the installation, every tiny doodad was in place, and fastened properly…  I’m going to give them a call and find out when the job was done.

They charged me 12.95 for the shifter, and a 3.95 core…  

It WAS one of those great raids, though.  Even used, this transmission can cost 350-500 bucks.
-mike  

The last time around, I was forced to post a re-run of a junkyard scout, since I wasn’t able to actually go out and do it in the real world…  

That lasted for a few days, then I was able to at least get some work done on the computer and catch up a little on chores    around the place.

But I still wasn’t in any kind of shape to go traipsing around for miles, especially in a bunch of infrared-radiating automotive iron and glass, in the 110 degree Sonoran Desert. 

So I amused myself by creating a message board, now known as The AMC Heritage Forum,    along with a lot of help from Doug Shepard, AKA IowaEagle, who runs The AMC Eagle Nest Forums, which is a message board for fans of the AMC Eagle.

The AMC Heritage Forum is a place for the discussion, sharing, learning, and preserving of all facets of American Motors history and development. The purpose is to provide a repository of difficult to find information, for the next generation of the AMC Nation. 

One of the members of both of these forums, is a friend known as bigdog56e, or just plain Eddie. bigdog feels that I am blessed with the famous “Luck O’ the Irish”, because of the way things work out for me with my American Motors project cars…  

Well, I AM Irish, after all…

Here’s some more dumb Irish luck for ye, Eddie, or maybe my friend Crosley Kevin is right, with his “AMC Mojo” theory… 

It’s time to do the brakes on Molly Blue, and it’s the same cost either way to repair the drum system, or replace it with disk brakes. The main thing I do with Molly Blue, is treat her as a test bed of ways to keep your AMC alive.

The other thing I’m doing, is trying to learn about the cars first hand, by applying all the factory upgrades I can fit onto this car.

So I strolled into the junkyard, on the lookout for disk brakes. Here’s the first AMC I came to… 

Disk brakes on a platter… 

Molly is also in desperate need of seatbelts, but Gremlin belts are a little hard to come by. It looked to me like the ones in this Spirit wouldn’t work. >

So I continued on my way, and soon came across this little rig: 

 Well, well, mm,mm,mm… the seatbelts were in very nice shape. This is a 1974 Levi’s Gremlin, with a 1973 body. It should be in a museum. 

Instead, so that others might live, it gave up the luggage rack, back glass, rear latch, seat belts, and oh yes, Molly’s A/C condenser, recently developed a crack and discharged, just in time for 110+ Arizona heat.

What a coincidence, that this Gremlin just happens to have a perfectly good A/C condenser.

Also, remembering that part of the Molly Blue mission on this planet, is upgrade city, it was nice to see the power steering system in place, which is pretty hard to find, set up on the passenger side of the engine… just like Molly Blue needs. 

The grille was broken where someone mangled the hood to get it open. At least the signal lights and markers would aid my cause. Too bad some idiot broke it.

But, the extra replacement grille and headlight buckets, in the cargo area of the little nipper were a welcome score, as well as the much-needed driver’s side glass, and a hard-to-find points-type distributor.

 Soon, there was nothing more to rip out of the tiny skeleton to suit my needs… I moved on, wondering vaguely if there was a chance of anything else useful for my AMC pursuits…

I gave the Eagle wagon a brief examination, hoping for a plastic AMC emblem off the back, but no chance.  

Moving along… the next car I noticed was a little heartbreaking. 

It was so sad to see what had been a beautiful 1968 Ambassador 990 4-dr, just sitting up there all high and dry… 

 But I wasn’t heartbroken for very long, when I discovered a 343/2V and a Shift Command automatic, still in place. 

My 1969 Javelin SST has a 343 with Shift Command, only minus the Shift Command, and they are hard to find. I ran out of time and money, before I could begin the offloading process, but if it survives the weekend, I’m going back on Monday, to ruthlessly extract the internal organs of this formerly fine automobile… 
mike