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Second Owner 1980 Sport 2dr Sedan "Skunk"

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atmafox:
So, after so much hassle she's finally home and in the garage.

To cover what's happened so far: Getting frozen valves unstuck and replacement of the pushrods (somehow she ran on 2 cylinders -- like hot garbage but ran) due to throwing pushrods because of said frozen valves.

Then the gearbox let go -- likely from running on 2 cylinders due to the weakness of the TC hub on the TF998.  New to me TF998 and a lot of money to have a shop do it since I couldn't very well drive her home. So that's a joy.

Then the rear driver brake auto-disassembled inside the drum and I had to have her hauled home from KC to Denver anyway.  That's going to be a mess when I get to it.  Also, the master cylinder has blown a seal and is gulping air.  Headliner is doing the customary sagging, none of the windows or front glass seal, the (possibly OEM?) tint is forming all kinds of bubbles and such -- old age?  So this one'll be a lot of work, but I think I may have one of the only (until I register her) single owner Eagles left in the world.  Dunno there.  Rear diff has a pretty bad seep around the cover plate, leaf springs are collapsed, suspension all around needs servicing and we're dealing with bolts that haven't been touched for $DEITY only knows how long -- lots of ATF/acetone blend to get them loosened.  She's also throwing nasty black dust out of the HVAC whenever air moves through it and most the gauges either are nonfunctional or barely functional -- heck, the clock only comes on at all when the headlights are on.  Besides that she seems stuck in high beams.  All of the safety lighting works, though -- small favors.

Oh, and she needs a repaint pretty badly.  Previous owner was a body knocker and had repainted her a beautiful silver back around '88 or so.  Unfortunately he started a new restoration then promptly had a stroke and stopped being able to work on her, which left her in a field until I found her. 

Pictures will be coming along soon.  Good news is the motor and new-to-us gearbox run quite well.  Plus plenty of small favors.  This'll be a long restoration, and eventually she's going to get a 4.0HO head/EFI/etc but keep the 258cu bottom end.  Maybe an Eaton M90 (got two sitting around unused from previous projects) supercharger, unsure as yet.

My most ambitious part of the project will be adapting a GS6-53BZ 6MT out of a BMW to fit.  That'll take some work at the tail plus removing the BMW bellhousing and attaching a bellhousing from a suitable AMC I6 mount.  The gear ratios line up quite nicely from my calculations and the gearbox is quite svelte so shouldn't have fitment issues.  Length'll be fun, but a custom prop shaft should do me, or mounting the t-case divorced; thinking an NP242.  But first priority is to get her driveable and registered then I'll eventually start gathering all the other needed parts.

Long,rambly post but a good overview of the project facing me on this gal.  Named her Skunk after the previous owner's paint scheme and a little pipe cleaner skunk we found in her when we got her.

Mitch:
I would love to see pics!

vangremlin:
Good luck with your new project, sounds like you have your work cut out for you.  And like the previous poster said, we'd love to see pictures!

mudkicker715:
I await the pictures to take us through the development.

atmafox:
Still no pictures (I'm horrible about them) but will have some while I'm doing the brake job.

Which brings me to: I've just ordered a stem to stern brake job.  Everything available for the front and rear brakes, booster, soft lines, parking brake cables, the whole shebang.  Only things I can't find are:

* The brake booster cylinder
* Perhaps a couple of pieces for the rear drums like some of the stamped steel parts that are (hopefully) still good in mine.  Did get the auto-adjuster rebuild kit for each rear though.
Also, going to have her front and rear glass resealed on Tuesday so she'll finally be able to be outside without water penetration.

So progress is happening!

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