New Valiant Owner (65 4-door)

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mw2891

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I'm new to the forums & to valiants for that matter. A few months ago I took possession of a 65 4 door valiant. Long story short, I bought a truck for $400 to do some hauling about a year ago & after I was done with it did some trading. A few trades later I was the owner of this 65. So I'm only out my original $400, plus a few title fees and small parts along the way. I actually took posession of it around January, but with the cold winter here in WV I haven't really touched it since I got it. I found some receipts in the glove box & it looks like it's been taken pretty good care of. It was painted less about 8 years ago, but a previous owner apparently ran it into a ditch & damaged the fender & scratched up below the doors on the drivers side. Other than that the body looks suprisingly solid for the year, underneath the doors and inside the trunk where I'd normally expect rust are all solid. The front floor pans will need repaired, but that appears to be the worst of it. It has a slant 6 w/an auto transmission. I was suprised that after sitting in the cold weather for about a month it started right up after a few pumps of the gas pedel. There does appear to be some kind of problem with the brakes though, the passenger side doesn't seem to be working well, if at all. So the car seems to jerk when braking.

I love the way these cars look with 2 tone paint jobs & I'm hoping that's what I'll be able to do to this one when I get to that stage. The plan is to just slowly fix it up & tinker with it in my free time. I plan to scour the boards to find any information I can on these cars, but if anyone has any tips or info that I may want to know or may benefit from please let me know. I'll attach some pics of the car below:


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Welcome, I like your Valiant, and I bet it will grow on you as well. Nice that it still has the radio delete panel, those are hard to come by and pricey!
 
well I started looking over the car a little more since it was nice this weekend. I guess I was a little lazy checking out the underneath when I got it, but since there was 6 inches of snow on the ground it doesn't suprise me. Although most of it looks pretty solid, right below where the drivers side floor board is rusted out I found this
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not really something I was looking to repair, but I guess there's always something unexpected
 
I have that to sell if you are interested. I can get a pic later this week but I have scrapped a few and saved frame rails and the like.
 
Judging by the heater hose connections the way they are, I suspect you are going to need a new heater core too...
Nice car and welcome!
I still have a lot of trouble getting used to what looks like a Dart rear end to me!! Up north, they look very different.
 
Thanks guys. Yeah the heater core is going to be one of the first things I start on. Also, it appears the taillights are rerouted to a toggle switch so I'm going to need to look into that as well.

chryslerfat, when you get a chance shoot me a price & pics. I really have no idea when I'll have the time to even start on that, but having the replacement on hand might be good motivation.
 
also, I didn't notice this in person, but from that last picture it sure looks like the passenger side tire has a rub mark on the inside of it.
 
mw2891 said:
also, I didn't notice this in person, but from that last picture it sure looks like the passenger side tire has a rub mark on the inside of it.
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It might have been driven with a flat tire,when it was ditched?Welcome to the site!If you have the will?You,ll get er up and running with the help from FABO members advise.Good luck!
 
That may be what happened. Hopefully next weekend I can get some free time to actually work on it a bit.

I would love to do the disc brake swap on this thing. But most junk yards locally don't have much for older cars & I really don't have the time to visit them anyways. I found that out when I started trying to search for a replacement fender. And I really dont think I can justify paying for a new conversion kit on this car.
 
mw2891 said:
well I started looking over the car a little more since it was nice this weekend. I guess I was a little lazy checking out the underneath when I got it, but since there was 6 inches of snow on the ground it doesn't suprise me. Although most of it looks pretty solid, right below where the drivers side floor board is rusted out I found this
385254000.jpg

not really something I was looking to repair, but I guess there's always something unexpected
Click to expand...

Horrible Horrible car, to bad for all that bad stuff underneath there.... well i don't think you want it but I think you want to sell it to me cheap!!!!

Just Kidding... nice ride, your floor rot is typical of these cars and fixable (by even an old jackleg like me) not too bad just time consuming.... welcome to the board and if you ever need any help most all on here are willing. We got to stay together us Old A body guys.......
 
Welcome to the wonderful world of Slant-6 Valiant ownership! :) Tune-up parts and technique suggestions in this thread. The engine will require periodic valve adjustment. Carburetor operation and repair manuals and links to training movies and carb repair/modification threads are posted here for free download. New floor pans are available from this guy.
 
Well I took it for a short drive today & decided that one of the first things I definatly need to do is put in all new bushings, ball joints etc. The steering wheel has a lot of play so I'm going to look into that as well. I think i'm going to have to adjust the transmission linkage because nuetral is where reverse should be & it's a pain trying to get it in the right gear. And finally the brakes definitely need redone. I know everybody says to swap to disc, which I would love to do, but I just don't have the time or cash right now. After repairing them, are the 9" drums going to be sufficient for a weekend cruiser? I'm definitely a fan of swapping to disc brakes, but that will have to come at a later date. I dont know much at all about working on drums, so I guess I'll need to do some research on working on them before I get into that job.

I suppose for the time being I'm just going to have to clean stuff up & maybe do some body work. We're in the process of purchasing a house, so all our money is tied up with that right now so I can't really buy anything. Also, I don't want to have anything tore apart that I won't be able to put right back together since I'll have to move the car to the new house in a couple months.
 
I suppose I'm going to use this thread to log some of my work and maybe keep myself motivated. I'm stuck putting off all the major work until we finish closing on our new house, so for now I'm going to try to do whatever work I can that won't cost anything.

This morning I had a little free time before work, so as soon as day break hit I went out to clean out the trunk.
started with this (nice box of new parts, hopefully they are for this car!)
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Cleaned all the junk out & ended up with this
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So I took a wire wheel to it & cleaned up what I could and ended up with this
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Everything was surface rust and not very deep, it came off relatively easy. By this stage it was time to pack it in and get ready for work. Next time I get a little bit of free time I'm going to finish cleaning the trunk up, then prep it and more than likely put some roll in bedliner in since I already have a gallon that's not being used.

Hopefully over the weekend it's nice enough that I can start cleaning up the engine bay, then install some of the parts from the trunk.
 
mw2891 said:
Well I took it for a short drive today & decided that one of the first things I definatly need to do is put in all new bushings, ball joints etc.
Click to expand...

Good idea. Send me a PM; I have some compatible new-in-box front end parts left over from my now-departed Dart.

The steering wheel has a lot of play so I'm going to look into that as well.
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Worn front end components will contribute to that; also you'll want to check the steering box adjustments.

I think i'm going to have to adjust the transmission linkage because nuetral is where reverse should be & it's a pain trying to get it in the right gear.
Click to expand...

The '65 uses a one-year-only lever-and-cable shift setup with multiple adjustments at the base of the steering column and at the transmission. You will definitely want the factory service manual.

And finally the brakes definitely need redone. I know everybody says to swap to disc, which I would love to do, but I just don't have the time or cash right now. After repairing them, are the 9" drums going to be sufficient for a weekend cruiser?
Click to expand...

Yes. See this thread.
 
Thanks for all the help slantsixdan, I appreciate it! & i'll pm you about those parts
 
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