Mods
1966 Parisienne Body tub
1965 Parisienne Front clip
1969 Parisienne convertable frame, modified for 1966 body (have to change rear crossmember), with poly bushings
Complete front end rebuilt with tubular A-arms, big sway bar, fast ratio steering box, ’66 spindles with disk brake conversion, dual master cylinder
1973 454 put together with parts already in the shop. Forged flattop pistons, with stock rods, forged crank, all balanced, GM 6209 camshaft - 220@50, .500 lift, 115 LSA +5 degrees advanced, double roller timing chain, Melling M77 oil pump, 1998 Vortec 7400 heads with 96cc chambers, new one piece valves, beehive springs and matching retainers, Crane Gold rockers from 1987, ARP rocker studs, Comp Cams poly locks, valve locks, and pushrods, Streetmaster Airgap style intake, mid length no name chinese headers, ancient Holley Projection 4DI that I am trying to get to work.
TH700R4 trans, worked fine in the pickup, unknown mods
10 bolt rear with Moroso Posi and 3.73 gears
Pontiac Custom Sport console with factory shifter
Unknown bucket seats I got for free
Factory "patina"
1965 Parisienne Front clip
1969 Parisienne convertable frame, modified for 1966 body (have to change rear crossmember), with poly bushings
Complete front end rebuilt with tubular A-arms, big sway bar, fast ratio steering box, ’66 spindles with disk brake conversion, dual master cylinder
1973 454 put together with parts already in the shop. Forged flattop pistons, with stock rods, forged crank, all balanced, GM 6209 camshaft - 220@50, .500 lift, 115 LSA +5 degrees advanced, double roller timing chain, Melling M77 oil pump, 1998 Vortec 7400 heads with 96cc chambers, new one piece valves, beehive springs and matching retainers, Crane Gold rockers from 1987, ARP rocker studs, Comp Cams poly locks, valve locks, and pushrods, Streetmaster Airgap style intake, mid length no name chinese headers, ancient Holley Projection 4DI that I am trying to get to work.
TH700R4 trans, worked fine in the pickup, unknown mods
10 bolt rear with Moroso Posi and 3.73 gears
Pontiac Custom Sport console with factory shifter
Unknown bucket seats I got for free
Factory "patina"
Build story
This is my low buck long distance cruiser. Its officially a 1966 Pontiac Parisienne. Everything was sourced from Kijiji, Facebook marketplace, ebay, from parts cars, or scratch and dent section of Speedway motors. Its basically made of leftovers, and budget parts. I tried to put this together with little money out of pocket, utilizing as much shop junk as I could.
Be warned. This is going to take a while.
I bought the car a few years ago for $500. It is an original 283/powerglide/3.31 geared 2 door hardtop. It has nice floors, a mouse infested interior (you literally could not sit in the car when I first got it, the smell was so bad. It was thick...), no trunk left, and a frame made of 73.2% rust. But the body was pretty good otherwise, and it is complete with all the trim. I even got the 283 running, which I then pulled and sold for $500, making the car pretty much free. The car was a Facebook marketplace buy.
The next year I picked up the 1965 Parisienne parts car for $300. It has had no windshield for many years, and is the only car I have ever seen where the steering wheel has rusted off of the spokes. I looked under it once, and quickly determined that putting any part of my body under it was inviting painful injury and/or death. The frame is so rotten, the trans cross member ripped free when we were moving the car and is now laying on the ground. The doors still open and close perfectly, oddly enough. I have never opened the trunk to see whats left but over the last winter a group of feral cats moved into it, so there must be holes big enough to pass a cat through. This car is 99% complete. 99% complete rust. Another Facebook marketplace purchase.
The 1969 Parisienne Convertible was yet another Facebook marketplace purchase (noticing a trend? I buy junk on Facebook marketplace). The car was missing its running gear, had no front clip and was mostly apart. It had been off the road since the 1980s in a garage, and had the gnarliest body work started on it I had ever seen. License plates, sheetmetal from appliances, and even flattened soup cans were pop riveted or brazed in. Poorly. But the frame was solid with no rust, it had the updated suspension that got rid of the weak points on the 65-66 suspensions, and it had a decent interior and mint dash. I paid $800 for the car, sold the interior for like $200, sold the body tub with the dash for $400, and some convertible parts for $200, making this car free also. I kept the good frame.
I then started mixing and matching the best bits from this pile of parts, the random pile of parts in my shop, and sprinkled in some purchases from ebay, Kijiji, Speedway Motors Scratch and Dent sales, and of course, Facebook marketplace.
The 69 frame was kind of painted already, and since this was to be a driver I just went with it as is. I just swapped in some polyurethane body mounts since the original rubber ones were wasted. Ebay did provide some tubular upper and lower A-arms for about $400. Cost about the same to rebuild the stockers so it was a no brainer. Facebook market place supplied the 96’ Grand Cherokee steering box for quick ratio steering. Speedway motors had a scratch and dent sale with a set of disk brake conversion brackets for 65-68 B-body spindles for $50, so I bought them. RockAuto supplied tie rods, brake parts, and a steering coupler. I had some old aluminum wheels with tires that held air so I threw them on so the car rolls.
The rear end is the original 69’ rear. I pulled the cover and found the 2.73 open diff trashed. Tons of backlash between the gears, nasty sludge, and some pretty ugly looking spider gears. Luckily I had a really nice 8.2" Posi unit from Moroso just sitting on the shelf with a nice set of 3.73 Richmond gears. They were from the severely bent rear end that was in my 68’ Beamont that had been T-boned. Should work well with the overdrive trans.
I ended up with a 1973 454 short block that is left over from a Facebook marketplace purchase of a complete supercharged show car motor a few years ago. I pulled the 6-71 blower, rectangle port heads, and a few other small things after I inspected the motor and found passenger car 3/8 bolt rods, a 2 bolt main, and only a single stock keyway on the crank that had already folded over the woodrift key. Not good for a supercharged motor, but it did have forged flattop pistons, a forged crank, a GM performance camshaft, and very low miles. After I removed the other parts, this short block was basically free but not really usable for much because of the complete lack of compression with the flattop pistons that were .110 down in the hole. Back to Facebook marketplace and I found a set of 1998 Vortec 7400 heads that ticked all the boxes for this el cheapo build. They were cheap ($100), they were close (30 minutes away), they had large oval ports and small chambers (96cc’s!). I did end up rebuilding them with new one piece valves as the originals showed corrosion and signs of cracking at the stem to head weld. They just needed a valve job after that and I had 20 thou skimmed off to ensure the head gaskets would be happy and bump up the compression a touch. Its about 8.6:1 so it should run on low grade pump swill happily and work with the small camshaft (220@50, .500 lift 115LSA 5 degrees advanced). The Crane Gold rockers had a 1987 date code and came with nice new Comp Cams polylocks when purchased off Facebook marketplace for $130. The SpeedMaster intake is a Performer RPM Airgap knock off, but was only $125 on (where else) Facebook Marketplace. I will cover the ancient fuel injection system further down.
The trans was already in the shop. It came out of my 1959 Apache. I actually drove around a bit with this trans and it worked fine. At least it did 8 years ago when I pulled it out and it has been sitting in the shop ever since. I had to move the trans cross member mounts on the frame, but it went right in. Stock converter and 454 flexplate.
The interior is pretty stock right now but I have a Trans Am steering wheel, some unknown make bucket seats, a factory Custom Sport console and shifter, and some guages to go in. I want to do that after the car is painted. The current interior still smells like mouse piss, but at lease it no longer makes your eyes water.
The body and fuel system is where I am at now. I have to put in a complete trunk floor, finish the half quarters someone started to install 25 years ago, and generally do a tidy of the body tub. I want to swap the front end to the 1965 front end on the parts car because I think it looks better, as well as all the trim, hood, and trunk lid.
I am also putting on the grand daddy to Holley’s current throttle body fuel injection offerings, a Projection 4DI. I bought in on (where else) FaceBook marketplace for $200 and being that it is the programmable unit with spark control, I want to try it out. Holley still has a lot of service parts for it, but the software is 20+ years old. I had to find a Windows 98 laptop just to load it. I want to get it going, get it tuned and run it for a while just to see how good it was back in the last millennium. Then I want to eventually swap it for a modern Sniper unit and see the improvement, if any. That is off in the future however.
I am usually at least a month behind on keeping my youtube channel up to date, as life gets in the way of editing, as well as working on the car.
This and my Apache are my Covid projects. I just recently found a rear frame cross member to fix the destroyed on in the Apache that derailed that project, so as soon as this one is running and driving, I will be back on the Apache.
Be warned. This is going to take a while.
I bought the car a few years ago for $500. It is an original 283/powerglide/3.31 geared 2 door hardtop. It has nice floors, a mouse infested interior (you literally could not sit in the car when I first got it, the smell was so bad. It was thick...), no trunk left, and a frame made of 73.2% rust. But the body was pretty good otherwise, and it is complete with all the trim. I even got the 283 running, which I then pulled and sold for $500, making the car pretty much free. The car was a Facebook marketplace buy.
The next year I picked up the 1965 Parisienne parts car for $300. It has had no windshield for many years, and is the only car I have ever seen where the steering wheel has rusted off of the spokes. I looked under it once, and quickly determined that putting any part of my body under it was inviting painful injury and/or death. The frame is so rotten, the trans cross member ripped free when we were moving the car and is now laying on the ground. The doors still open and close perfectly, oddly enough. I have never opened the trunk to see whats left but over the last winter a group of feral cats moved into it, so there must be holes big enough to pass a cat through. This car is 99% complete. 99% complete rust. Another Facebook marketplace purchase.
The 1969 Parisienne Convertible was yet another Facebook marketplace purchase (noticing a trend? I buy junk on Facebook marketplace). The car was missing its running gear, had no front clip and was mostly apart. It had been off the road since the 1980s in a garage, and had the gnarliest body work started on it I had ever seen. License plates, sheetmetal from appliances, and even flattened soup cans were pop riveted or brazed in. Poorly. But the frame was solid with no rust, it had the updated suspension that got rid of the weak points on the 65-66 suspensions, and it had a decent interior and mint dash. I paid $800 for the car, sold the interior for like $200, sold the body tub with the dash for $400, and some convertible parts for $200, making this car free also. I kept the good frame.
I then started mixing and matching the best bits from this pile of parts, the random pile of parts in my shop, and sprinkled in some purchases from ebay, Kijiji, Speedway Motors Scratch and Dent sales, and of course, Facebook marketplace.
The 69 frame was kind of painted already, and since this was to be a driver I just went with it as is. I just swapped in some polyurethane body mounts since the original rubber ones were wasted. Ebay did provide some tubular upper and lower A-arms for about $400. Cost about the same to rebuild the stockers so it was a no brainer. Facebook market place supplied the 96’ Grand Cherokee steering box for quick ratio steering. Speedway motors had a scratch and dent sale with a set of disk brake conversion brackets for 65-68 B-body spindles for $50, so I bought them. RockAuto supplied tie rods, brake parts, and a steering coupler. I had some old aluminum wheels with tires that held air so I threw them on so the car rolls.
The rear end is the original 69’ rear. I pulled the cover and found the 2.73 open diff trashed. Tons of backlash between the gears, nasty sludge, and some pretty ugly looking spider gears. Luckily I had a really nice 8.2" Posi unit from Moroso just sitting on the shelf with a nice set of 3.73 Richmond gears. They were from the severely bent rear end that was in my 68’ Beamont that had been T-boned. Should work well with the overdrive trans.
I ended up with a 1973 454 short block that is left over from a Facebook marketplace purchase of a complete supercharged show car motor a few years ago. I pulled the 6-71 blower, rectangle port heads, and a few other small things after I inspected the motor and found passenger car 3/8 bolt rods, a 2 bolt main, and only a single stock keyway on the crank that had already folded over the woodrift key. Not good for a supercharged motor, but it did have forged flattop pistons, a forged crank, a GM performance camshaft, and very low miles. After I removed the other parts, this short block was basically free but not really usable for much because of the complete lack of compression with the flattop pistons that were .110 down in the hole. Back to Facebook marketplace and I found a set of 1998 Vortec 7400 heads that ticked all the boxes for this el cheapo build. They were cheap ($100), they were close (30 minutes away), they had large oval ports and small chambers (96cc’s!). I did end up rebuilding them with new one piece valves as the originals showed corrosion and signs of cracking at the stem to head weld. They just needed a valve job after that and I had 20 thou skimmed off to ensure the head gaskets would be happy and bump up the compression a touch. Its about 8.6:1 so it should run on low grade pump swill happily and work with the small camshaft (220@50, .500 lift 115LSA 5 degrees advanced). The Crane Gold rockers had a 1987 date code and came with nice new Comp Cams polylocks when purchased off Facebook marketplace for $130. The SpeedMaster intake is a Performer RPM Airgap knock off, but was only $125 on (where else) Facebook Marketplace. I will cover the ancient fuel injection system further down.
The trans was already in the shop. It came out of my 1959 Apache. I actually drove around a bit with this trans and it worked fine. At least it did 8 years ago when I pulled it out and it has been sitting in the shop ever since. I had to move the trans cross member mounts on the frame, but it went right in. Stock converter and 454 flexplate.
The interior is pretty stock right now but I have a Trans Am steering wheel, some unknown make bucket seats, a factory Custom Sport console and shifter, and some guages to go in. I want to do that after the car is painted. The current interior still smells like mouse piss, but at lease it no longer makes your eyes water.
The body and fuel system is where I am at now. I have to put in a complete trunk floor, finish the half quarters someone started to install 25 years ago, and generally do a tidy of the body tub. I want to swap the front end to the 1965 front end on the parts car because I think it looks better, as well as all the trim, hood, and trunk lid.
I am also putting on the grand daddy to Holley’s current throttle body fuel injection offerings, a Projection 4DI. I bought in on (where else) FaceBook marketplace for $200 and being that it is the programmable unit with spark control, I want to try it out. Holley still has a lot of service parts for it, but the software is 20+ years old. I had to find a Windows 98 laptop just to load it. I want to get it going, get it tuned and run it for a while just to see how good it was back in the last millennium. Then I want to eventually swap it for a modern Sniper unit and see the improvement, if any. That is off in the future however.
I am usually at least a month behind on keeping my youtube channel up to date, as life gets in the way of editing, as well as working on the car.
This and my Apache are my Covid projects. I just recently found a rear frame cross member to fix the destroyed on in the Apache that derailed that project, so as soon as this one is running and driving, I will be back on the Apache.