1962 Rambler American - It Could Have Been Worse

 

Up until I was six years old, my father had a 1961 Rambler "Classic" that I loathed. Growing up on a block jam-packed with flashy Chevrolets, Fords, Oldsmobiles, Buicks and even a Cadillac or two, my father's little Rambler stood out like a little clown car. In fairness, my father wasn't a "car guy", and things could have been worse. He could have been driving a Rambler "American" like this 1962 that found me on Facebook Marketplace recently.

American Motors was founded in 1954 through the merger of Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson Motor Car Company. Packard was supposed to be part of the mix, but negotiations got bogged down at the last minute. Packard eventually merged with Studebaker in 1954, creating Studebaker-Packard, and that semi-conglomeration soon crashed and burned.

Before a reboot of its makes and models in 1957, the newly formed American Motors Corporation sold cars based largely on the existing Nash and Hudson lines, including the Nash "Rambler"; above is a 1954. Yes, apparently, it was as bizarre looking then as it is now, but it was cheap and easier to maneuver than the growing leviathans the Big Three were selling at the time.

Curiously, though, when American Motors introduced its first all-new models for 1956 and 1957, it moved away from the compact car market. The new Rambler models were still considerably smaller than most of what GM, Ford and Chrysler were selling, but they were larger, plusher and, hence, more expensive than the little Nash Rambler had been. All AMC's were "Ramblers" by then. 

That proved to be a problem. Sales of the larger Ramblers didn't meet expectations, and with the U.S. economy headed into a steep, albeit brief, recession in 1958, American Motors was left without a truly inexpensive car to sell.

Just like that, AMC dusted off the old Nash Rambler, gave it a major facelift and, for 1958, brought it back as the Rambler American.

The problem was that, while the American had been extensively restyled, underneath it was still based on the basic architecture of the original Nash Rambler, a car that dated to 1950. Back then, with planned obsolescence and the rapid advancements in automotive engineering and design, three years was an eternity, let alone five—not to mention eight.

AMC modernized the American again for 1961, giving it completely new styling while retaining the basic chassis architecture of the previous American. Note in the above illustration from a 1961 American Motors brochure, with the couple so far in the background, it makes the car appear larger than it is actually is. In reality, at 173-inches long, this was a tiny car. A 1961 Chevrolet Corvair and Ford Falcon where, respectively, 10- and 11-inches longer. 

While a far more modern overhead valve six-cylinder engine was available, the old 195.6-cubic-inch flathead inline-six, like this car has, was the base engine. This engine had DNA in dating back to 1941. 

Gosh, even my father's '61 Classic had AMC's overhead-valve sixer, not that it was available but, for sure if it was, no doubt my father's car would have had it. American Motors used this engine as the base engine in the American through 1965. 

With the American, American Motors had a three-tiered Rambler lineup: the top-of-the-line Ambassador, the middle-child Classic, and the bargain-basement American like this '62. By 1964, AMC began phasing out the Rambler name in favor of AMC branding, although "Rambler" continued to appear on cars for several more years. The last Rambler, technically anyway, left Kenosha in 1969.

This '62 is a curiosity. First off, it's a four-door, which is actually less common than the two-door sedan. The rear doors certainly do its design balance and proportions no favors but there is a lack of pre-tense about this car I respect. Few people would buy one of these cars, even in two-door guise, to impress the Jones'. 

My father was, if anything, a wholly unpretentious man; as far as my mother was concerned, that was to his detriment. His Rambler, therefore, was perfect for him; a modest car for a very modest man. Any aspirations my father had were clearly to make my mother happy. Quite the slippery slope. A blue-collar man attempting to make it in the white-collar sector, he suffered dearly because of it. 

The poster of the ad claims he's owned it for the past ten years, and he and his son rebuilt it from the ground up, removing every nut and bolt, cleaning, painting and fixing whatever needed to be fixed. They even painted it themselves in their garage, a very scary proposition regardless of how good the job appears to have been. 

Good as it is, still has a bit of an "Earl Sheib" aesthetic to it if you ask me, though. 

It's for sale about twenty minutes south of us here on the west side of Cleveland, Ohio. Asking price: $5,100. It's rust free car from Pennsylvania which is amazing considering Yinzers use the same salty brine on road in winter like they do in here in Northeast Ohio. If it matters, which it really doesn't. it nd has just 33,000-miles on it

2009 Toyota RAV4 Water Pump Replacement -Thank You, St. Christopher

My biggest concern after the pulley fell off the water pump on my 2009 Toyota RAV4 V-6, leaving me stranded on the Ohio Turnpike, wasn't whether a texting motorist or semi would plow into me, but whether the engine's head gaskets had been damaged by running the engine hot—however briefly that was. That possibility seemed to dwarf any concerns I had at the time about my own safety and getting myself and my car back home. Read more about that odyssey here.

I knew it was the water pump because the strange whirring sound from its failing bearing had recently gotten much, much worse. It was the same sound the water pump was making when I first bought the RAV three years ago from a friend who insisted, after I replaced it, that he had told me it needed to be replaced. Somehow, we're still the best of friends.

It had been on my to-do list to replace the pump, but I didn't prioritize it because a mechanic I use for work that's above my pay grade said that as long as the pump wasn't leaking—which it wasn't—and was "holding pressure," which it was, I shouldn't be too concerned about it.

Well, mechanics, like doctors, don't know everything.

The failing bearing got so bad that the pump shaft developed enough play that the pulley was literally shaken loose from its mounting. As bad as the circumstances were, being stranded out where God lost his bicycle, I shudder to think about how much worse it could have been.

That same mechanic who told me not to be too concerned about the wobbly pump also told me there was no simple way to determine whether the engine's head gaskets had been damaged. Sure, there's a cooling-system pressure test, a combustion-gas test of the coolant, compression testing and a leak-down test. But determining whether an engine had actually suffered damage from overheating would be a lot easier with engine running at operating temperature.

Naturally, that couldn't be done since the water pump was AWOL.

So I would have to pay my mechanic—or some shop—full freight for the water-pump swap regardless of whether or not the head gaskets were shot. The going rate for that job was about $1,200. My guy wouldn't give me a quote because he didn't feel it was right to do the job, discover that the head gaskets were toast, and then not follow through with rebuilding the engine on a vehicle with so many miles—nearly 330,000—on it.

The same can't be said for other shops around town. Can't say I blame them either.

That put me in a conundrum: junk the RAV or swap the pump myself and hope for the best.

To know me is to know I took the latter option.

Replacing the water pump on Toyota's famed 2GR-FE, 3.5-liter V-6 isn't a particularly complicated job, but it is a tedious one that requires you to work mostly stooped over in a cramped space. There's a fair amount of disassembly, and it requires careful cataloging of what came off and where it goes back; hence, I took plenty of pictures and video. The 2GR-FE water-pump job involves removing the two-piece, hydraulic motor mounts, water-pump pulley, belt-related components and the thermostat/water-inlet housing, among other things.

Getting the radiator hose off the thermostat housing is a beast, and then making sure the gasket between the thermostat housing and the water inlet is secure is literal water torture—more like coolant torture. You don't know if you did everything correctly until you put the coolant back in and check for leaks.

One bit of advice: to test your work for leaks, fill the system with distilled water and let it sit overnight. If it holds the water, you can drain it and refill the system with the Toyota approved and pricey coolant. You'll need just under 10-quarts. 

Through the heat, humidity, the tight workspace and the added stress that all I was doing might be for naught, I got the old pump out and the new one installed in three days.

My palms sweaty, my heart racing, I filled the system with coolant, praying to St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers, that there were no leaks and that all my work wasn't for naught. 

I learned the hard way about the system leaking. First go-round, I missed that the gasket between the thermostat housing and the pump falling out, imagine my misery seeing the coolant slowly drip out of the engine knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it and that I'd have to practically redo have of my work. 

If my efforts were all in vain, that would mean tearing everything apart again to get the new pump out and return it. That would have been an exercise in abject sadness.

Then came the big test: Would the engine get up to operating temperature and stay there, or would it overheat? If it did overheat, would I junk the RAV, get quotes on an engine rebuild or go for a straight-up engine swap? And how much would all of that cost?

All that was going through my mind as I started the RAV for the first time with the new pump.

There was no strange whirring, just the same smooth and silken purr of the big engine I've come to know and love over the past three years.

I gingerly backed out of my garage, down my driveway and onto my street. Gentle pokes on the gas pedal followed as I turtled through my subdivision, keeping a laser-focused eye on the temperature gauge.

Slowly, it began to creep up and up. I made sure not to stray from my neighborhood; best to stay literally close to home in case I had to stop driving it.

The gauge continued to rise slowly. I turned the heat on, and warm air blew gently through the cabin—a good sign. I took the RAV slowly around the block twice as the temperature gauge stopped at its familiar operating-temperature position. The heat was now its old blazing-hot self.

I went back to my garage, checked the coolant level and sniffed hard for burning coolant. All seemed good.

Another, longer drive an hour or so later produced the same result: no drama. After a weekend of short road trips, the verdict was looking pretty good. Thank you, St. Christopher, patron saint of travelers. 

My 2009 Toyota RAV4 V-6 Limited lives to die another day.

1993 Ford Probe GT - Regrets, I've Had a Few

Although I claim to be a GM girl, if I could go back to the mid-1990s, I'd buy a Ford Probe GT like this rather than the 1994 Chevrolet Lumina Z34 and 1997 Chevrolet Monte Carlo LS I did buy. I have few regrets, so if I regret a handful of automotive purchasing indiscretions, I can live with that.

A big part of my motivation for going GM back then was that I had a wad of "GM Dollars" on my GM Mastercard. That was real money I could throw at the purchase of a new GM car or truck. If I recall correctly, back then you could pile up as much as $3,500, which could be applied toward the purchase or lease of a new GM vehicle.

Was such a deal enough to get me into one of these sleek beauties? Driven back-to-back, I don't know how I could possibly have gone with what I did. Although, truth be told, I don't recall even looking at these cars back then. Funny how, at times, we fumble big decisions in life.

Then again, "GM Dollars."

I know I looked at a Honda Accord coupe when purchasing my 1997 Monte Carlo, but I wasn't enamored enough with its styling to stray. That was before Honda stuffed a honkin' 3.0-liter V-6 in them, too. This pretty girl has never bought a daily driver with a four-cylinder engine. I have my standards, you know.

I also had extreme myopia. My focus when I got the 1994 Lumina Z34 was to upgrade my 1990 Lumina Euro 3.1. The 1997 Monte Carlo was more driven by the GM bucks than the Z34 was. 

Dream big, grasshopper.

The 1993 model year was the first for the second-generation Probe, which Ford developed in partnership with Mazda. Ford had owned roughly a quarter of Mazda since 1979, and the relationship between the two companies was already well established by the time the second-generation Probe arrived.

The O.G. 1989–1992 Probes, though, were little more than "Fordified" Mazda MX-6s. The second-generation cars were still based on the same basic Mazda architecture, but Ford was involved much earlier in the engineering and had considerably more influence over the finished product.

Starting with a substantially larger and more stable footprint, Ford's engineers stretched the wheelbase by almost four inches and pushed the track out front and rear by more than two inches. That gave Ford's stylists a much larger canvas on which to drape what I think is still one of the prettiest designs of the era.

And underneath that gorgeous skin, the GT got a Mazda-engineered 2.5-liter, DOHC V-6 making 164 horsepower. The wild and crazy turbocharged four-cylinder that powered the first-generation Probe GT was gone.

Supposedly, the first-generation Ford Probe, which I thought had the charm of a block of wood, was originally intended to replace the Fox-body Mustang. Mustang Nation pushed back hard against the idea of replacing its rear-wheel-drive pony car with a front-wheel-drive, Mazda-based Mustang, and Ford ultimately kept the Mustang while introducing the Probe instead. 

Ford sold the Mustang and the Probe alongside each other through the end of the Probe's production run in 1997. 

Seems odd now that a manufacturer would target two of its cars at roughly the same buyer, but pony-car loyalists are cut from a different bolt of cloth than most casual fans of sporty two-door coupes.

Had Ford followed through with badging the 1989 Probe a Mustang, or at best come out with these cars then and done so—would the world have come off its axis? Well, to us car wonks, it would have, briefly. But driven back-to-back, I don't think you could make a legitimate argument that the old pony was any match for the new one.

Of course, that's hindsight talking. And hindsight has never required a car payment.

This particular Probe sold on Cars & Bids for just $12,500 back in May of this year northwest of Indianapolis, Indiana in Brownsberg. With just 26,000 miles on her 33-year-old ticket and looking almost showroom fresh, someone got a lot of car for their money. 

Granted, there's a lot to consider when buying a car that hasn't been made in nearly thirty years. Parts and trim specific to the Probe can certainly be less readily available than for something with a much larger enthusiast following. Still, it's not exactly a "catalog car."

1981 Checker Marathon - Something Blue

People buy old, worn-out fleet vehicles primarily because they're looking for a cheap vehicle that can be rejuvenated fairly inexpensively; that or they need something for a demolition derby. That's harder to do these days since fleet vehicles, just like most cars today, are so technologically dense that even dealership mechanics can struggle to diagnose problems. Even if you can do the work yourself, figuring out what's wrong in the first place is more than half the struggle; then there's the cost of the parts, which can be prohibitive.

That wasn't necessarily the case years ago. Some hearty folks used to buy old police cars and taxi cabs, tweak them here and there, and then run them further into the ground. Few actually fixed them up as nicely as the man who bought this 1981 Checker Marathon did in 1995.

This had been a Cleveland, Ohio, taxicab. He made whatever repairs it needed and painted over its yellow paint in this pretty shade of what's described as "robin's egg blue." The top is painted white. Then he used it as his daily driver for more than twenty years.

If this car looks a lot older than something that was built and sold in 1981, that was not so much by design as by company operating philosophy.

Checker Corporation of Kalamazoo, Michigan, introduced the basic design that would become its famous Marathon in the late 1950s and continued building essentially the same basic body and chassis through 1982. The Marathon name itself was introduced for the 1961 model year. The idea was that incremental changes and improvements would be made as needed, while the basic body and tough-as-nails chassis would remain largely unchanged.

Built on a rugged body-on-frame chassis, Checkers were known for their durability, reliability and cavernous interiors, especially when compared with many other cars of the era. Their heavy-duty construction was particularly well suited to the punishment of taxi service.

Chevrolet often supplied the engines, and this one is powered by a Chevrolet-built 229-cu.-in. V-6.  Like the Checker itself, it's a relatively straightforward, durable engine that, aside from doing its assigned tasks with unassuming aplomb, is remarkable in how unremarkable it is.

Engines weren't the only parts glommed from the General Motors parts bin. Keen-eyed spotters will note that this is a late-'70's\'80's Chevrolet steering wheel affixed to a GM Saginaw steering column. Looks as out of place here as modern rims do on classic cars, but it gets the job done. 

Checker also sold cars directly to the public, although the vast majority of its production went to commercial and fleet customers. The company's consumer-market efforts began in earnest in 1959, and the A12 Marathon followed in 1961.

Sadly, the man who bought this old Cleveland taxi eventually became ill and passed away, His car sat in his garage for several years, unused and falling into disrepair. In 2022, as a tribute to his late father, his son restored the car to running condition. It was most recently used as "something blue" in his wedding.

Needing room in his garage for his children's toys, he has it for sale now on Marketplace, less than a half-hour south of the Triple Wide. Actual mileage is unknown, best bet is it's north of 200K. There is some frame rot. Asking price is $4,250.