The AMC Javelin build thread!

Eww, mold. If I hit that problem it would be an automatic "gut the thing and make a racecar" response.

MrBenjamonkey wrote: Eww, mold. If I hit that problem it would be an automatic "gut the thing and make a racecar" response.

That's my solution!

Honestly the interior was pretty bad to start with anyways, and all the pieces are available. I'll be keeping the dashboard, steering column, and maybe the center console, all of which can be cleaned. Carpet, headliner, and seats all needed to be replaced anyways. The door panels are the only thing I might have a problem with.

Updates 5/2/2011:

It was actually a productive weekend of working on the Javelin!

The Javelin is actually pretty clean underneath, but every car could use a good scrubbing and the engine was on the slimy side. I know I should be concentrating on other stuff, but dirty cars bother me and I am on a parts shortage at the moment.

Also, my wife said that if I cleaned the Javelin up, she’d help me work on it!

So I did! I hand-scraped the majority of the gunk off, took a wire brush to the metal, and then spent some time masking and painting a little. It was one of those nice “change of pace” projects that actually looks like something was accomplished for once. The blue on the engine is EN66 AMC Blue, and is the original (and correct) color for the motor.

Interesting fact, every motor I’ve ever rebuilt I painted this color, even the non-AMC’s.

Gobbily gook! What manner of sorcery is this contraption! Oh, it’s a drum brake in need of a total rebuild. I’ll have to do something about that…

Ah! That should fix it! Yes, I realize there is nothing left but a spindle, and even that I won’t be using. I am having the family send me a factory front disk brake setup for the Javelin. Since it all needed to be replaced anyways, and no track car deserves front drums. I got the other side kind of to this point as well. The drum was welded to one of the shoes, so it’s soaking in some penetrating oil…

More to come next week! (Come on UPS....)

I have no idea what AMC Javelin discs look like, but you can slot Daewoo disks for free, or like 20 bucks if you use a machine shop ...

Updates 5/17/2011:

Proof of Concept

Well work on the Javelin ground to a halt. Between Mother’s Day activities, making family time, and rain, there just hasn’t been any good outside time available to me.

Not a big deal, as I got a lot of stuff inside the house (including that honey-do list). That allowed me some time to play with little cars again. I’ve been dying to see what the Javelin would look like in the classic AMC Red/White/Blue racing scheme (pre-71 Donohue), so I painted up a spare Hot Wheels real quick just to get an idea.

Thoughts?

I actually got this months ago, but am just now getting around to posting about it. This is a 1973 AMC Javelin 1/24 scale Promotional model by JoHan. Promos were updated each model year and given to dealers to give to kids, customers, etc. They were based on model kits but had 1-piece bodies and chassis and were molded in color.

Somebody long ago had taken this Forest Green promo and painted it Trans Am Red and installed Cragar big & littles. It has aged since then and just looks the business! The similarity to my real car was too much, so I payed through the nose to win it on eBay. Part of me wants to restore it, but the patina is too cool. It went on my shelf as-is.

I vote for a fluer d'lis for pure irony value

Javelin wrote: I’ve been dying to see what the Javelin would look like in the classic AMC Red/White/Blue racing scheme (pre-71 Donohue), so I painted up a spare Hot Wheels real quick just to get an idea. Thoughts?

I have a thought that could have saved you a bunch of time....

In reply to bravenrace:

Oh believe me, I would love to, and that car is my inspiration, but I own a 73. 73's hav a flat roof instead of the sculpted one and have the 4 taillights instead of the full-width. The roof is the deal breaker, as I can paint the paint splits on top. I'd have to go with the 72 paint scheme from Follomer's Javelin, and it's just not as cool.

UPDATE: 5/20/2011

Isn't it Friday? When did all this work happen? Easy! The wife unit is out of town for her work for a few days and it's sunny out, so I spent the entire afternoon outside working on the car yesterday! Hopefully I'll do it again today

After much cursing and hammer beating I did finally manage to get the drum of the driver’s side. That allowed me to take off the brake assembly and spindle as well. The brake line fitting are frozen solid though, I may need to just replace those.

I also took the spindle off of the passenger front. You can see there’s a simple 4-hole “pad” that accepts the spindles and brakes. AMC utilized this same part for decades meaning you can essentially bolt nearly any AMC front brake to any other AMC, say Matador Coupe front discs to my Javelin, or Spirit AMX discs to a Marlin.

I totally sanded and painted all of the wheelwell area with engine paint. After I swap the fenders over to fiberglass I might add some additional undercoating. The metal in here is extremely solid, no rust holes at all. The suspension itself is even in good shape. The shocks are replacement Monroe’s, the springs are solid, and the ball joints look new. There’s a few tired bushings, but it will do for now. This side is now ready for the new brakes (except for that hose…).

The first shipment of goodies has arrived! This is one of the many cool parts going onto the car thanks to my family’s help. These probably would have been useful before I started the motor, but whatever. Mechanical to boot.

I can’t help it. Old American V8’s are probably the only truly pretty motors out there, so I want it to be pretty. More cleaning and painting in the original EN66 AMC Blue color. There will be some special parts added to the still-running-sweetly motor as well, stay tuned!

This is my biggest worry on the body of the car. The roof and sail panels were welded together at the factory and seems that the joint has reacted with the vinyl top the car used to have and has corroded. I love the smoothed 1-piece look of the top (I hate new cars with their cheap roof rails) so I will be getting this fixed ASAP.

So for now all I could do was sand it down with some 80-grit and a wire brush and throw a coat of primer on it. Eventually the whole roof will be primer where the vinyl top used to be.

I think I have decided that I am buying a welder and taking classes until I can use it though. This car needs WAY too much welding work for me not to learn and do it on my own!

Okay, so I get a little crazy with the spray paint when the ice thaws, the rain stops, and that giant ball of fire shows up in the sky, sue me. Once you sand the surface crud away, this car is hiding some excellent condition sheetmetal. So I am doing what I can to make it nicer and protect it. Primer, primer, and more primer!

Primer does nothing to protect metal. Its also worthless for painting on after about a week in the elements. Put some paint on that stuff ASAP.

In reply to Javelin:

I have no idea what you are talking about, nor how you would see this difference using a hot wheel.

bravenrace wrote: In reply to Javelin: I have no idea what you are talking about, nor how you would see this difference using a hot wheel.

In 1971 and 1972, the Javelin had a "sculpted" roof. It had twin coves on it and a center bump that mirrored the hood. The classic Donohue scheme uses those coves to make the transition from white to red, as seen here:

And here:

This allowed AMC to offer a split-top in vinyl on the Javelin that was pretty popular, like this:

In 1973 AMC changed the roof stamping to be entirely smooth like the 68-70 Javelin was in order to facilitate the traditional full vinyl top (like my car was born with):

Smooth roof:

Because of the smooth roof, the Donohue scheme is really difficult to get right, and honestly being a 73, it wouldn't look right on my car anyways.

Likely I'll end up just painting it the original color (Trans Am Red, like the smooth roof car in the last picture) with the SCCA Championship decals on the fenders and an AMX T-Stripe on the hood.

I really want it to be Red/White/Blue though...

If you want to paint it r/w/b, then do it. Why do you need the contour to make a stripe? And I don't really think the year of it is a big deal when the body is generally the same.

pigeon wrote: Saw this baby today for sale but didn't have time to check the price as I was already late, but I had to slow down and grab a pic for this thread:

This can't be that had to duplicate, and a hi-po Javelin should look like this IMO.

pigeon wrote:

pigeon wrote: Saw this baby today for sale but didn't have time to check the price as I was already late, but I had to slow down and grab a pic for this thread:

This can't be that had to duplicate, and a hi-po Javelin should look like this IMO.

Actually, that car is exactly why I can't do it. It's also a flat-roof 73, and he screwed the paint job up. to me it looks horrendous. If I can't match the exact scheme of the car, then it's a no-go.

I think you should go for the Red/White/Blue. I think you can pull the Donohue scheme off even with the flat roof. Just take your time with some fine line masking tape to get it right. Stand back, take a look, then adjust as needed. Just be patient and it will come together.

One thing to remember, the color breaks need to be on an angle. The Hot Wheels sample has them straight up and down. They need to be angled to really make them pop and give the car a sense of motion even sitting still.

Do you know anybody with a sculpted roof car? If so, see if they will let you take measurements off it, or make a stencil off it.

The Hot Wheels car was straight up & down on purpose, that's AMC's traditional R/W/B paint scheme.

As seen on:

Super Stock AMX

Craig Breedlove's 68 AMX Endurance racer

Donohue's 70 Trans Am Runner-Up car

The 68 and 69 factory AMC Javelin Trans Am entries

And the 1970 Trans Am Edition Javelin

So there's actually a lot more history behind the vertical scheme than the 1-year only Sunoco scheme. AMC went back to it with a slight angle on the Matador NASCAR's and the Hornet Pro Stocks.

OK, I can see that. It's been a while since I took a close look at them. I was picking the slant up out of the American Motors logo.

I think the slanted breaks work a little better on the larger Javelins. But whatever you choose, I tip my hat in your direction for bringing this one back to life.

THIS is how you clone the Donohue T/A car!

hey Michael, great project! So are you going to auto x or track the car?

Javelin wrote: THIS is how you clone the Donohue T/A car!

That is AWESOME!!

In reply to asifnyc:

Both hopefully! This year the goal is just to get it running and driving. Next year I would like to do some autocrosses and drag racing with it. We'll see how the original 360 holds up before I start thinking about HPDE's.

Strike_Zero wrote:

Javelin wrote: THIS is how you clone the Donohue T/A car!

That is AWESOME!!

Yes, yes it is. I also figured out why he pulled off the Donohue scheme where all others have failed. He cut the rear wheelwells like the real T/A car. The stock wells are too round and cause the red cut stripe to look funny. That squared-off and enlarged well allows that crisp ending right at the tight radius.

http://amccars.net/cgi/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1266636208/8

Seeing the front suspension pix rang a bell for me--You can easily lower the front suspension, and gain a little track width with some plate steel 'lowering plates'--with no loss of suspension travel.

This link even shows how to adapt late model Mustang brakes...

ST_ZX2 wrote: http://amccars.net/cgi/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1266636208/8 Seeing the front suspension pix rang a bell for me--You can easily lower the front suspension, and gain a little track width with some plate steel 'lowering plates'--with no loss of suspension travel. This link even shows how to adapt late model Mustang brakes...

Hmmm... Interesting idea, but it seems the "kit" maker fizzled. I've already sourced a factory AMC disc brake booster and master, but that would be compatible with the Mustang stuff anyways. I wonder if the guy knows that 05-09 Mustang GT brakes are actually 03-11 P71 brakes?

Willwood makes a killer (and affordable) bolt-on kit, but I'm still waffling.