Resurrecting Cream Soda

By way of background, I purchased this car in 1971 while in service, stationed in the San Francisco Bay area. The car had been Isky car of the month in a 1969 issue of Popular Hot Rodding.

The initial conversion had been done by Al's Automotive in South San Francisco. The 61 Lancer had an Econoline front axle and 55 Imperial rear end installed, and originally a 383 with 4 speed. At the time I bought it, it had a hurt 426 wedge in it, still a 4 speed.

I knew hardly enough at the time to be dangerous (not sure I've improved on that front over time either) and was a bit discouraged by the project, but a girl friend had faith in me and actually helped me pull the engine and later reassemble the car. She made regular trips to the local store to purchase cream soda for us to drink while we worked on the car. Hence the same "Creme Soda" which my sister painted on the fenders after I was discharged and drove the car home to Minnesota.

Raced the car regularly at Champion in the Bay area, and made some passes at Fremont back then too.

When back home, going to college in Wisconsin, I spent more time working in the garage then studying. Lots of trips to Northstar and Amber Green from 73 to the late 70's.Got lots of help and advice from local racers back then and we all had a great time racing.

In the 80's, with career, kids and life in general going on, the car only saw limited use. In 1990 I switched it to an automatic and promptly had nothing but trouble. After fighting with it for a summer I parked the car in the shed and there is sat.

2 years ago I pulled it out to display at Mopars in the Park, when they had a special exhibit on old local drag strips. I was amazed at the response to the car. Some people actually remembered it running at Northstar in the 70's.

I'm retired now, so more excuses. This winter I am going to get the old girl spruced up and running again.

This weekend I pulled the car into the hoist area and got it in the air to start looking things over.

The original gas tank came out, showing the remains of repairs done to it in the mid 70's when it started leaking. It took me a while to get the courage up to weld the pickup tube in the bottom back then.

Have you joined the Northstar Facebook page? You might be surprised, someone might have more pictures of your car. Glad to see you will be preserving its race history.

I'll warn you now that I'm embarrassed to show some of the crude/stupid/idiotic things I had done to the car.

The drive shaft loop was a piece of well casing I cut on a band saw and welded brackets to. This was done in the sheet metal shop at good old Coast Guard Air Station San Francisco.

The lift bars started tearing up the floor pan, so I bolted some pieces of thicker steel on top and bottom to tie things up somewhat. That's going to need some better looking repairs.

The trusty Holley blue pump I installed in about 1974. Man was that state of the art. I also ran 1/2 aluminum fuel line which will need to be redone, along with the battery cable which was literally welding cable.

I took the rear Monroe heady duty shocks off and was 'shocked' to see they were both bent. Looking it over I realize the geometry between upper and lower shock mounts isn't right.

Going to remake a top shock mount repositioned to better line up with the rear suspension.

The headers originally on the car got so thin over the years I couldn't even braze them anymore, so in the mid 90's I made another set.

Note I brilliantly rewired the engine compartment back then all in orange wires!

The trusty 750 Holley is stuck from sitting so long. Brakes all need to be redone and I plan to install a dual master cylinder.

Lots of clean up and repair needed in front. I'd never been happy with the upper shock mounts and really want to make the front frame rails look better than they do. Back then everything was torch work.

The heat from the headers was enough to warm the car out in the Bay area. The blower motor, defrost controls, radio, etc all worked on the car back then.

I used to commute to and from the base in this thing. One time I even had to fly out of state and drove/parked it at the San Francisco airport for a week.

The good ole days..... Here is a pic of my everyday "high school" car, at least when I could keep it on the road...

My friend and I loaded up a tent and camping gear in the trunk ( LOTS of room in there) and drove it over to camp at Florence OR...

Like I said the good ole days...

Cool project.

That's a project I could get interested in.
If your going to redo the front axle check out Rock Auto...
They have everything to redo the factory 10x2 drum brakes...