Another 1963 Max Wedge Savoy project

While browsing Craigslist ads (used to be my favorite pastime) I found this neat 1963 Plymouth. It was mid July 2010 and the search word I used was probably “Gasser” as I was kind of looking for a cool Mopar Gasser project at the time. My knowledge about Super Stock/Max Wedge Mopars was very limited back then, but I thought that the price was ok even for a “normal” 1963 Savoy Gasser.

I sent an email to Brian asking for more information and pics of the car. He responded in 15 minutes and for the next few days we exchanged emails, before I finally made the decision to buy the car. It took me some time to figure a way to get the car from Clovis, CA to Helsinki, Finland. Thinking back and knowing what I know today, I think it’s a little miracle that nobody local got the car during those few days. Even if it didn’t have any MW special parts left, I think it still was a good buy for the asking price.

Car had obviously led a hard life and used as a race car in many different combinations (if something can be judged from all the holes on cabin and trunk floor). The whole front clip was basically cut off, leaving just the front frame rails in place to hold the straight front axle on leaf springs. Rear wheel openings had wide flares that were not able to cover the even wider slicks. The only real rust could be found under the passenger side quarter window, where something had blocked the drain hole(s).

Brian had done some homework for the car and acquired Darrell Davis’ book for 1963 Plymouth. He had also contacted Darrell in person and Darrell was able to confirm that the car indeed was a real Super Stock Savoy. Brian had also ordered the IBM card from Chrysler Historical Collection. All this (plus some other documentation) he posted to me so I had something to read while waiting for the car to arrive.

Originally the Savoy was a 426/415hp LC car with T85 3-speed manual transmission. White exterior with blue interior, heater, no radio.

Here is some bigger pics of the car still at Brian’s. They were taken by Petri from Alpine Trade ( www.alpinetrde.com ), who took care of arrangements and export stuff in California.

Another

Anssi, you know I'll be subscribing to this thread

I love seeing these threads too and I am so thankful that I was able to find my Max Wedge car that wasn't all cut up like most were. I admire the dedication to restore one! I have a '67 R023 Hemi Super Stock Belv II that will need a big restoration someday that will require some metal work to reverse it's racing history. That's of course if the racing history isn't significant. If it is (still researching) then she might get returned to race form! Sorry to side track, great Maxie and keep the pictures coming!

At this point I'll move fast forward to July 2011 and skip few things I'll get back to later. The idea of keeping the car in Gasser form had slowly been replaced by plans of doing some level of restoration.

There was many reasons for this "change of mind". One of them was the fact that I wasn't able to find any "famous pedigree" for the car. There probably is none, and if some day something comes up, I'm sure it is for the form the car was in it's early days before it was turned into Gasser. Another reason was that I began to see the historical significance of these cars for Chrysler and the early 60's car/racing scene. No Gasser could compete with that, even if they are cool as hell. Third reason was that the front frame rails weren't supported with anything other that lightweight fiberglass fenders and tin inner fenders. When jacked up, you could grab the front bumper and move it up and down few inches. Safe it wasn't.

So there I was trying to find someone to do the bodywork and return the body back to factory specs. After some searching I was suggested a guy that was located very near the garage where the Savoy was kept. I contacted Oskari and he came over to discuss the project. Soon after that the parts car #2 (Fury, to be introduced a bit later in this thread) was towed to Oskari's garage to be followed by the Savoy later in December 2011. According to plan Oskari would start the work in the beginning of January 2012. Here are the two cars at Oskari's.

And here is a "heavy in the rear, light in the front" pic just before taking to Oskari's garage.

The plan was to use front clip from the donor car so the preparation began. Frame rails had lots of holes for diffrent length and location of shackles (sp?), they were all welded shut same was done to all the stress cracks that were found. In this pic also the shock towers are welded on.

Shock towers were repro parts from Goodmark. Next time I will be using OEM or another vendor. They were clearly patterned from a later(?) B-body tower, same goes for the brackets between towers and inner fender (used the originals from donor car instead of Goodmark repros).

Inner fender to cowl brackets recreated from scratch. Z-bar bracket holes not yet drilled.

Frame rails with shock towers from another angle.

Holes of different shape and size to be welded shut.

Some holes allready closed with pop riveted plates...

The repairs are coming alonge very nicely. Did you compare the repop shock tower to and original? I thought that they used the same part from '62-70? The '62 part # supercedes a few times in the catalogs that I have.

Cowl was cut open for some reason... the holes on the bottom were used to mount voltage regulator, start relay, horn relay and ballast resistor. Other than the gaping hole, cowl needed very little work.

Cool Project Funny thing; my 440-6 'Bee came to Canada from Clovis, Ca. as well.

I look forward to progress pics.


Dave

An aquaintance of mine in Kelowna has the same car in red with the T85 but I can't remember if it is the LC or HC version...thinking it's the HC one. Cool cars


Dave

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The repairs are coming alonge very nicely. Did you compare the repop shock tower to and original? I thought that they used the same part from '62-70? The '62 part # supercedes a few times in the catalogs that I have.

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Let's see if I can explain this in english without pics The plane where the hole for the shock is, is slanted very differently between the OEM and Goodmark repop part. If one is slanted back, the other is slanted front... can't remember which is which. Yes, it was advertised for '62-70, but I don't know if it is wrong for all.

Also the Goodmark '62-70 bracket between shock tower and inner fender.... while it will do it's job, the original is nearly twice as wide. So if the looks matter, it won't do very good.